Who uses feeling Monster Cards?
Trainers, doctors, consultants, coaches, parents, managers, youth workers, children, paediatricians, teachers, mediators, couples, pastors, personnel officers, psychologists, judges, custody officers, social workers, supervisors, team, therapists, coaches, grief counsellors, residential units ….
Please have a look at our short ideas for the use of the cards: Gefühlsmonster Instructions
Why it may be easier to talk about feelings with the help of these cards.
This has social and neurological reasons.
Social: we teach our children and have learned as adults, not to show our feelings in any situation. This leads to the fact that we are ourselves often unaware of our current feelings. Observing feeling representations brings us into resonance with current experiences and facilitates talking about these feelings. Pointing to a corresponding card enables you to talk about difficult feelings and to save face at the same time.
Neurological: “a picture is worth a thousand words” – our brain recognizes images faster than words. Each of our experience is stored along with the feeling that we had during the experience. Once we look at feeling representations, our system of mirror neurons (link) is triggered and thus facilitates the memory of situations that are associated with the respective feeling. Thanks to the picture the words related to the feelings can be found and conveyed to the much more easily to the counterpart.
Adults and children alike feel addressed by the illustrations.
Why isn‘t the feeling on the card?
After many years of experience with the cards we know that the Gefühlsmonster are effective in two different ways:
- They connect to the currently experienced feeling (That’s how I feel right now)
- They connect to a situation in the past (“Do you remember, the other day …”)
For example:
Version 1:
“I do not dare to express myself in a new group, I’d rather take a cautious look around first.”
(Seminar situation)
Version 2:
“Lately my wife has only dropped in from time to time.”
(Couple mediation)
Or this card:
Version 1:
“Whoopee, I’ve passed my exam!!!”
(Everyday, coaching)
Version 2:
“I haven’t felt like this in a long time!”
(95-year-old woman to her daughter)