Top 3 Emotion Coaching Activities to Try This Week
Table of content
Intro
Why Try Unusual Emotion Coaching Activities?
Activity 1: Emotion Mapping with Your Non-Dominant Hand
Activity 2: Emotional Dialoguing with an Object
Activity 3: Emotional Weather Report (For Yourself)
How to Get the Most Out of These Activities
Conclusion
Top 3 Emotion Coaching Activities to Try This Week
Emotion Coaching Activities
Let’s face it. Not everyone is sold on emotion coaching, and that is completely okay. Maybe the idea of sitting with your feelings sounds uncomfortable or even unnecessary. Maybe you have tried journaling or deep breathing and found yourself thinking, “This just isn’t for me.” If that sounds like you, you are not alone.
Emotion coaching is all about helping people better understand and manage their emotions. That might sound simple, but the way we do it can vary from person to person. The goal is not to fix you or force you into something that feels unnatural. Instead, it is about offering tools that help you check in with yourself, notice what is going on inside, and feel a little more in control, even during tough moments.
This blogpost will introduce you to three unusual emotion coaching activities that might sound a little different from what you are used to.
Why Try These Emotion Coaching Activities?
You might be wondering why anyone would need something “unusual” to deal with emotions. Shouldn’t it be enough to talk about our feelings or write them down in a journal? For some people, yes. But for many others, those traditional methods only scratch the surface.
Here is why unusual emotional coaching activities might actually help more than you expect.
Traditional methods do not work for everyone. Some people find it hard to sit and talk about their feelings. Others feel uncomfortable writing in a journal. Just because a method is common does not mean it is the best fit for you. When you try something different, you give yourself permission to find a method that actually clicks.
Unusual activities can help bypass your mental resistance. Sometimes your mind puts up walls. You might judge your feelings, talk yourself out of them, or avoid them altogether. Creative or body-based activities work by sneaking past those mental barriers. They make it easier to feel without overthinking everything.
Emotions do not just live in the brain. They live in the body too. You feel emotions in your chest, your stomach, your throat. So it makes sense to use tools that help you experience and move through emotions in a physical way. Unusual emotional coaching activities often speak the body’s language, which makes them surprisingly effective.
In the next section, you will discover three coaching activities that are fun, strange, and surprisingly helpful. You do not have to do all of them. Just pick one that sparks your curiosity and see what happens.
Are you ready to experiment a little? Let’s begin.
Activity 1: Emotion Mapping with Your Non-Dominant Hand
This activity might feel a little strange at first, but that is part of its power. Emotion mapping with your non-dominant hand means using your left hand if you are right-handed, or your right hand if you are left-handed, to draw how you are feeling in the moment. You do not need any artistic skills at all. The goal is to use simple shapes, colors, and maybe a few words to represent what is going on inside you.
When you use your non-dominant hand, you activate the part of your brain that is connected to emotions, creativity, and intuition. This helps you bypass your usual logical thinking and tap into feelings you may not even realize you are carrying. It is a gentle way to uncover emotions that might be hiding under the surface.
Here is how to do it
Set a timer for five to ten minutes. You do not need more than that to get started.
Grab some paper and something to draw with. Crayons, colored pencils, or markers work well, but you can also use a pen or pencil.
Using your non-dominant hand, draw how your body feels right now. Not how it looks, but how it feels. For example, you might draw a tight red knot in the chest area or a light blue swirl in the belly.
After drawing, label each part of your picture with a word that matches the feeling. Some examples could be tension, calm, pressure, joy, or sadness.
Optional: Look at one shape or section of your drawing and ask yourself, “If this shape had a voice, what would it say?” Write down the answer without overthinking.
If you are feeling skeptical, that is completely normal. Remember, this is not about creating something beautiful. It is about breaking your usual patterns and connecting to your emotions in a new way.
Activity 2: Emotional Dialoguing with an Object
This next activity might sound a bit silly, but it is incredibly effective once you get past the awkwardness. Emotional dialoguing with an object means taking something from your environment and treating it as a stand-in for one of your emotions. Then, you talk to it. Yes, literally talk to it, or write out a conversation with it.
Why does this help? When we hold emotions inside, they can feel heavy, confusing, or even shameful. But when we give them a voice and talk to them as if they are separate from us, it becomes easier to understand what they want or need. This reduces judgment and makes it feel safer to explore difficult feelings.
Here is how to do it
Pick a household object. It can be a mug, a rock, a toy, a plant, or anything else you can see or hold.
Choose an emotion you are feeling today. It could be worry, anger, sadness, or even numbness.
Say something like, “Today, this mug is my sadness.” Then, imagine that the object has taken on that emotion.
Start a conversation. You can speak out loud or write it in your journal. Begin by asking the object a question, like “Why are you here?” or “What do you want from me?” Then imagine its response. Keep going back and forth for a few minutes.
This exercise can feel strange at first, but it is often surprisingly honest. Sometimes, talking to something outside yourself helps you say what you really mean, especially when it is hard to express it in other ways.
Activity 3: Emotional Weather Report (For Yourself)
Have you ever noticed how much your emotions feel like the weather? One minute things are calm, and the next, a storm rolls in out of nowhere. That is exactly why this activity works so well. It helps you describe your emotional state using the language of weather, which makes your feelings easier to understand and less overwhelming.
The best part is that you do not need to explain why you feel a certain way. You are just giving a simple report of what is happening inside, like a forecast. This helps you observe your emotions without getting stuck in them.
Here is how to do it
Start by saying or writing, “Today’s internal forecast is...” Then describe your current emotional state like you would describe the weather. Some examples include foggy and quiet, stormy with bursts of sunshine, or scattered tension with moments of peace.
You can also add a short prediction for tomorrow, such as, “Tomorrow’s emotional forecast might be partly sunny with a chance of reflection.”
This activity is not about forcing yourself to feel better. It is simply about naming what is present. Once you see your emotions as passing weather rather than permanent truths, they begin to feel more manageable.
For twenty more activities like these, see my book’s toolkit section — it’s filled with practical tools you can start using right away.
How to Get the Most Out of These Activities
These emotion coaching activities are simple, creative ways to explore what you are feeling. You do not need to overthink them or push for a big transformation. Try one per day or even one per week, treat each one like a small experiment.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is to gently interrupt your usual patterns and check in with yourself in new ways. As you try them, keep your expectations light. You might not get a clear answer right away, and that is okay. Often, the real value comes in the small shifts like a sense of relief, a surprising insight, or just feeling a little more connected to yourself.
And honestly, these three activities are just a starting point. For twenty more activities designed to help you explore, process, and regulate your emotions in different and sometimes unexpected ways, see my book’s toolkit section. It goes deeper and gives you a wide range of tools to experiment with, whether you are brand new to emotion coaching or looking to expand your practice.
Conclusion
You do not have to fully buy into emotion coaching to benefit from trying these tools. These are not magic tricks or rigid rules. They are small openings, invitations to listen to yourself with a bit more honesty and care.
Pick one activity and try it out. Just one. Give it five minutes and see how it lands. You might feel something unexpected. Or you might simply notice that you feel a bit more grounded than before.
If you give one of these a try, I would love to hear how it went. Feel free to leave a comment or share your experience. And if you are ready to go further, the full toolkit in my book is waiting to guide you through even more ways to tune in and support your emotional world.
