By Emily Buss
Drawing heavily from Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart, Lou Westcott and Marcella Ciccotelli from Refuge 461 presented information and knowledge on emotions and feelings during Civic Engagement Day on Wednesday, March 29.
Westcott, Wit file photo
Westcott and Ciccotelli gave a presentation titled “Defining Emotions: A Workshop and Conversation” as part of one of the presentations conducted for Civic Engagement Day. The theme for this year’s Civic Engagement Day is “Please Don’t ‘Ghost’ Me” Creating Space for Authentic Conversations”. During this presentation, students were given the opportunity to learn more about their emotions and feelings by participating in this workshop.
About 30 people came to Westcott and Ciccotelli’s presentation, including students and faculty members of the university. Attendees of the presentation were able to gain knowledge and a better understanding of themselves to promote more connections and authentic conversations. One of these students being junior speech-language pathology and audiology major and member of the women’s soccer team, Jordan Jennings.
“I really enjoyed this presentation. I felt like I was able to get a better understanding of the emotions and feelings that I feel every day and like why I feel them,” said Jennings. “I also felt like I learned more about emotions and feelings in general. I thought it was interesting the emotions we feel in certain situations and the ways that we pull ourselves out of these feelings and mindsets.”
At the beginning of the presentation, Westcott and Ciccotelli interacted with the students and faculty that attended the Civic Engagement session to learn what emotions that could be thought of. Through the use of the interactive poll and through their knowledge and findings of this topic, Westcott and Ciccotelli found that the three most common emotions that people feel or know of the most are happiness, sadness, and anger.
Westcott and Ciccotelli presented information on emotions and feelings through a PowerPoint presentation, in which they would explain their information through examples of places we go when we feel a certain way. Following that, Westcott and Ciccotelli would provide information on the ways that individuals pull themselves out of these places and feelings.
“All of our emotions are important,” said Westcott. “So, I feel like the more that we can relate to the audience and provide them with as much information as possible, we can help everyone to understand themselves more through their emotions. Then, we can have more authentic conversations and better connections with each other.”
Westcott and Ciccotelli gathered their information and knowledge of emotions and feelings from Brené Brown, an author of books that dive into emotions and feelings.
Editor’s note: This article was produced as part of an assignment for MED 225 Writing for the Media.
