Imagine for a moment that you could open a drawer and, instead of finding documents, receipts, or pens, you’d find every emotion you’ve ever felt—neatly arranged, beautifully labeled, like in a soul’s laboratory. Joy, sadness, fear, courage, shame, gratitude… all displayed in a colorful table, much like the one we studied in chemistry—but instead of chemical elements, it holds human experiences.
The periodic table of emotions doesn’t (yet) exist in reality, but inside each of us, we carry it unknowingly. Every emotion is like an element of our being—with its own specific weight, its chain reactions, its combinations that can lift us up or lock us in a corner.
Emotions are not just reactions. They’re indicators. They’re traffic signs on the highway of our inner life. When you feel anger, something important to you has been violated. When you feel sadness, perhaps you’ve just lost something that mattered. When you feel joy, maybe you’ve been yourself—unmasked.
But what if we learned to read them carefully, like a map?
What if we stopped seeing unpleasant emotions as enemies to chase away, and instead welcomed them as allies in self-understanding?
In our imaginary “table,” emotions aren’t good or bad. They are acidic or basic, reactive or stable, but each has its purpose. Fear, for example, isn’t just an obstacle—it’s a protector. Shame isn’t a sentence—it’s a flashlight showing us where our wound lies. Joy isn’t a whim—it’s confirmation that we are alive and connected.
Every person has their own emotional “arrangement.” For some, gratitude is the central element. For others—courage. Some react strongly to injustice, others to abandonment. What defines us is not what we feel, but how we learn to live with our emotions.
And yes, it takes patience, self-awareness, self-love. But maybe the first step is just this: to imagine that our emotions are not chaos, but a universe in itself—a universe that, like the one in the sky, has its constellations, its laws, and even if it seems incomprehensible at times… it is deeply ordered.
We may never memorize it like Mendeleev’s table. But if we sat down, now and then, in silence, with a blank page in front of us, and wrote down what we feel… we might slowly begin to draw our own map.
And what if we discovered we’re made of a unique kind of alchemy? That each of us is a living table, an unrepeatable formula of light, shadow, and meaning?
What would yours look like, if you were to draw your own periodic table of emotions?
What would sit in the top-right corner, where the rare and precious elements go?
Maybe your courage to keep going.
Maybe your desire to understand.
Maybe the hope that has never left you.
Your inner universe is vast.
Your emotions are the stars.
Learn their names. Listen to them.
They will show you the way.
This was a really helpful guide—thank you!