What is an Emotion Anyway?
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Many people (myself included) see emotions as an inconvenience. At best, they are a mild and irritating distraction. At worst, an obstacle to clear and logical thinking.
What is an emotion though?
Let’s do a little exercise.
When you click the link below, you’re going to see two random words. Now, take a deep breath. The words are likely to elicit a reaction, so get ready to notice what happens.
Ready? Okay.
What just happened, in your brain and in your body?
Likely two things:
In your brain: Neurons fired. Your automatic brain made meaning of those two random words.
It likely assumed a temporal sequence and a causal connection between the two words. It imagined a scenario where the first word happened first, and the second word was caused by the first word.
It made a prediction and a judgment about the meaning that it created. You probably feel a temporary aversion to the first word and would turn it down if someone offered it to you.
In your body: At almost the exact same time, you felt physical sensations in your body.
For me, I felt my throat tighten, my stomach turn, my heart beat slightly faster, and an urge to pull away from the computer screen.
These two components — mental and physical — are the two halves of your interpretation of those words.
Many people think their interpretations are formed entirely in their mind — that it’s just the thoughts they have about things.
The reality is, you form interpretations with your brain and with your body. The physical sensations you feel when you encounter a circumstance are part of your interpretation of that circumstance, just as much as the thoughts you have about it.
And the physical and mental components reinforce each other in both directions. Your thoughts reinforce your feelings, and your feelings reinforce your thoughts. Your stomach turns because you think something is gross. And you think something is gross because your stomach is turning.
The interpretation is like a mini echo chamber unto itself. Together, the two halves form a coherent and self-reinforcing story about the thing you’re seeing.
And remember, because this entire interpretation just “pops into your conscious brain” instantly, without effort and without intention, it doesn’t feel like you’ve just “made an interpretation.” It feels like you’re just observing a true fact.
“Yeah of course those two words are gross. Anyone would think that.” The self-reinforcement between the mental thought and the physical feeling makes the interpretation feel even more true.
So what does all this have to do with emotions?
The physical sensations you feel as part of your interpretation are just sensations. They actually don’t have a meaning until you give them a meaning.
An emotion is a word you give to the physical sensations you feel while interpreting a fact.
We could put you in a scanner and get a picture of exactly what happened in your body when you read those two words. But we still wouldn’t know what emotion you felt. There’s no universal biomarker of “anger” or “disgust” or “happiness.”
The scanner could tell us where your blood was rushing to, where you felt hot or cold, and which nerves were lighting up with electrical signals. But only you can say “that’s disgust.” Only you can interpret the sensation as an emotion.
(This, by the way, is why people give advice like “reframe your nervousness as excitement!” But let’s not rush to change the experience yet. Let’s stay exactly where we are.)
When you put a situation into the first three lines of the model, what you’re really doing is (1) separating the facts from your interpretation of the facts and (2) examining the mental and physical components of your interpretation.
What are the facts? | Circumstance: Two words on a screen
What is the mental part of my interpretation? What is one sentence that crystallizes my mental reaction to this fact? | Thought: “That’s gross.”
What is the physical part of my interpretation? What is my one-word interpretation of the sensation in my body? | Feeling: Disgust
Emotions, then, are not an obstruction or a nuisance or a distraction.
They are part of how your automatic brain sends you signals. Some signals are enjoyable to receive — like the flash of intuition that helps you break through a difficult problem. Other signals are less pleasant — like the disgust you felt reading those two words.
But all the signals are coming from the same place. They are all indicators of how your automatic brain is interpreting something. (They are not indicators of the world itself. They are indicators of what your automatic brain is making the world mean.)
And you may notice the emotion well before you can crystallize the thought that’s creating it.
When you see two words on a screen. Or when your partner leaves dirty dishes in the sink. Or when your mom rolls her eyes at something you said. Or when your colleague gets promoted and you don’t. Or any other of the millions of facts you could encounter.
You might get slammed with emotion first.
And that emotion is not a problem.
It is a dangling thread that you can pull to find out:
What is your automatic brain trying to tell you?
What interpretation has it formed, of these facts?
And crucially, what do you — conscious, deliberate, critical-thinking you — think about that interpretation?
Do you agree with the mental conclusion, and the assumptions made to get there?
Do you agree with the physical sensations and urges? Do you think they’re justified?
Do you agree with the emotional label it’s given the sensations?
And it’s okay if you do. Or if you don’t. Or even if you’re not sure. Because the whole point of all of this is just to get to know Automatic You a little better.