Back to Blog

You have more say over your emotions than you think

resilience Oct 18, 2026

“You don’t like to be put on the spot, do you?”

“That’s right, I don’t.”

“Why?”

That made me think.

“Who was it? What situation were you in? Think back - as a child, who put you on the spot?”

Again, silence. I was thinking.

You might think this was a psychotherapy session.

It wasn’t - it was a flute lesson. My flute professor had observed that I was way more nervous playing in the lesson whilst he was watching, compared to when he would play with me. And he wanted to help me solve this.

No one had ever asked me that question before. It made me “dig around” in the past. And it helped me understand how emotions work.

Where emotions come from

Research by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, over the past twenty years suggests that emotions are in fact predictions of the brain, based on sensory inputs, context and past memory. I have linked her research paper and her TED talk below.

Here is an analogy of how that works: a smoke alarm going off tells you there’s smoke. It doesn’t tell you whether it’s burnt toast or a house fire. Your brain decides that part, and it decides based on the last time it smelt smoke. If the last time was a fire, you’ll feel scared.

Not all scientists agree. Some argue that a few emotions are built in, because they show up across species and across geographic cultures. But in whatever way you look at it, your past experiences and context play a huge role in how you experience your emotions.

This means you can take an emotion apart and look at its ingredients. And when you understand the context and the past experience behind it, you can change how you feel.

Why this is important at work

This understanding can be so helpful at work. Let me give you an example.

You are in a project update meeting. A senior leader asks: “What’s your reasoning on that?” And your mind goes blank.

Many women I work with in technical teams know this moment well. Being challenged in front of the room happens to them more often than to most others.

Have you ever asked yourself why you freeze? Why does your brain decide this moment is dangerous?

Yes, you might say, you just hate being put on the spot.

But why?

The more time you spend on this question, the more you might discover about your past experiences, and why your brain is making this prediction.

The fascinating thing: our brain has a selective memory. Research shows that the emotions attached to negative events fade faster than the ones attached to positive events. But the facts stay with us - subconsciously. And so does the rule your brain wrote at the time: “being put on the spot means danger.” (I have linked the research below)

That is why you need to sit with the question. It takes a couple of hours, sometimes days, until you can actually remember that particular situation.

What I remembered

This is exactly what happened to me after that flute lesson. It took me a while, but then I remembered a situation at school as a child, in a music lesson. The teacher played a chord and asked me to name it, in front of the class. I had no idea.

Once I had found this memory, I looked at the context. What was actually going on back then?

The school had pulled more advanced students into the same class as the rest of us. The teacher didn’t know everyone’s level. So I was asked a question I had never been taught to answer, in front of children who had.

Has that stayed the same?

Not at all. My professor knows my level, and will not judge me unfairly. The context is so totally different.

When I realised that, the emotion lost some of its power. There isn’t really a reason to be afraid of this.

Two weeks later, in the next lesson, my professor noticed. “You play with more confidence,” he said. And here is me at the recent concert:

What you feel is a prediction from the past

Now back to you and the project update meeting.

Once you find the past situation, you can unpack it. And specifically look at the context. Has that still stayed the same?

Most of the time, that’s not the case. The senior leader asking the question is not a teacher testing you in front of the class. They want your reasoning because they need it to make a decision. You know this work - you manage the project. And unlike at school, “let me check and come back to you” is a perfectly good answer now. So a lot of the context has changed.

You might say: but I froze in a meeting last month - as an adult? Yes. That’s because every time it happened again, your brain took it as confirmation, and the rule got stronger. That is why it feels so true. But the rule was written by a child, about a classroom - not about a project update meeting.

Often, you will notice that the way you are thinking about this situation now doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t serve you any more. And bizarrely, exactly this way of thinking will mean the emotion loses some of its power.

Let’s put this into practice

Here are the steps for you to deal with your emotions:

Notice your strong emotions, and label them. Say to yourself: “I am nervous.” Or: “I am worried.” Research shows that putting a feeling into words calms your brain. (Research linked below)
Check out the root cause. When did this first happen to you? Take ten minutes, a pen and notebook. And talk to yourself in the third person: “Why is Christina nervous?” rather than “Why am I nervous?” That makes sure you investigate, not critique yourself. It takes a couple of hours, sometimes days, until the memory comes.
Investigate the context of the root cause. What was different back then? What was the same? Is this still true? Write down what’s different now. Two columns: then, and now.
Come back after a day. How does this feel now? If it changed what you feel, try it in a low-stakes context. Volunteer one comment in a meeting where little is at risk. Then notice what happens.

Next time a strong emotion hits you, remember: it’s your brain making a guess based on your past. You have a say in whether that guess is true.

The research I mentioned: