The biggest myths about emotions, debunked | Lisa Feldman Barrett

No, emotions don’t happen TO you. Here’s what happens instead.

With the growth of self-help books and the fight to destigmatize therapy, people today are perhaps more unafraid than ever to talk about their emotions. But this has led to some common myths about emotions, and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett wants to debunk them.

Barrett argues that emotions are not hardwired into the brain from birth, but rather stem from events that the brain creates based on past experiences and predictions of what's going to happen. Contrary to popular understanding, emotions are not just reactive events that happen to us — we play an active role in creating them.

By learning new things, watching movies, or even acting in a play to get outside of the normal range of what the brain predicts, Barrett argues that it’s possible to change those predictive patterns, and by doing so, to become the architects of our future selves. Understanding how our brain creates emotions can help us manage them — freeing us from repeated patterns of behavior and empowering us to control our emotions and heal ourselves.

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❍ About The Well ❍

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

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[ayushugood]

Awareness of our thoughts and emotions is the prerequisite to change them. People are mostly unaware of what is happening. They just get identified with their states of mind and let it control them.

[tki]

Finally someone who explained the difference between feelings and emotions. The way I see it is Feelings are mental interpretations of our bodily emotions. So you can experience the emotion of Fear but have the feeling of dejection, failure, loss, terror, etc. Sharing from firsthand experience of healing myself and learning to regulate my emotions.

[roxymcrae]

"Everybody has a little more control than what they think they do"❤

[rbloch]

Feelings are a response to the thoughts we choose to believe. Realizing that a thought has no power over you allows you to respond in an appropriate manner. We are held captive by our thoughts, but we also hold the key to freedom.

[jp.dlamini]

"Uses these new experiences to predict differently in the future ... For you to act differently in the future."
Oh man, that's huge for me!

[claudiaserna]

For me, it was great because it unrevealed, without a mess, the complexity of emotions. It opens the door to explore and wire new experiences as they are: unknown and unseen. We are constantly conditioned by systems, and just the communication with words represents many limitations. So, for me, a good approach could be 'To see, forgetting the names of the things we are looking at' - C. Monet.

[vasudhamishra]

This was so so so insightful. I have experienced this. My job at times requires me to do field work often with very less sleep in between. To enable me to continue working, my brain tries to ignore the sensory information it recieves from the body when its fatigued. Eventually, that physical exhaustion takes the form of mental unrest. And by the time that period of intense field work gets over, I end up depressed, sad, develop unusally high levels of of hatred towards my job which I normally absolutely love and I begin to question my existence. I start finding everything pointless. With time I realised, that those unpleasant emotions are just a manifestation of my physical fatigue, which I had been avoiding to feel and acknowledge, as mental exhaustion and feelings of intense, unexplainable sadness, to be exact. I have noticed, after a good amount of rest, that get back to feeling normal and loving my life and my job. Thank you @bigthink for releasing such insightful videos featuring some of the most brilliant minds.

[DEE-qumc]

She made a lot sense. And I believe, when you do experience emotions in regards to pain and suffering, you should just accept them, and not fight them, they will pass.

[kyraocity]

1:40 Great variability in emotional lives
2:09 The illusion the brain creates
2:37 How emotions really work. The brain regulating body top down, body is sending sensory information to the brain but we don't experience sensory changes. We get a summary--what we feel.
3:30 Are feelings emotions? Sound analogy. The brain is telling you a story processing the world inside and outside you
4:33 Why is it important? The explanation is a tool not the answer.
4:50 Depression explained.
5:25 Part of managing your emotions is using them as a diagnostic not a diagnosis.
5:53 Your brain is making emotions. Using past experience to predict things that may not happen. Emotions are not happening to you.
6:02 Implications: You are an architect of your experience. It involves predicting differently than the recipe or story you carry.
6:40 You can't change your past but every new experience is an opportunity to change your present (not your past)
7:00 Just in the same way you exercise to be healthier you can cultivate new experiences. Learning is evidenced by new and different experiences. Practice. Practice. Practice to predict and act differently.
7:45 Not everybody has as much control as they might like. But everyone has more control than they think they do.
7:50 when you enter the world you are not wired. Other people wire that world. You are not responsible for it as a child or adolescent. 8:11 But as an adult...you can make decisions about what you experience; make choices about how you act. You either reinforce your predictions your brain makes or you change them.
8:40 We are the only one who can change them. We are caretakers of our experiences but the brain does what it does...based on our past. But you can practice making a new and different lifeworld.

[sneakytacos]

I’d argue you’re more the surfer of your emotions not the architect. We can’t control our emotions, but we can control how we react to them.

[Phasma]

Usually I am very skeptical of content along the lines of this video. However, I thought this was a very succinct and concise explanation and elaboration on the topic. Good stuff. Narratives are a grand part of the human experience, much of what we tell ourselves are only perceptions and not reality, meaning it can be changed through habituation and perspective. Thank you.

[tashuntka]

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change..
✨️✨️✨️

[cliffperry]

Thank you for this. A 9 minute video that’s consumed several hours down the rabbit hole of seeking to understand and relate to in my experience. Wow, heavy duty for one who’s been living with misconceptions. She can’t be the only one with insight on this, I’m going to look further.

[richardrickford]

This is a very good video. There is still though a lot we do not understand scientifically. Any talk about feelings and emotions needs to talk about trauma and how this can effect the brain. I have had multiple trauma and I have needed special training to help me get over it and it is still an ongoing process. When people are as good as this professor they all need to spend a great deal of time exchanging ideas - psychiatrists with psychologists with therapists. No one discipline has all the answers but the good thing is we are making progress in our understanding of these things. I would like to thank Lisa Felman Barrett for the inspiration she has given me and the important things she has taught me and reinforced in my mind.

[robertronquillo]

I have been owned lately by my feelings and depressed and fatigued. Wow! This broke some ground for me. I have intuitively been doing things different. I have been learning and practicing recording a new tape. I have been pausing to breathe and relax instead of reacting. Thank you for helping me to keep on this track by confirming that these thoughts on how to get well aren't another waste of my time or energy.

[BicycleFunk]

This is great. The explanation is clear and the video is entertaining. I like the editing and b-roll selection. Thank you for this.

[anmolagrawal]

The seeding part is really profound and if meddled with consciously with an intimate understanding of oneself, can change a person's life for the better.

[gypsism]

Study the life of your parents, their parents and siblings and you will understand who you are a mirrored version of. And then learn to detach and become a wholesome version of yourself

[yoandyvm]

I love this woman. She´s so confident and smart.

[JustWojtek]

much recommend both her books - How Emotions Are Made & Seven and a Half Lessons About The Brain - two of my most favourite books I've ever read