I was in the shower one morning and I thought, “I’ve got to negotiate a 30 hour workweek with my job”, and I felt a familiar knot of dissatisfaction. It was not a new thought, nor a new feeling. I had been thinking about this for weeks and the thought had a familiar shape: “I need X, then I’ll be happy.”

But I had the presence of mind to ask, “what is the physical feeling that accompanies this thought?”

I was surprised to notice indigestion, and a slight bodily ache. Normal things for a 34-year old with IBS.

This made me wonder: did the thought cause the feeling, or did the feeling cause the thought?

A little experiment

About a minute later, I thought about this same idea—my desire for a 30 hour work week—and waited to see how I felt, physically and emotionally.

I didn’t feel indigestion or aches. I felt a very mild tightening in my stomach and warmth in the top of my hands, and emotionally I felt a slight longing. This wasn’t nothing, but it’s far from the drastic emotion I felt just a minute earlier.

What gives?

Emotions: the traditional model

For a while the conventional understanding of emotions is that they were generated by thoughts: Thought → Emotion + Feeling

We all know this can be true. Right now you can think of your recent success, the person who cut you off in traffic, or the embarrassing thing that happened in 4th grade—each of these can generate an emotion right now.

But this model doesn’t explain the results of the experiment.

Barrett & The Predictive Brain

Enter Lisa Feldman Barrett and her Theory of Constructed Emotion.

Barrett argues the brain is constantly predicting, using bodily sensations as raw material. The brain felt indigestion, reached for a familiar concept (dissatisfaction), constructed an emotion, and the thought followed.

She doesn’t rule out the idea that the brain can generate feelings and emotions, but rather she expands the relationship. Instead of the linear Thought → Emotion → Feeling, it becomes a free for all, thoughts, emotions and feelings all effecting and feeding back into each other.

My experiment validated this. The indigestion and aches may have prompted my brain to look for a cause and it landed on the most familiar candidate: work.

So how much of my thoughts and suffering is caused by this?

Dukkha

Dukkha is the Buddhist concept of pervasive, persistent background dissatisfaction.

Alongside it is the realization that no matter how many victories you have in life you are always left not quite done and always wanting more. First I wanted a job, then I wanted to change my job, then I wanted to change my personal life, etc.

So given that feelings can cause thoughts—how much of our Dukkha is caused by the fact that we exist in these creaky, gassy, imperfect corporeal forms? How much of my Dukkha is caused by the tweak in my back from exercise, or the fact that I ate the entire super burrito at 11pm last night?

I would love to know, but I don’t.

What to do

Given that we’re in these imperfect bodies, what do we do about it?

Barrett would say: pay attention to the physical sensations. Knowledge of this connection between physical sensations and emotion and thought can help moderate and manage these responses.

I would add to it: run the experiment. Next time you have a strong emotional thought, try to generate the same thought independently and see if the feeling is the same.

If the feeling is real—heartache, pride, frustration, joy—maybe there is something to savor, or maybe there’s change to be made, be it internal or external.

But sometimes the feeling won’t be the same, which means that there is something else going on. It would be nice to know before you go changing your life over last night’s burrito.