Your Emotions Aren’t the Truth — They’re Your Brain’s Best Guess (Across Cultures)

Here’s the reframe I want to offer: an emotion is not a fact about the world. It’s a meaning your brain is constructing.

This isn’t just a philosophical take. Over the last couple of decades, many neuroscientists and psychologists have been challenging the older “emotion circuits” story — the idea that your brain contains hardwired, universal emotion buttons that simply get pressed.

One influential perspective (associated with neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and other researchers working in what’s sometimes called the constructionist view of emotion) is that your brain is constantly predicting and categorising what’s happening — including what you’re feeling — using:

• Signals from your body (heart rate, breathing, tension, fatigue)

• Your past experiences

• The concepts and language you’ve learned (often through culture)

• The context you’re in right now

In plain terms: your brain is not only reacting to the world — it’s interpreting it.

That interpretation can feel like certainty.

But it’s still an interpretation.

And when you live across cultures, the “context” part becomes a moving target. The same bodily sensations can be interpreted differently depending on:

• The culture you grew up in,

• The culture you’re living in now,

• The language you’re using day-to-day,

• The workplace norms around emotion, authority, directness, and belonging.

So yes: your emotions matter. They’re meaningful. But they are not automatically the truth.

This is the classic “head vs heart” story. It shows up in leadership advice, productivity culture, and even well-meaning coaching.

A popular version of it is the triune brain idea: the ‘lizard brain’ (primitive survival), the ‘limbic system’ (emotions), and the ‘neocortex’ (reason). The implication is that when you’re stressed, the lower layers hijack the higher ones.

The issue is that the brain doesn’t really work like a stack of separate brains battling it out. Emotion and cognition are deeply intertwined. Your brain is not switching between “thinking mode” and “feeling mode” like a toggle.

Why this matters abroad: if you believe your emotions are a primitive takeover, you might treat them as a problem to suppress. But suppression often increases stress and reduces clarity. A more useful question is: what is my brain trying to predict right now — and what data is it using?

This one is subtle. It sounds like self-trust. But it can become a trap.

If you feel anxious before a meeting in your new job, your brain may be interpreting bodily sensations (tight chest, elevated heart rate) as “danger”. But that does not automatically mean the meeting is dangerous — or that you’re not capable.

Strong emotion is real. It’s also not proof.

Why this matters abroad: when you’re in a new culture, your brain has fewer familiar cues. That uncertainty can amplify intensity. You may experience:

• “I don’t belong here.”

• “I’m failing.”

• “They don’t like me.”

Sometimes those thoughts point to something important. Sometimes they’re your brain trying to create certainty in an ambiguous environment.

That can include:

• Sleep, food, movement, and recovery (your body signals are part of the input),

• The stories you tell yourself about what a situation means,

• The emotional concepts you have available (your vocabulary and nuance),

• The culture-specific norms you’ve internalised about what is 'acceptable' to feel.

Why this matters abroad: you may be living between emotional rulebooks. In one culture, directness is care. In another, it’s aggression. In one culture, calmness is competence. In another, enthusiasm is.

Your brain is trying to predict the social meaning of everything — often at speed.

If you’ve ever thought, “I wasn’t like this before I moved”, you’re not alone.

Living abroad can shift:

• Your social status and sense of competence (especially when language changes)

• Your access to micro-support (familiar friendships, family, ‘easy’ community)

• Your daily cues of safety and belonging

• Your identity: who you are when no one knows your backstory

In that landscape, your brain is doing a lot of prediction with less reliable information.

So it makes sense that emotions can feel louder, sharper, or more confusing.

And it also explains why two people can have the same expat experience and feel completely different things — because their brains are constructing meaning from different histories, concepts, and cultural learning.

In my previous Chief Executive role, I received a surprising number of gifts from representatives of our member organisations spread around the world.

At first, I filed them under one simple category: 'kind gesture'. But over time, I realised the gift itself wasn’t the point. The meaning was. And meaning is cultural.

For some visitors (for example, many Latin American and Asian cultures), bringing a small gift was almost automatic. It often carried warmth and respect: “I’m grateful for your time,” “I’m honoured to be here,” “I didn’t come empty-handed.” When that’s the script you know, a gift can feel like connection.

For others (for example, many Germans), gifts simply weren’t part of the professional script. They would arrive with strong preparation, clear agenda, and direct communication — but no wrapped token at the end. Not because they cared less, but because care was expressed differently.

And then there was the organisational layer: integrity. In that role, we had to declare gifts above a value threshold (I can’t remember the exact amount — something like €20). The policy wasn’t there to shame generosity. It was there to protect trust.

What I find so revealing, looking back, is the emotional whiplash that can happen when different rulebooks meet.

• If you grew up with gifts as a sign of respect, no gift can feel cold, dismissive, even rejecting.

• If you grew up with strict boundaries around gifts, a gift can feel very uncomfortable — even like an attempt to influence or a bribe(!).

The object doesn’t contain the truth. The emotion that rises is your brain’s best guess, built from your past experiences and the cultural context you’re using to interpret the moment.

So if you ever catch yourself reacting strongly to a 'small' workplace moment abroad — a gift, a thank-you, a silence, a direct question — try this pause:

• What is my brain predicting right now?

• Which cultural rule am I applying?

• What else could be true?

• What would a respectful next step look like here?

You don’t have to stop feeling. But you can create a little space between the feeling and the conclusion.

So, if emotions are your brain’s best guess, the goal isn’t to argue with them. The goal is to get more precise.

Try this 3-step check-in:

1. 1. Name the sensation (body first). “My chest is tight.” “My stomach is heavy.” “My jaw is clenched.”

2. 2. Name the emotion (but hold it lightly). “This might be anxiety.” “This could be disappointment.” “This feels like shame.”

3. 3. Name the context and offer 2 alternative meanings. “I’m in a new culture / new team / new language. One meaning is "I’m not safe". Another meaning is "I’m uncertain and my brain wants predictability’.”

This is not positive thinking. It’s expanding your options.

Over time, this practice helps you build what researchers sometimes call emotional granularity — the ability to make finer distinctions than “good/bad” or “stressed/fine”. And finer distinctions tend to create better choices.

There’s one more layer here that deserves its own space: beliefs.

Because what you believe about yourself (“I’m behind”), about others (“They’re judging me”), and about the world (“It’s not safe to make mistakes here”) becomes part of the prediction your brain makes.

In my next featured article (watch put for it :) ), I want to explore that more directly: how beliefs become ‘invisible defaults’, and how to work with them without self-blame.

Your emotions are real — and they deserve respect.

But they are not always truth. They are often your brain constructing meaning from body signals, past experience, and cultural context.

When you learn to pause and ask, “What is my brain predicting right now?”, you create space.

And in that space, you can choose a response that reflects who you want to be — not just what your nervous system is guessing.

If you’re living abroad and noticing that your emotional life feels different than it used to, I’d love to hear from you.

• What emotion has been most confusing or persistent for you lately?

• And what do you think your brain might be trying to protect you from?

Share your reflections in the comments or email me about it :)