Written by Eric Rangel Oliveira, AMHSW
Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes
Introduction
What if the emotions we feel aren’t fixed reactions but something our brain creates based on past experiences, body sensations, and cultural learning? In this Emotional Regulation Blog Series, we will follow Bob (He/Him), a fictional yet deeply relatable character, on his journey from emotional numbness, withdrawal and anger outbursts to deeper connection and emotional mastery. Bob’s story was inspired by fragments of my own story and the stories of many friends, acquaintances and fictional characters I heard throughout my lifetime. His story may also resonate with the personal stories of so many readers of this blog post.
Bob, a gay man now in his late 40s, grew up in a regional town in Australia in the 1980s and 90s under values of silence, stigma, and stoicism. Bullying at school, emotional neglect at home, and high parental expectations and complex developmental trauma set the stage for a lifetime of emotional difficulties for him. Bob’s life story is not unusual, but it reveals profound lessons about how emotions are shaped, how they shape us and how they can be transformed.
Why do I like telling fictional stories?
I believe that the most powerful learning happens when ideas not only make sense in our heads but also resonate in our hearts. That is why, instead of writing about theories, dry definitions or statistics, I have chosen to illustrate theories and concepts through the story of a fictional character. Stories help us connect, remember, and reflect, and they often capture the real-world complexity of mental health in ways that theories and concepts alone cannot.
Why You Should Read This Story and What You Will Gain
Through Bob’s story, we’ll explore the theory of constructed emotion by Lisa Feldman Barrett, alongside insights from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), mindfulness-based approaches, and neuroscience. By the end, you’ll walk away with practical tools and reflective prompts to help you better understand your emotions and build emotional resilience.
Reader Disclaimer
This story explores themes that may be distressing or upsetting to certain individuals. While it is fictional and educational, it may still evoke strong or unexpected emotions in some readers. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, distressed, or triggered at any point, please prioritise your wellbeing. You may want to pause reading, speak with a trusted support person, or reach out to a qualified mental health professional for additional support.
If you are in Australia, you can contact:
- Emergency: 000
- Lifeline Australia: 131114 https://www.lifeline.org.au
- 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732, https://www.1800respect.org.au
- Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636, https://www.beyondblue.org.au
- Kids Helpline: 1800-551-800, https://kidshelpline.com.au
- LGBTQ+ Crisis Hotline: 1800-184-527, https://qlife.org.au
- MensLine Australia: 1300-789-978, https://mensline.org.au
- National Alcohol & Other Drugs Hotline: 1800-250-015, https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/drug-help
- Suicide Call Back Service: 1300-659-467, https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au
Your emotional safety matters. This blog is here to educate, empower, and support, not replace professional care.
Bob’s Story: A Life Built on Silence
Bob (he/him) is a 40-year-old male who grew up in a regional town in Australia during the 1980s and 90s, as a gay male in a conservative community. Growing up, he got used to seeing his father treat his mother violently, shouting at her and sometimes slapping her and pushing her against the wall. As a gay teenager in a conservative community, he was relentlessly bullied at school. Furthermore, at home, the standard was “pull yourself together”, a strict behavioural standard enforced by his father, who demanded responsibility and discipline, but who overindulged in alcohol and often displayed uncontrolled anger outbursts in front of Bob. As a single child, Bob got used to being alone from an early age. The best way to describe Bob’s mother’s attitude towards him was inconsistent. She often switched between being overly warm and affectionate and episodes when she would present as detached, cold and unavailable to Bob. Both his parents would shout at Bob and call him names, “you little selfish, entitled, spoiled boy”. Bob can still recall these words clearly in his mind. Sometimes, the shouting would come accompanied by physical punishment. Bob still remembers when his father would belt him, and when his mother would smack him, when, according to Bob’s memory, he was being “a naughty and difficult child”.
Bob was never really encouraged to develop intimacy with his emotional experience of the world. Without the safety to name or process his feelings and the opportunity to co-regulate through others in situations that triggered neuroception of threat, Bob gradually began to suppress his emotions. Early on, he discovered the power of emotional suppression, avoidance, detachment and disconnection from himself and the world as a coping mechanism.
By the time he was a teenager, Bob developed strong avoidance tendencies: isolating himself from others, avoiding emotional intimacy with male peers due to fear of rejection and retaliation, and anxiety about “sending the wrong message to them”. Bob usually experienced any emotional need as a sign of weakness.
Bob gradually learned to focus on tasks and achievement instead. Bob focused on solitary hobbies, such as reading and games. Bob was also a hardworking student, and he learned that if he worked diligently and focused on his schoolwork, he could at least avoid trouble.
However, behind this mask of competence, there were deep-seated maladaptive schemas (emotional scars) that, whenever triggered by daily life situations, influenced how Bob made meaning of these experiences (affecting his emotions, orienting styles to sensory cues, movement, posture, body language and body sensations). These schemas also influenced his behaviours and coping styles (tendency to oscilate between avoidance and numbing and outbursts of anger), whenever the emotional cars regarding unrelenting standards (“I need to get it right” or “I need to be perfect”), negativity (“ nothing ever goes well in my life” “I can never be happy”), emotional deprivation (“no one will ever really love me or care about me”), mistrust (“people will always hurt me”), vulnerability to harm (“something always happen, people like me do not live happily for very long” ), defectiveness and shame (“I am not good enough, I am just weird”), social isolation (“I just do not belong anywhere, I never really did!”), emotional inhibition (“emotions are not safe, spontaneous actions and communications of my feelings are not safe”) and subjugation of emotions and needs ( “my emotions and needs are not valid”; “expressing them is never safe, it always results in punishment or retaliation”)
Fast forward to his mid-30s, Bob met Marcus, a kind and emotionally open man who genuinely loved and cared for him. However, the routine of an intimate relationship with Marcus often triggered old emotional wounds. For instance, whenever Marcus did not reply to texts quickly, Bob felt rejected. When Marcus offered emotional warmth, Bob felt exposed, and the physical anxiety was often experienced as anxiety, and not rarely, Bob pulled away. Why did something as simple as affection feel like a threat?
At the age of 40, Bob is a successful, award-winning Chef in a restaurant. However, that also came with relentless self-pressure, overcompensation (“giving himself almost entirely to his work”), and struggling with ongoing self-doubt and fear of rejection, which he often learned to mask by talking overly confidently and through emotional numbing. For Bob, success, happiness, anxiety and fear were often experienced at the same time, and, in fact, they even felt a bit the same thing.
Constructed Emotion and Bob’s Inner World
According to Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017), emotions aren’t universal, automatic reactions but constructed experiences. Your brain receives interoceptive signals (such as Bob’s racing heart or tight chest), compares them to past experiences, makes predictions, and constructs an emotional interpretation. For Bob, when Marcus didn’t respond immediately, his brain predicted rejection, not because it was true, but because his history primed him to expect it. Barrett explains that we experience emotions as “real” because they’re predictions our brain makes to interpret bodily sensations.
However, Bob had never learned to accurately interpret his interoceptive cues. Instead, he ignored or mislabelled them. A flutter of excitement for seeing a handsome guy at school or experiencing sexual arousal towards another man might have been labelled or experienced as anxiety and fear. A warm gesture from another male might have triggered defensiveness. His emotional vocabulary was diminished, shaped by a culture that didn’t allow for nuanced male emotional expression towards another male and by internalised homophobia.
It is sad to admit, but many of Bob’s experiences sound way too familiar to many individuals within the LGBTQIA+, and I include myself in this group!
Reflective Prompt: When was the last time you paused to ask yourself, “What exactly am I feeling?” Could it be more than one thing at once?
Social and Developmental Influences on Emotion
Barrett (2017) reminds us that children build emotional concepts through language and interaction. Bob didn’t have that scaffolding. He had punishment, not reflection. Now, as an adult, he had to reparent himself.
As Barrett (2017) and Nyklíček (2011) suggest, emotional intelligence doesn’t just emerge; it’s built through relationships. Bob’s early environment discouraged emotional expression. Despite all the yelling and fighting, Bob’s environment did not equip him with the tools to name his emotions. Fear, sadness, and even joy were rarely acknowledged, explored, or named. These were concepts that were not properly learned. Their meaning!
In other words, Bob could reproduce an award-winning recipe without even needing to look at it; we could recall the phone numbers of his most important supplies from the top of his head, but he struggled to understand the difference between feeling sad, lonely, and anxious.
His upbring and environment reinforced shame around vulnerability, especially for boys who didn’t fit heteronormative ideals! Feelings are not safe!
Bob Gets to Therapy
Despite struggling with intimacy, fears and anxiety about rejection and abandonment, low self-esteem, and a tendency to pull away and withdraw from Marcus, Bob and Marcus initiate a relationship, which, despite ups and downs, reaches its fifth anniversary. However, the experience of being in a relationship proved to be as emotionally taxing as it was rewarding for Bob.
Thus, at age 40, after a referral from his GP
Bob decides to seek support from a therapist after being referred by his GP, whom he consulted due to physical health complaints, such as chest pain, frequent, strong headaches and sometimes difficulties breathing.
Then, Bob meets Mike (an accredited Mental Health Social Worker).
At first, Bob complained about elevated levels of stress, difficulties in his relationship (including anxiety and fear of being abandoned), difficulties regulating his emotions, and expressing his feelings.
In therapy, Bob began unpacking this emotional blueprint. He reflected on how never being able to express and hear words such as “frustrated,” “disappointed,” or “lonely” as a child had limited his emotional granularity. Without these concepts, his brain had fewer building blocks to create nuanced emotional experiences. As Barrett (2017) explains, language gives us the categories to decipher and regulate emotions.
Reflective Prompt: What emotional words did you grow up hearing? How do those early influences shape the way you talk about emotions today?
Building Emotional Awareness and Intelligence
Bob’s therapist introduced the concept of emotional granularity (the ability to differentiate between emotions like guilt, sadness, shame, or disappointment). At first, Bob was sceptical. But with time, he began keeping a “feeling journal,” noting the emotion and what he was doing, thinking, and feeling in his body at the time. Slowly, “bad” became “anxious,” “lonely,” or “irritated.”
He also practised recategorisation, one of Barrett’s (2017) most practical tools. When Bob felt his chest tighten before meeting Marcus’s friends, he asked himself, “Could this be anticipation rather than fear?” By reframing discomfort as excitement, he disrupted his brain’s old predictive habits.
Dialectical and Behavioural Therapy (DBT) skills development gradually helped him practice attuning to himself (through mindfulness), building emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills to help him meet his needs more effectively.
Bob realised how emotional contagion shaped his day. Social media, gossip, and toxic relationships all affected him. With this new awareness, Bob gradually adjusted his social environment, becoming more selective with what (and who) he let in.
Reflective Prompt: Try keeping a journal of your emotions for one week. Can you describe them in more detail than just “good” or “bad”? What patterns emerge?
Regulating the Body Budget: How Bob Rebuilt His Foundation
Barrett (2017) employs the metaphor of a “body budget” to illustrate how the brain manages energy, stress, and well-being. Years of sleep deprivation, overwork, social withdrawal, and fast food had depleted Bob’s body budget, leaving him vulnerable to emotional dysregulation.
Bob began experimenting with small, manageable changes:
- Going to bed 30 minutes earlier
- Taking short walks in the sun
- Preparing one home-cooked meal a day
- Reducing screen time before bed
He also noticed that a draining work meeting or a passive-aggressive text could overdraw his budget, while a heartfelt chat with a friend or Marcus replenished it. Over time, Bob learned to view emotion not just as mental, but as physical.
Reflective Prompt:
What activities restore or drain your energy? Are you nourishing your body budget, or constantly overdrawing it?
Are there emotional influences in your daily life, such as people, media, and routines, that leave you feeling dysregulated?
Mindfulness and DBT Skills: Bob’s Daily Practice
Mike introduced Bob to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), as outlined by Nyklíček (2011).
Bob initially found mindfulness abstract. “Do I just breathe and hope for the best?” he joked. However, with support, he began exploring Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). These approaches, shown to reduce anxiety and depression (Farb et al., 2014), taught Bob to observe his emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them.
Mindfulness—paying attention to the present moment with openness and curiosity—has become one of the most researched and recommended practices for emotional well-being. According to Nyklíček (2011), mindfulness enhances emotion regulation by enabling people to observe their experiences without automatically reacting. This capacity to witness rather than fight one’s emotions builds psychological flexibility.
Bob learned to observe his emotions like waves, arising and falling, without clinging to or pushing them away. This awareness was new and difficult. But even 5 minutes of breath-focused meditation helped him slow down reactive patterns.
The RICH model (Nyklíček, 2011) helped Bob experience:
Relaxation – through body scans
Insight – realising “I am not my emotions”
Contact with reality – grounding in the present
Harmony – aligning with his values in moments of choice
Complementing this, Bob practised DBT’s distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness skills during emotional crises and conflicts with Marcus.
In summary, Bob’s regular practice of mindfulness helped reduce rumination, avoidant coping, and emotional reactivity. Unlike suppression or distraction, mindfulness didn’t aim to erase discomfort; it taught Bob how to stay with discomfort long enough to learn from it.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) have shown consistent results in reducing anxiety, depression, and stress. Unlike distraction or suppression, mindfulness allows difficult feelings to come and go, preventing them from becoming overwhelming or chronic. Practices such as breath awareness, body scans, and mindful walking strengthen interoceptive awareness —the same body signals that Barrett identifies as central to emotion construction.
Even when formal meditation isn’t possible, moments of mindfulness are still important. Simply taking a slow breath before reacting to a difficult email, noticing the feel of your feet on the ground, or savouring a warm drink can ground your nervous system and improve emotional regulation.
Reflective Prompt:
How often in your day do you attune to yourself? What would it be like to let your emotions arise and pass, without judgment or urgency to change them?
What mindful moments/breaks could you introduce into your day? Could you pause for a breath before replying to that stressful message?
Practical Emotion Regulation Tools: Bob Learned to Respond, Not React
Bob learned three cornerstone strategies from Barrett (2017) and Mlodinow (2022):
Acceptance – Letting himself feel discomfort without judgment. “It’s okay to be triggered right now.”
Reappraisal – “Marcus didn’t reply, not because he’s rejecting me, but because he’s probably busy.”
Expression – Texting Marcus honestly: “I noticed I got anxious when I didn’t hear from you. I think it’s some old stuff showing up.”He started journaling. He even shared a fear of abandonment with Marcus and felt safe doing so.
Each strategy helped Bob replace reactivity with reflection. Over time, his relationship with Marcus deepened—not because the triggers disappeared, but because Bob could work with them.
Reflective Prompt:
Next time a strong emotion arises, try to name it. Can you accept its presence, reframe it, or express it safely?
Which of these tools, acceptance, reappraisal, or expression, feels most natural to you? Which one do you think you could practice more?
Critical Reflection: A Lens on Theories and Clinical Practice
I want to say that Lisa Feldman Barrett’s (2017) theory of constructed emotion revolutionised my understanding of emotions. Her perspective, that emotions aren’t hardwired but rather built from bodily cues, prediction, experience, and culture, deeply resonates with my own lived experience of personal development. Similar to Bob, I had my journey of struggles with minority stress, attachment and the development of maladaptive schemas. However, I must say that life also provided me with numerous reparative experiences (including extensive therapy, yoga, and encounters with amazing and beautiful souls), which allowed me to build healthier memories and gradually challenge some of my maladaptive schemas, thereby developing a much deeper relationship with myself and my emotional experiences. Throughout this process, my sense of self and emotional experience of life have undergone a complete transformation over the years.
Another lesson from Lisa that completely resonates with my own experience is the notion of body budget. Throughout my life, I have learned that well-being and happiness do not come for free. They are a result of how I treat myself and how I relate to the world in which I live. Throughout my life, I have had to learn what things empty my cup versus fill it up. I discovered the power of exercise to improve my mood, yoga and mindfulness to recalibrate my nervous system and the power of some social relationships to warm my heart and fill my life with joy.
I also believe that Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory aligns well with Nyklíček’s (2011) emphasis on mindfulness and insight as tools to disrupt automatic emotional responses. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion aligns with Nyklíček’s (2011) emphasis on mindfulness and insight as tools to increase emotional awareness and disrupt habitual responses. Both suggest that through awareness, individuals can intervene in the automatic and often implicit processes that generate emotion.
Furthermore, Lisa Feldman Barrett and Leonard Mlodinow present different yet complementary perspectives on emotion. Barrett’s theory suggests that emotions aren’t innate or automatic; rather, they’re constructed by the brain. When we experience something in our body, such as a racing heart or a tense stomach, the brain doesn’t simply “find” an emotion; it uses past experiences and the current situation to infer what we’re feeling. For example, that racing heart might be interpreted as fear in a dark alley, excitement on a rollercoaster, or arousal on a date. In this view, emotions are predictions shaped by context, meaning, and learning. On the other hand, Mlodinow focuses more on how emotions influence our thinking, decisions, and behaviour. He views emotions as natural responses that have evolved to help us survive, but emphasises that we can manage them using cognitive tools such as reappraisal, mindfulness, and effective communication. For example, if someone doesn’t reply to a message, we might feel rejected, but Mlodinow suggests we can challenge that thought and consider they might just be busy. While Barrett focuses on how the brain constructs emotions through prediction, Mlodinow emphasises the importance of regulating emotions through awareness and reflection. In short, Barrett explains how emotions are made, and Mlodinow explains how we can manage them.
What have I learned from these authors, and how has it impacted me and my practice as an accredited mental health social worker? A unifying thread emerged for me as I read the work of these authors: emotions (and, by extension, maladaptive emotional schemas) are not static. They are modifiable! Whether through mindful attention, vocabulary expansion, body awareness, or reparative experiences, each author proposes actionable tools to enhance emotional intelligence.
These models complement each other beautifully in the therapy room, offering both conceptual depth and practical strategies!
And most of all, it warms my heart that they also offer hope! Our past is part of who we are, but we don’t need to be defined by it.
Reflective Prompt: What would change in your life if you believed that emotions are built, and that you can modify your emotional experience of life and the world?
Conclusion
Bob’s path has not been a linear one. There were setbacks, difficult conversations, and moments of doubt. However, he reclaimed agency over his internal world by learning that emotions are constructed, not fated. Recovery for Bob may involve continuing to work on expressing vulnerability, nurturing his emotional well-being, and staying present in his relationships. I truly believe that self-development is an endless journey!
His story reminds us that emotional mastery isn’t about suppressing feelings; it’s about understanding how they work, how they’re shaped, and how they can be transformed.
I hope that through this blog post, I could reach your minds and your hearts. I hope that if you are reading these words and feeling alone or disconnected, this story can bring you hope and encourage you to reconnect to yourself, others, and life.
References
- Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain.Mariner Books.
- Farb, N. A. S., Anderson, A. K., Irving, J. A., & Segal, Z. V. (2014). Mindfulness Interventions and Emotion Regulation. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation(2nd ed., pp. 548–567). Guilford Press.
- Mlodinow, L. (2022). Emotional: How feelings shape our thinking.Pantheon Books.
- Neacsiu, A. D., Bohus, M., & Linehan, M. M. (2014). Dialectical behaviour therapy: An intervention for emotion dysregulation. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation(2nd ed., pp. 491–507). Guilford Press.
- Nyklíček, I. (2011). Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, and Well-being. In A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets & M. Zeelenberg (Eds.), Emotion Regulation and Well-being(pp. 151–172). Springer.
Recommended Reading:
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Mariner Books.
Mlodinow, L. (2022). Emotional: How feelings shape our thinking. Pantheon Books.
Published by:
Eric Rangel Oliveira
Accredited Mental Health Social Worker
Founder of ERTC – Eric Rangel Therapy & Consulting
