Understand How Emotions Store and Drive Endless Thoughts

All through our lives, we unknowingly file away experiences not by their facts but by how they felt. In groundbreaking research, Gray and LaViolette showed that memory uses a feeling-based filing system: every single thought is tagged with the emotion that spawned it. Imagine one fearful memory about being judged—over the years it can produce thousands upon thousands of future worries each time a trigger arises. The brain, it turns out, is more emotion-file cabinet than logic processor.

Take Maya, a college student haunted by one harsh comment from a high school teacher. Believing she was “no good,” she replayed that criticism through late-night study sessions, relationship doubts, and career decisions. Finally, she tried something new: instead of overthinking, she sat quietly, felt the sting of that old shame in her chest, and repeatedly permitted herself to just be with it. As her shame subsided, the swarm of worries evaporated too—and she remembered long-lost joys of learning she’d forgotten she had.

This approach isn’t anecdotal: in neuroscience labs, people who sustain mindful attention on bodily feelings dial down the hyperactive regions that loop thoughts. By dissolving the emotional core, we free colossal space once lost to mental recycling. Psychology and neurophysiology converge on a single truth: to quiet the mind, comprehend your feelings.

You start by choosing a thought that never leaves you—maybe that midterms comment that still stings—and you ask, “What’s the feeling underneath?” You lean in, fully meeting that feeling in your body, and you say, “It’s okay to be here.” You’ll watch the roar of recurring thoughts fade. Give yourself permission to feel that core once and free all the echoes—it only takes a moment.