The Anatomy of Decision-Making

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Asbjorn Bjaanes, One of Thousands of Team Coaches on Noomii.

In both Buddhist philosophy and neuroscience, there is a shared idea: All perceptions — whether a thought, sight, sound, or sensation — are empty and neutral at their origin. The raw data of experience has no inherent meaning. It is through our filters, conditioning, and survival mechanisms that we give them color, emotion, and ultimately drive decisions.

Whether you’re a leader managing a team or a person navigating everyday choices, understanding this fundamental process is essential.

The Birth of Perception: The Empty Image

In Buddhist terms, all mental formations (saṅkhāra) are seen as arising from emptiness — meaning they are fundamentally devoid of inherent meaning or emotional charge. They are simply “what is”, appearing in awareness.

Modern neuroscience mirrors this: An external event is sensed (via vision, hearing, touch, etc.). The primary sensory cortices of the brain create a raw mental image or representation. At this stage, there is no meaning, no good or bad — just pure sensory data.

In NLP, this is called the internal representation — the raw map we create of external reality.

Insight: The first processing of reality is always neutral and non-judgmental, a clean slate before our filters come online.

The Emotional Coloring: The Amygdala’s Gate

This image doesn’t stay empty for long.

The amygdala, part of the limbic system, performs a security scan to detect potential threats or rewards. Is this safe or dangerous? Familiar or foreign? In milliseconds, the amygdala attaches emotional charge — often fear, pleasure, urgency, or attraction — based on our learned associations and survival instincts.

In NLP, this is the creation of an emotional state based on the image.

In organizations, this might be a team reacting with unease to a leader’s sudden change in strategy (perceived threat), or feeling excited at the announcement of a new innovation (perceived reward).

Insight: Emotional responses arise not from the external event itself, but from how our survival system interprets it.

The Meaning-Making Machine: Cognitive Processing

After the emotional tag is applied, higher-order cognition comes online. The prefrontal cortex evaluates, plans, and reasons. It now works within the frame already shaped by the amygdala’s emotional input.

In NLP, this is where meta-programs (such as away from vs. toward motivation) and linguistic patterns influence how we process and express the information.

For example, after feeling the threat response from the amygdala, a team might cognitively justify risk aversion. If the amygdala tagged the image as safe or rewarding, the team might lean into creativity and open decision-making.

Insight: Cognition is not the first mover — it is a meaning-maker layered on top of emotional priming.

Action and Decision: The Echo of the Process

The final decision — whether individual or collective — is the outcome of the neutral image, the emotional charge (security check), and the cognitive processing (reasoning, strategizing).

This explains why two teams looking at the same data can make vastly different decisions depending on their emotional and cultural filters. Two leaders facing the same challenge can approach it with either fear-driven caution or confident decisiveness.

Neutrality to Narrative: The Power Hidden in the Image

The anatomy of decision-making is a layered process. It begins with a neutral image, passes through the emotional filter of the amygdala, and finally engages the cognitive brain to rationalize and decide.

Yet here lies a critical insight: By the time we are thinking about a decision, much of the emotional groundwork has already been laid — set in motion by how we first processed the image.

By understanding this image to emotion to cognition cascade, we gain something invaluable — the power to pause between the raw image and the emotional reaction.

This awareness is reflected in mindfulness practices (observing without immediate response) and in NLP interventions (such as reframing the internal representation).

In leadership and teams, recognizing that all images start pure but are rapidly colored by emotional and cognitive filters can help prevent reactivity during high-stakes decision-making, create space for conscious leadership, and cultivate neutrality before applying emotional or strategic narratives.

In NLP, we learn that by altering the internal image — how we see or represent a situation — we can reshape our emotional response and unlock entirely new levels of resourcefulness.

Imagine being able to neutralize stress before it colors your thinking, help your team shift from fear to creativity, or change your internal state in seconds simply by changing how you visualize a situation.

The question is: What if you could intercept the process earlier — right at the image stage — before emotion and cognition fully kick in?

Next time: How to alter the image and instantly shift your emotional state using NLP.