How to Get Over an Embarrassing Moment at Work

A work blunder lingers because your brain treats being judged by people you’ll face again tomorrow as a bigger threat than an anonymous slip-up. What actually moves you through it: naming what happened, a few minutes of bilateral stimulation to take the charge out of the replay, and one small plan for seeing your colleagues again.

Maybe you called your manager by the wrong name on a call. Maybe you hit reply-all on something meant for one person, or your voice cracked halfway through a presentation. Now it’s hours later, you’re nowhere near your desk, and your stomach still drops every time the scene replays.

Why does a work mistake feel so hard to shake?

An awkward moment with a stranger tends to fade fast. One at work often doesn’t, and there’s a real reason why. A 2004 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin, reviewing over 200 lab studies, found the body’s stress-hormone response is largest, and slowest to settle, in situations with two specific traits.

You can’t control what’s happening, and other people could judge you for it. Researchers call this social-evaluative threat.

Work checks both boxes in a way a stranger on the street never does. You’ll likely see that coworker again tomorrow, in the same meeting, at the same desk. That ongoing exposure is a real part of why the memory keeps its charge longer than an equally embarrassing moment with someone you’ll never see again.

Why does it keep looping through your head?

Some of it is a specific, well-studied kind of overthinking: affective rumination, dwelling on how a work problem felt instead of doing anything about it. A 2023 study in Frontiers in Psychology describes it as intrusive, repetitive thinking focused on the negative feelings a problem stirred up. It found this kind of dwelling is more disruptive to recovering from work than practical problem-solving is.

Replaying the cringe isn’t your brain quietly working something out. It’s a different, less useful habit than it feels like from the inside.

If the loop keeps landing on a verdict about your competence, not just the moment itself, an older belief is often doing the talking. EMDR’s own theory, the Adaptive Information Processing model, holds that emotionally loaded moments can get stored in a way that’s easily re-triggered, according to EMDRIA, EMDR’s professional association. Imposter feelings at work often use a fresh slip-up as fresh “proof” for something you already half-believed about yourself.

What actually helps you get over it?

Once you’ve named what’s happening, a short round of bilateral stimulation (BLS), the rhythmic left-right technique behind EMDR, is worth trying before the replay gets its hooks in:

• Rate it. On a 0–10 scale, how strong is the cringe right now?
• Bring the moment to mind on purpose, once, on your terms this time.
• Add bilateral stimulation. Move your eyes left and right for 20 to 30 seconds, or try the butterfly hug: cross your arms and tap alternating shoulders.
• Pause and notice what shifted, without forcing it.
• Repeat 3 to 5 short rounds, checking the number again after each one.

A 2020 meta-analysis of 15 lab studies, pooling 942 participants, found eye movements measurably reduced how vivid and emotionally charged a held-in-mind memory felt. That’s evidence for lowering a memory’s intensity, not proof a few rounds erases it.

Pair the technique with a deliberately kinder inner voice. A 2019 meta-analysis in Mindfulness, pooling 27 randomized controlled trials, found self-compassion training had one of its largest measured effects on rumination specifically. Telling yourself roughly what you’d tell a colleague in the same spot isn’t just a nice idea. It’s one of the better-supported moves available here.

Counting rounds while you’re still cringing is one more thing to manage. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, runs the same left-right technique for you, paced however you like, in the web app.

If this isn’t limited to work, the same approach applies more broadly. Replaying embarrassing memories: ending the cringe loop walks through the general version step by step, and why do I keep replaying embarrassing moments? goes deeper on the memory science behind why any old slip-up resurfaces at all.

What about actually facing them again?

A technique settles your body. It doesn’t undo an email or a comment. If something genuinely needs addressing, say so plainly: “Sorry about the mix-up earlier.” A short, direct acknowledgment like that usually closes the loop faster than avoiding the person, and it’s one concrete action instead of an open-ended worry.

If nothing actually needs fixing, that’s worth noticing too: plenty of workplace cringe has no real cleanup step waiting, just a memory that needs to lose its charge.

When is this more than a passing cringe?

This fits the ordinary version: a slip-up that stings for a day or two and fades. It’s probably not enough on its own if the same replay is costing you sleep most nights, or if you’re staying quieter in meetings to avoid more risk. It’s also not enough if “everyone thinks I’m incompetent” is starting to feel like settled fact instead of one bad afternoon.

A licensed therapist, ideally one trained in EMDR, is the safer path once it’s shaping how you work, not just how you feel about one moment. Can EMDR help with work stress? covers the research if the tension runs bigger than one memory, and our desk-friendly 3-minute reset is worth keeping on hand either way.

Your coworkers have their own quiet list of moments they’re still replaying, probably including some you never even noticed. Yours doesn’t have to keep top billing in your head for another week.