156 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
- To help you behave or act in a way that fits with
your internal motivations and external environment - To help you express your subjective experiences
to others
To illustrate these three components, imagine that while
on a hike with friends, you encounter a ferocious- looking
cougar and her three kittens. Even though you know it’s rare
for a cougar to attack a human, you feel a rush of fear and
panic (feeling). Your emotional reaction helps you assess
your level of danger (construal or appraisal) and how to act
(behavior) by leading you to slowly back away. Your friends,
who haven’t yet seen the cougar, notice you look scared and
that you are acting uncharacteristically odd (expression of
emotion). Your demeanor, body language, and behavior all
serve as a way of informing others, through your emotion, of
the potential danger.
Practice Identif y a situation or activity from the past week and
try to label each of the following:
- Your emotion
- Your cognitive construal or appraisal of the situation
- What action you took or how you behaved
- The emotion (or emotions) that you expressed to others
Now, take a moment to repeat this exercise by using an emo-
tion with a different valence from the first scenario. For example,
if your emotion in the first scenario was a positive emotion, repeat
the exercise by using a situation or activity from the past week that
entailed a negative emotion. Use this exercise to repeatedly (two to