Linking A nxiety, Emotion, and Mindfulness 19
than feelings. Instead, emotions are recognized as a multifac-
eted process involving cognitive appraisals, physical symptoms,
action tendencies, communicative expression, and feelings.
Imagine you are hiking a trail with your friends when
you notice what looks like a snake right in front of you on the
path. Initially, this situation requires a cognitive appraisal, or
a judgment call, to clarify exactly what that snakelike object
is. It could be a number of things: a piece of rope, a twisted
branch, or an actual snake. Before responding, you need to
be able to appraise whether this object is dangerous and war-
rants any sort of emotional response. Depending on the situ-
ation, you may have different thresholds for considering
something threatening. It would be inefficient and exhaust-
ing to regard absolutely anything remotely scary as a true
threat, whereas it could be risky to disregard potential
danger and write it off as entirely unlikely. That’s why it’s
especially important to maintain good emotional balance
grounded in reality: to accurately identify what’s likely to
occur.
After you identify the object as a snake, bodily and
mental responses emerge to facilitate goal- directed behav-
ior. In other words, physical symptoms coincide with subjec-
tive feelings to communicate important messages regarding
the nature of the external stimulus (the snake). These physi-
cal symptoms might include a racing heart, sweating, and
rapid breathing, which would all contribute to a subjective
feeling of fear. Physical symptoms and feelings are some-
times referred to as the “experiential components” of emo-
tions, because they are the classical aspects of emotions that
individuals directly experience and perceive. Once these
experiences occur, you often don’t just sit with them and do
nothing. They are there to motivate you to take action! This