A Simple Exercise

Imagine that you are woken in the middle of the night by the sound of a SMASH that you know has come from somewhere in you home.
So what is the first thing that goes through your mind?
Think about how might this makes you feel? <Just take a few moments to imagine the bodily sensations>.

Now you remember that this has happened several times before and when you investigated you always found that your pet cat had knocked over a vase or an ornament, or something like that. Now notice how this extra piece of information might make you think differently about what could be happening and notice how you might feel differently <take a moment to notice the difference in bodily sensations>. If you noticed any difference in how you felt emotionally or a change in any bodily sensations what might have caused this change?

Now let’s think of some other factor that might be going on in the background, which could effect the situation for you (or someone else in a similar situation).

• If you had a precious family heirloom that you were given yesterday for safe keeping how might that effect your reactions?
• If you had a fear or dislike of cats how might that effect your reactions?
• The smash could only be that unwanted present form Aunt Mabel brought while holidaying at Costa Packet that you did not like but she always asks where it was, how might that effect your reactions?

From this we can see that the SMASH did not directly provoke the emotion. What happened was a process of appraisal (based on experience) that can be altered as new information is remembered or found.

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