We don't ordinarily recognize how much our present experience is being shaped by the past and old schemas.

We tend to experience our thoughts and feelings as direct reactions to what is happening around us.

Schemas are memory structures that help serve as road maps for navigating and experiencing our worlds.

Each of us goes through the day with a unique sense of self. Some people feel like winners who look forward to endless positive experiences. Some people feel like persecuted victims who the world just can’t stop messing with. And some of us have a pervasive sense of anger, loneliness, heartache. Or even idolizing love for another person. These senses-of-self serve as frames of reference for how we perceive the world and experience it emotionally.

Your emotional experience is real, but is it really that stable or central to who you are?

Although I could have woken my wife to give me a ride, I chose to walk home from work the other night. It was beautiful, cool, and crisp with the moon showing through puffy white clouds. I felt happy and healthy. On the way home, I passed a house where a year ago an irate homeowner had berated me for dropping a banana peel in his curbside trash can. As I continued my walk, I realized that I had spent five minutes replaying the incident and my feelings about it. I felt angry, negative, and poorly treated. And then I realized that I was feeling bothered that my wife had not picked me up from work, even though I voluntarily chose to walk because I wanted to.

So, there I was, experiencing the world as unkind and full of people who do not care about my feelings. An unkind and unsafe place. My thoughts, emotions, and physical feelings in my body all concurred with this sentiment.

But remember, 10 minutes earlier I had been experiencing myself as a calm, happy psychologist........

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