Awareness of emotion-cognition interactions
EVENTS, SAID
Developing an understanding of the SPARK model involves identifying the situation, perception, affect, reaction, and knowledge in application to real-life situations. This theme reflects participants’ experiences of being aware of the interaction between the way one interprets events and the subsequent associated emotions, as well as of the mechanisms underlying this connection and of one’s own cognitive biases. It also refers to practicing cognitive flexibility, creating a distance from a difficult situation by reflecting on it and contextualising it. For instance, one of the participants described this distancing effect as follows: “I have learnt to accept uncertainty, to look at the glass half full compared to the glass half empty, and am now able to see how my own thoughts can impact the way I feel”, whilst another said: “What I thought was ‘failure’ may not be that much of a bad thing”. Other participants described how they could now link the different SPARK components, for instance, a stressful situation (“I had a burnout one year ago in my professional life”) with its perception (“I thought it was not possible to get away from this work overload of and being in conflict with my value”) and affect (“this state has affected me on all levels: emotional, psychological, physical and existential”). Similarly, some participants described using their understanding of resilience to work on their perceptions and modify their ways of looking at things. As one participant expressed it, “I now analyse my challenges through the filter of SPARK”.