Quick Tips for Reframing
Reframing is to look at a situation or experience from another perspective so that we can learn something new or think and feel better about a past event. Some ways we can reframe include:
Turning a negative into a positive.
If something bad or painful happens in our lives, we can often reframe that experience as something that made us a stronger or smarter person in the end. Failures can be seen as learning experiences. Psychologists are also now identifying something known as “post traumatic growth,” where those who go through trauma end up more resilient and optimistic. Being able to find the good in the bad is a key characteristic for any healthy mind.
Broadening your perspective.
In the moment, a bad experience can feel like the end of the world. But when you look back on it after a week, month, year, or even decade, the event often loses a lot of its affect. How many of you can look back on an experience you once thought was really terrible, and now it seems like nothing? Sometimes we wonder why we ever got so upset in the first place. Imagine yourself 20 years down the road, will you care as much about those same things that are troubling you now? When we broaden our perspective, things don’t often seem as important as we like to make them out to be.
The “things could be worse” perspective.
No matter how bad things are for you, there is almost always an alternative situation that is even worse. Imagining how things can be worse can help us be more grateful toward the things we do have, and not necessarily focus on just the things we lost. This attitude works especially well for aspects of life that are outside of our control. Maybe your house burned down and you lost everything, that is an awful situation, but you can reframe it and think “at least I still have my friends and family.” Maybe you are currently going through some financial troubles, but does it really compare to the lives of those in poor third world countries? Imagining how things can be worse is a great way to change your perspective and be more thankful for what you have.
You can read more about this kind of reframe (from the perspective of Stoicism) here.
Empathic perspective-taking.
Empathic perspective-taking is a type of reframe where we imagine ourselves experiencing a situation from another person’s perspective. By stepping into someone else’s shoes we can get a better idea of their intentions and why they acted the way they did. This can be a very useful skill for understanding why people sometimes do things that hurt us (intentional or not), and we can better learn to forgive by letting go of resentment, grudges, and other negative feelings we hold against others.
April 2nd, 2011
I think this should be the fourth "r" taught to youth. EQ (emotional intelligence) is so important to living a successful and happy life. Thought reframing is a powerful too.
My recent post To Get Different Results- You Have To Do Something Different
April 3rd, 2011
This is something I do and refer everyone to. Whenever people cry at things, they don't really understand that that situation was the best they could have had. So, the worst is not really the worst all the times.
My recent post Understanding the stages of grief and anger
April 4th, 2011
Such a stimulating and energizing post!
Apart from the BIG KEY ONES Steven listed above, there may be other minor reframing methods. For instance,
- Linguistic reframing – try saying the same thing by finding totally different sets of words, or by SAYING REVERSE eg. The eternal silence of the unlimited universe frightens me (Pascal) = Everyday noises around here relax me. or by translating it into a different language, and then translate it back to English, which sometimes gives us an eureka. Or say the situation in JUST SIX WORDS. It could sharpen the focus of the situation.
- Imaginary dialogues with people in the past or in the faraway countries – try explaining the situation to, say, J-J Rousseau or King Henry V or to people who live in the middle of the Sahara desert. Reframing the situation from PERSPECTIVE OF DIFFERENT TIME AND SPACE. Yes, I guess this is a derivative of Steven's empathy thing.
- Use of existing MYTHS or FABLES that approximately symbolise the situation, and not just think about the obvious 'lessons' in these fables, but alter the scenario with a nice 'twist'. This may lead to a resolution of a problem with a positive twist.
see, the good post invites a kind of brain storming!
April 5th, 2011
The sorting of emotions into good and bad, positive and negative is a function of valence in the emotional brain and you run the risk of emotional manipulation rather than self awareness. By continuing this language it keeps people from building tolerance to emotions, understanding why they are making up stories and how to move from reaction to action. Using mindfulness with CBT will enhance the approach you are suggesting. Asking whether the thoughts are useful or unhelpful; do they create pleasure or pain; have more of a long term value than judging and categorizing emotional experiences and the thoughts that have produced them.
The idea of retelling a story has been around for a long time. Wayne Dyer calls it the "Switch Game" where we shift from helpful to unhelpful thoughts as a way of creating pleasurable emotional experiences for ourselves.
My recent post Aligning Leadership Behavior with Emotional Norms
April 15th, 2011
I advocate mindfulness and equanimity a lot on this blog. I certainly think it is a valuable (if not irreplaceable) supplement to CBT and reframing. At the same time, I don't get hooked up on the positive-negative dichotomy. The big reason for practicing reframing in the first place is to see the non-duality of it.
Cheers for stopping by!
April 5th, 2011
I love the section about turning a negative into a positive! It's easiest to do this for things that happened a long time ago. The secret is that we can also do it for things that happened yesterday, or are happening today!
The key is to change perspective, notice the lessons you're learning, and recognize the value the "bad" event could help you bring to the world.
Thanks for this post!
Love,
CarolAnn http://CharismaU.com
My recent post Get a little bit stonger
September 16th, 2011
Reframing is so important and I really like your take on it.
One of my favourite books on this subject is 'the magic of thinking big' which really shows you how to think positively to get what you want.
There are always going to be negative and positive perspective, I just choose to think positively
September 19th, 2011
I like reframing because it turns all of those 'I can'ts' into 'I can's'
We can do anything if we put our minds to it
My recent post undefined
November 8th, 2011
I love the reframing concept, I do believe we are energy converters and this is the scientific process that happens when we convert energy, we reframe it. Awesome, simple, powerful.
HappyRozhy
November 14th, 2011
Thanks for the video. That helped out a lot. I like being able to do the do-it-yourself stuff. It makes you feel as if you accomplished something big! Thanks again!