The Incredible Power of Reframing
Situation 1:
You walk into your bosses office with a lump in your throat. You know that he has found out you were doing research for your own online business you have wanted to start for months, on company time.
You also know this is strictly against company policy and you know the the chances are he’s going to fire you.
Ten minutes later with your worst fears realized you’re clearing your desk and your stomach is churning with anxiety and the nausea is welling in your throat.
What are you going to do?
Situation 2:
The phone call comes completely out of the blue and shakes you to your core.
It is from the wife of your current boyfriend screaming obscenities down the line at you.
You feel physically sick.
How were you to know he was married? Why was he even using online dating if that was the case? The low life.
How do you react?
Situation 3:
You know deep down it isn’t wise, but you’ve had a few drinks and the wall couldn’t be more than four feet tall.
With your equally drunk friends urging you on, you sprint flat out at the wall and attempt to vault it like you knew you could have done back in your collage track days when you ran the high hurdles.
Your trailing leg catches the top of the wall and you land rather unceremoniously on you right arm.
You hear the crack and immediately know you have broken your arm. Even the alcohol doesn’t numb the excruciating pain.
What next?
Is This A Terrible Event Or A Catalyst?
All of the above are examples of terrible events happening to people on any given day, right?
It’s likely that if any were you you would be cursing your lack of judgment and probably wallowing in self pity for a period of time.
But the reality is we have no way of knowing how bad a situation is at the time.
We have all had things happen to us that we thought were ‘catastrophic’ when they happened and turned out to be life changing events for the better.
Did you know that a great many people who recover from cancer are grateful that they went through the disease because they think it made them a stronger person?
If you can acknowledge cancer as a life affirming event, what can’t be viewed that way?
So why do most people immediately assume the worst?
Reframing and Cognitive Reappraisal
There is a technique used in coaching called reframing (it’s also called cognitive reappraisal in therapy and it the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT).
It’s probably the most powerful tool in self development and one I highly advise you practice and practice until it becomes almost part of your DNA.
Reframing allows us to take control of how we view a situation. It’s not positive thinking (or at least not in the traditional sense) because we never change the events themselves (that would be delusional), just the way we view them.
If I were to take you favorite picture and put a hideous gold and purple frame studded with fake diamonds round it, it’s going to effect the way you view your previous favorite piece of art.
Yet I haven’t actually touched the painting, just reframed it.
You can do this with literally any event in your life, and I do mean any event this side of your own death.
I reframed the death of my dad who I adored, by being thankful that he wasn’t in pain for long and that I was lucky enough to have him in my life for over 40 years.
In the first story above, you sure can wallow and worry about being out of work.
Or you can see it as a huge opportunity to pour all your efforts into starting your own business on your own terms.
It’s either a disaster that will drag you down or a massive opportunity that will fire you up depending on how you frame your view point.
Spotting The Opportunity In The Negative
Finding out you boyfriend is married certainly sucks, but hey, maybe it means a guy that’s even better suited for you is just around the corner and you would have missed him otherwise.
Four weeks with your arm in plaster isn’t fun, but perhaps it gives you some ‘you’ time. Maybe you can read those books you’ve been meaning to catch up on, or learn to meditate which is a skill that will serve you a life time.
Just before I became a full time coach back in 2005 I was told I had been given a job.
It was very high paid in IT sales and would represent the culmination of something I had been working towards for ten years.
After I chose my car and started negotiating with HR I had to go for a meeting with the CEO.
To this day I have no idea what I did wrong or what happened, but the job offer was rescinded.
I was devastated and not ashamed to admit almost in tears when I got the phone call.
I didn’t know what reframing was in those days and I held my own personal pity party for the next two weeks or more.
Well guess what? It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It pushed me into reassessing what I really wanted to do with my life and I realized it really wasn’t sales.
If that meeting had gone well I wouldn’t have become a Life Coach and I’d probably be stressed senseless as I always had been in sales.
If only I’d known about reframing I could have saved myself two weeks or more of inaction and feeling sorry for myself.
What’s causing you mental anguish at the moment that may be you could reframe? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Thanks for you reply. Totally Agree. i may have misunderstood how you reframed – there is so much out there around reframing which boils down to moralizing … I use direct reframe but only when I totally understand their value system and what they’ve done so far to deal with the issue – because I use Palo Alto Strategic and systemic coaching which is a different technique and uses more direct ericksonian type approaches.
You’re right that reframing is super powerful but I would say that its usage needs to be time sensitive.
To take an extreme example, telling someone who’s just lost his job or his parent “you were badly treated anyway” or “he was in great pain so he’s better of know” it totally relevant BUT, I would argue not particularly helpful around the actual event. Because that attempted reframe could be perceived as negating their feeling of loss, sadness and hence increasing their feeling of inadequacy for feeling this. Potentially causing them to increase the intensity of the original feeling. In your example of your own situation, you know now not getting the job was the right thing for you but I doubt you saw that 1 week after the event.
I see many people who are totally stuck exactly because they are trying to reframe something too soon and that’s a shame because it’s a very powerful tool.
In coaching I’d say the role of the coach is to help the client find the reframe themselves by subtle question asking and not supply one.
Do I think it’s possible that the effects you talk about can happen? Sure, but it’s not something I ever *remember* encountering with a client. It could have and I have just forgotten, but it’s certainly very rare. OTOH if coaches just blurt out the reframe themselves because it makes sense to them, then I’d say that it’s more likely to have a negative impact.
Great post with strong message. Thanks
I so love this post, you have no idea! My sorry story in a nutshell: my elderly father with Alzheimer’s is living with me and he is precious and so well meaning, but man, does he do some daft things. Intellectually I know his brain is physically not working very well, but I still get irritated. Then I feel like the worst person to ever walk the planet, because really, I should know better. After mulling your post over, the only reframe I could come up with was that instead of seeing my irritation as yet ANOTHER failure in the being patient game, I could see it as being ‘In Training’ for being more patient. It did take the sting out of it a bit but any suggestions would be most welcome.
Tania, I went through the same with my mum. Irritation is natural on occasions unless you’re a saint.
My reframe would be that you are working to improve on your patience whilst accepting that you’re human and reacting in a perfectly normal human way and not like the scum of the earth.