One of the tools that I love to use with my clients is “reframing” which can be defined as changing your perspective or the meaning that you’ve attached to an experience.  That meaning that we’ve attached to our experiences significantly impacts how we respond to the situation. We can feel stuck in one perspective or we can create new conclusions, feelings and meanings by exploring potential shifts in perspective.

The point of reframing isn’t about pretending that everything is fine or even searching for silver linings in any experience. Reframing is actually about creating a shift in consciousness that allows us to find solutions we couldn’t see before. When we shift consciousness, we’re changing the energy associated with the situation and allowing us to see things differently than before the shift.

Sound like woowoo to you? How about a real life example to get a better grasp of the concept and see how it all works?

Recently during an intense conversation, someone said the following phrase to me: I’d do anything to protect my children. My first reaction was to interpret that statement: it was a gut wrenching, sinking feeling that someone important to me was judging me and calling me a bad mom who never protects her children. My inner nasty voice was repeating that I’m a terrible mom over and over while my irreverent humorous inner voice kept saying “That escalated quickly.”

So let’s take a side break to examine this. Someone else making a statement that they’d do anything to protect their children could have been meant to make me feel bad. It also could have been meant simply that the person would do anything to protect their children. Dare I challenge the thought that the intention behind the statement doesn’t even matter? It doesn’t matter what the intention was, because I can’t change someone else. I only have control over how I deal with anything presented to me. That being said, let’s get back to the example…

Awareness is the first step to being able to reframe. Lucky (?) for me, I have that irreverent voice inside me that tends to cue me to the fact that something is up. I knew once I heard “that escalated quickly” that I was having an intense emotional reaction to what was said to me. Oh hell yes, I felt attacked and then angry. But here’s the kicker. I didn’t want to stay in feeling like a victim and being angry all day (or longer). I wanted to move on. So it was time for some reframing. 

One of my favorite reframing questions to ask is “How true is that for you?” So I asked myself about what the nasty inner voice was telling me over and over again: How true is it that I’m a terrible mom who doesn’t protect her children? The magic is that I KNOW I protect my children in appropriate ways and I work hard to be a good mom. Why? Because I value being a good mom. I value doing my best to help my children be their best people. So, its not very true that I’m a terrible mom that doesn’t protect her children.

What does this question do to me? It makes the perceptive shift. It reminds me of my values and what I am continuously working toward. It makes me be aware that I am not perfect and I make mistakes, but that I’m doing the best I can and try to be better each day. 

That perspective shift of reminding myself these things changes my energy from being a victim and being angry to being back in the place of learning, growth, and more positive energy. Instead of running those nasty voices over and over in my head, I was able to consciously choose how I want to react to this situation. I choose not to remain in those negative feelings and move towards the positive feelings. Because answering that question allowed me to tap back into my values and see my truth, this isn’t a search for the silver lining, it actually changes my energy.

I wanted to bring this to you so when you’re in a situation that has your inner voice saying nasty things to you, one place to start shifting your energy is to ask “how true is this for me?” Allow yourself to tap into your truth and allow the shift to happy so you can find new perspective and create new ways of reacting to the situation.

If you need some help walking through a situation and applying the tool of reframing, I’d love to work with you. Click here to set up a free call.