Why Reframing is BS

No matter who you are or where you are on your journey, you might want to read this.

Several years ago I was struggling professionally and emotionally. I kept hearing the same thing from someone significant in my life, “you get to pick how you feel”, “you can choose how you think about this”, “change your mindset” and other variations of the theme that was basically telling me to reframe. The optimal words here are “telling me”, as if I could just go on some website, click a few times, enter my credit card and order up some Reframing (with Free Shipping!).

Well guess what? Reframing isn’t easy for everyone, in fact it’s ridiculously hard for many people. Even if you understand that it’s the best path forward, it can be really challenging to pull an about face, especially if you are already in a downward spiral.

Being a natural skeptic, and wired a little dark, I would ask myself questions like: is reframing about brainwashing yourself, is it about tricking yourself into believing everything is GREAT(!) and, how do I deal with perceived injustices? Pretending they were not there didn’t feel right but the way I was addressing the demons kept me in an endless, dark feedback loop.

Eventually, and with a lot of work, I realized I was giving too much of my energy to things that just didn’t matter. Things like:

• comparing myself to others
• wondering what other people thought about me and my choices
• fear of failure
• being embarrassed by outcomes

After a lot of time, effort and sulky moments I finally realized I needed to, well, reframe my concept of reframing.

Reframing isn’t about the act of forgetting, ignoring or pretending. It is not blind acceptance. It IS about the act of strategically not giving a crap. It is about choosing to spend your time and energy on important topics — things that are worth your time and energy. Because, caring, as it turns out, takes a lot of energy. It can be draining emotionally, creatively and intellectually. And if you can recognize that you only have a finite amount of gas in your tank, you might be able to use your energy on the highest value opportunities that will yield the highest possible rewards.

Once I started giving less of my energy (intellectual and emotional) to the silly stuff, I started feeling better and new opportunities opened up for me.

Spoiler Alert: this was not easy.

Reframing for Beginners

Here are a couple of things I did to get started:

• Slowly dial up your ability to strategically not give a crap. I’m not saying you need to go cold turkey, I’m saying if you would normally obsess over something negative for a whole day, give yourself a full hour to address your feelings and then move on. If it pops back into your head, remind yourself that you’ve already acknowledged the challenge.
• Try “the good thing about that”. This is a little game we played with our kids where instead of focusing on the negative aspect, you think of a positive (for example, it stinks I have to work on Saturday can be replaced with, now I will have some extra spending money).
• Gratitude. The practice of gratitude has many known positive health benefits, even if you don’t think you can, you should give it a go (see this article from a gratitude skeptic)
• Exercise, even a 15 minute walk can change your outlook.

It can take some time to rewire your brain (speaking from experience) but even small changes can have a big impact.