How Mental Reframing Changed My Life, and Maybe Yours Too.
I like to consider myself an avid thinker, meaning I think more than I speak, and beyond that I dig deeper into my thoughts and into my motives and behavior than I feel most do. Through my mental exploit and time spent driving through life, i’ve found myself bullied, praised, insecure, loved, and a million and one other emotions but the ones that stuck most? the “negative,” that is until I educated myself on a technique called, Cognitive Reframing. In it’s most basic essence, Cognitive Reframing is a technique used to effectively change the way a person views an experience or memory to gain new insight, and potentially relieve stress and negative attachment or emotions. Examples of how effective this was in my own personal life, is for a long time, I would look back on decisions I made, potential relationships that might have been, failed auditions or missed opportunities for better first impressions. The majority of the time feeling like I should have done better! or been more on! and getting fixed on one causal result as if this one thing I obsessed on was the ONLY cause and couldn’t see beyond my own single minded perspective. Through the lens of Cognitive Reframing, I was able to see that the relationships that could have been, sprouted into incredible friendships that I wouldn't change for the world, those failed auditions? left me with experience and a new goal to push myself through and more time to study and do better on the next, and those first impressions? were people that I really shouldn’t have valued so highly in the first place.
Re-Frame your Past, with your Present
by taking all of the knowledge and experience that you have collected throughout your vast life and take that trip inside your mind to shine a light of new perspective and compassion to yourself, don’t let one, negative or fleeting feeling dictate the happiness of an otherwise successful life. Often when we fail at something or otherwise don’t get the result we expect and desired, we shrink down, we feel discouraged and as a result, are less likely to put ourselves out there again for fear of repeating the same outcome, like getting a burn from a hot stove, its self preservation. The only problem is when things that aren’t real threats, but emotional threats that pose no physical threat mill over dozens of times until they BECOME physical and are far more common in this modern life so we need to pro-actively frame and get to the truth of our experiences presently, to live happily and emotionally healthy going forward. The easiest way to achieve this is to follow the example of reframing a past experience, like that time you were 15 minutes late for dinner because you got stuck at work that at the time, felt world shatteringly frustrating. Only to later discover that there was a major highway accident on your daily route that you might have been a part of and a wave of relief washes over you with a realization that maybe there was a reason you got held up at work, that maybe there was another way of spinning or, framing that experience more constructively, challenge each negative thought and search for the glimmer of a more positive view.
Taking the lead of that into the present, the next time a friend isn’t responding to your calls, rather than jump to the “he must be angry at me” mentally zoom out of the situation to see it from afar because to quote the movie, “Now You See Me”, “The closer you are, the less you see.” By allowing yourself to zoom at a distance, you allow yourself freedom from the singular, often worst case and least likely scenario, and step into the world of perspectives and insight that just might make the difference between spending the night stressing about every mistake you have made this decade, and enjoying a night with your family, happy and and hopefully feeling lighter.
Using Intentional Living and Re-Framing to live well
Living Intentionally and taking the time to reframe experiences when needed are some of the finest tools towards living a life designed by you, for you. Intentionally choosing to experience life the way that you choose, not the way your trauma chooses, experiencing your thoughts and body the way you choose, not the way another external being tells you, you should. Living with Intention and keeping the ability to step outside of your perspective and explore the expanse to find the truth, your truth, holds you accountable for your experience and gives you the steering wheel. Drive carefully and always remember that when a negative feeling or thought crosses your concious mind, set yourself up for a better tomorrow by challenging and seeking the truth of each feeling, why you feel this way, what happened that made you react how you have, and what do you need to do, or learn, to change how you will succeed tomorrow?
