🖼️ Change the Frame, Change the Feeling

☀️ Sol Bites: 10 Frame-Reframe Pairs to Try

🦉 Words of Wisdom

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Change the Frame, Change the Feeling

You know how you can take a photo and change what you see in it by cropping it differently? There's a way to apply the same concept to your life. Psychologists call it reframing, and it helps you change what you look at when something bad happens, allowing you to move your attention to a different part of the situation.

Here is a quick example of how it works: Let's say you fail a test and you feel like an idiot.

If you reframe the situation, you leave the "F" alone and try to see something else. You might focus on what the test can teach you, or remind yourself it is one test out of many. You change where you put your attention.
You could also take a restructuring approach, meaning you take the thought "I am stupid" and reshape it into "I studied the wrong way, and I can fix that." Now, you've changed the initial thought itself.

Both techniques help-they just work in different ways. Let's focus on how to turn reframing into an emotional superpower.

Sol Bites: 10 Frame-Reframe Pairs to Try

A good way to start is with frame-reframe pairs. Each pair below shows a common default thought (the frame) and a better thought (the reframe).

Solving → Validating. When you or someone you love is hurting, try not to quickly fix the problem. Instead, just name the painful feeling and accept it.
Moral → Mechanical. When someone upsets you or does or says something you don't approve of, ask what in their life might explain it instead of deciding they're a bad person.
Threat → Challenge. When you feel scared, treat the thing you fear as a challenge to face, not a danger to avoid.
Failure → Feedback. After you make a mistake, admit that you did it, then focus on what insight it provides you.
Trees → Forest. When one small detail traps you, step back and look at the whole picture.
Forest → Trees. When a big project overwhelms you, zoom in on one small task for a while.
Passenger → Driver. When you feel like a victim of bad luck or other people, ask what you can actually control.
Should → Want. When you have a strict demand (I should, they should), trade it for a flexible wish (I want, I want them to).
Permanent → Passing. When a painful feeling seems like it will last forever, remind yourself that it will likely pass.
Outputs → Inputs. When you set a goal, instead of hyper-fixating on getting your results, focus on the controllable actions you can take that will lead to those results over time.

As you think about how to apply these reframes, remember you don't need to make all of those shifts right away. Pick the one or two that match the frame traps you fall into most. The goal is not to find the "right" thought every time. The goal is to notice your default frame and remember you can choose another way to look at things. That choice is the superpower, and it grows each time you practice it.

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Words of Wisdom

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If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Wayne Dyer

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