Healthy Relationships > Learning & Changing > The Power of Reframing

I once received a note from a man who wrote, "These are the facts, this is what happened, these are the consequences…. and if you disagree with me, then you are refusing to face reality."To whose reality was he referring? And how was it that he was able to escape being a creature of his own history and culture and take a god-like position so as to come to this divinely objective view of reality?

Have you ever sat around with your siblings and discussed past family experiences? How often do you each remember what happened in a totally different light? How often are the details of the experience so contrary to what you each remembered that you secretly said to yourself, "Wow, I had no idea they were all doing drugs at the time…these people have totally rewritten history!" After all, your perceptions of reality ARE the standard for evaluating all other assertions to describing and interpreting reality, aren't they?

Your "frame" is the window through which you see the world.

Do this. Get together with some friends and play the following game. Tell them you will explain the rules of the game after you are situated. While everyone is watching, you walk into the room, go over to a chair, adjust the chair, maybe look at some paper, play with your watch, take your shoes off, and fiddle around for about 5 minutes. No one knows before hand exactly what you are going to do. Do not even tell them they will have to remember what you did. If possible, film yourself.

When you complete the pantomime, instruct everyone to look under their chairs where they will find a piece of paper and a pencil. They have 15 minutes to write down, in sequential order precisely what you did. After the 15 minutes are up, play the video.

How many things do you think people will remember? I have seen this done in a workshop where the trainer did 26 things. The majority of people only remembered 8 of the things that took place.

So, when you look back on your past and say, "I know what happened"-- do you? When you evaluate someone else's actions, even if you remember every single detail, the fact that you did not know what they were thinking or what their intentions were could still cause you to totally misinterpret the event. Could it not?

Do I think that knowing "reality" is impossible? Yes, I do. I believe our perceptions may approximate reality to various degrees but seeing Reality in all of its complexities, mysterious nuances and such? No. And I believe the more we accept this, the more we will temper our "rightness" and interpretations of events and experiences with humility.

But this is not about Truth or truth but about your perceptions of your self and how to change your experiences by merely changing the frame.

Framing

A "frame" is the parameters we place around an event, memory, person, circumstance or relationship that gives it meaning. The frame says, "This means that but not the other." A frame places the picture in context and juxtaposes it with other pictures: in other words, it relates the picture to other pictures so as to say: "This is good/bad; that is a big/small deal; this will make me/happy/sad." Changing the frame will change the experience. Entirely.

The frame we place around an event is not necessarily the only frame available to us. There are probably other frames-often times ones that are more useful and more empowering. It is a mental-trap to think that the frame you originally choose to place around your life or relationships or career is The Frame. Is it possible that what happened (or what is happening) was that your mind unconsciously searched for a frame and choose the first one that bubbled up into your consciousness? Or perhaps you accepted the frame you were given by well-meaning parents or ministers or teachers or counselors?

One sibling remembers her father's "authoritarian behavior" and says, "I am so grateful for his tough love. I was such a mushy minded person…I would never have learned to be self-governing had it not been for him. Thank you dad." Her brother looks at the same dad with the same behavior and says, "Our dad was an abusive tyrant."

Question: Who saw reality? Answer: Who knows?
More useful question: What frame will be more empowering and serve me on my quest?

Am I suggesting that you deny that a parent slapped you or whatever? No. I am suggesting, however, that there are other frames that will serve you better.

One abused child frames the circumstance as a lesson to never trust a man/woman again. Another child with the same experience frames her past as a lesson in how strong of a survivor she is: "Nothing could ever be worse than that and look: I survived. From here on out life will be piece a cake!"

Do you see where I am pointing? feel what I am driving at? hear what I am saying?

You are in an intense discussion with a loved one. In the past, you knew the frame for this argument and that would lead you to certain conclusions, attitudes and choices of behaviors. Rather than using this tactic, try on the following behavior and see what happens.

In your mind's eye, see yourself floating out of your body and into that your loved one. What are they feeling? What are they seeing? What frame are they placing around this event? Go ahead. Pretend to see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel through their senses. What is that they perceiving? What is their frame of reference?

Now, float back out of their body and, as you see yourself floating over the two, mentally stand back from both of you, pretend to look down as a disinterested bystander, maybe an alien from another planet who doesn't know the language being spoken. What do you see? hear? feel?

Now, float back into yourself. If you do this, what will happen is that other choices and interpretations will offer themselves to you. You will have different frames from which to mix and match or, at the very least, use for the purpose of sincere empathy.

This is not a matter of ignoring or denying certain things happened. What I am suggesting here is that you can change your experiences--change your responses-by changing how you frame the events.

How else could reframing be utilized?

What about how frames see your day-to-day activities?

Whatever you do as you encounter and engage in life, remember that there are always other choices, other frames that may be far more useful to your desired outcomes than the one that immediately presents itself.