Bad experience? Reframe it!

August 1st, 2008          Email This Post        Print This Post

I noticed a blog post that talked about the dangers of positive thinking. It immediately made me feel queasy - I just wrote a series about positive thinking! I quickly realized that he was referring to “superficial” positive thinking, not reframing.

If you get cut you off on the highway, and see the car continue zipping past others, you will probably be upset, angrily wonder why they in such a rush, and ask what kind of lunatic they are.

A superficial positive thinking approach would suggest to “unconditionally forgive them and respond with love”. That can lead to repressing your negative emotions. You haven’t removed them, only substituted some artificial thought in their place. Those bad feelings can continue to percolate inside you - and I agree, it can be dangerous. It may cause reframing, but not necessarily.

In my post How To Think Positively I suggested reframing. Reframing is when you change the WAY you look at a situation. Find a new lens, so you can interpret the situation differently.

What would change if you knew that car was bringing someone seriously injured to the hospital?

Would you still feel upset and think the driver is crazy? Your feeling would automatically change to hoping that the driver arrive safely and the injured person can get the medical attention he needs, in time. You may still think it’s dangerous for him to be driving so fast, but you know that he must be very concerned about his passenger!

In that post, I suggested two very powerful ways to reframe. If you look for the good in any situation, or possible reasons for what people do, you may no longer be able to call it “bad”. You don’t need to pretend there is no negative, you can now legitimately say that it has a good side. Or you can say there are extenuating circumstances. Both of these let you change the negative thoughts into doubt or even positive thoughts!

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