Framing (and Reframing) your Experiences

Framing is a description of how your mind captures and perceives your experiences or circumstances on a moment by moment basis. Continuously while you are awake, events are occurring around you and your brain is trying to make sense of them. Your senses receive various stimuli and your mind builds a picture of this moment. Up to 90% of that experience is how the mind framed or pictured it, and as little as 10% is objective reality. 

As upwards of 90% of a moment is a matter of perception and framing, that means you have a lot of opportunity to make your present reality (NOW) wonderful, painful, awful, joyful or many other emotions in-between. What frame of mind you start with is powerful. 

What is your default tone? Is it positive or negative, awesome or awful, optimistic or pessimistic? You are your own spin doctor and that initial spin taints everything.

One of the more insightful books on wellness that I have read is by Martin Seligman and it is called ‘Learned Optimism’. Seligman, backed by substantial research findings, suggests that you can activity learn how to frame (or reframe) your circumstances to view them in a more positive light. 

Experiment with whatever you are doing at this moment. How many ways could this moment be captured? Frame it as many different ways as you can imagine. Practice reframing your first impressions. Watch your initial reflexes: are they helpful or harmful? Deliberately, consciously and vocally put a positive spin on your present moment. Find that “silver lining” of your NOW. Yes, it is raining BUT the plants are pleased. Yes, X is a difficult person BUT they are in a tough place. YES BUT...

After a while constructive and affirmative re-framing and framing will become a mindful habit.

Developing an Attitude of Gratitude

Developing an attitude of gratitude is an essential ingredient in my recipe for wellness.

It is a deliberate and conscious exercise of being, acknowledging the wonderful portions of your current circumstance, whatever that might be.

Not everything in this moment is awesome, but if you look about you there are certainly a few good things happening to or around you. If you are not used to thinking in this way, it is a good idea to keep a gratitude journal and to make yourself note down at least three things you have to be grateful for each day. Appreciate these good things and be mindful of them – the more you practice this attitude, the easier it becomes, until it becomes a habit of mind. Developing this attitude of mind can be hard and it requires effort, but it is so worthwhile.

Consciously challenge yourself to experience these better or more wonderful aspects of your present moment, your now. Make it a habit to pause in thankfulness. Share these thoughts with friends and colleagues, if this feels appropriate. Encourage and engage those near to you to share their blessings. Your life and your circle of friends will be blessed by your more positive attitude. 

Being joyful is an active and engaged state of being; wellness does not exist in a vacuum. Having an attitude of gratitude makes your joy deeper, more profound and re-generating. You know you are in a moment of joy because you are praising that moment in an active way.

Openness is essential as you should be deliberately aware and looking out for your good fortune and blessings.

Recounting the happiness and bounty you have experienced makes you the keener to re-experience that now moment again, but in a different way. What is repeated is the joyfulness.

Gratitude causes joy to synergize and multiply.

A Smaller Cup

When looking at your life, I am sure that you have heard the question, “Is your cup half full or half empty?”  It is a simple query that suggests whether you are an optimist (half full) or a pessimist (half empty). Using this question, it is implied that you can be classified into one of two camps, but can we rephrase our response?

Imagine if the cup were smaller, then it would be fuller with the same amount of liquid. So a better reply might be, “This cup is just too big. I need a smaller cup.”  Instead of being half full or half empty, you now receive a much more generous looking portion. 

In life, by reframing a situation, by simply changing our expectations, we can change our attitudes and create more joy in our lives. Some of us expect so much from life that we cannot help but be left wanting – nothing is ever quite enough to satisfy. By expecting less (having a smaller cup), we will be more happy and content with the good things that come our way.

Picture and experience how this reframing of the half a cup question changes the answer; the cup is now over half full.  You are encouraged to feel special, indeed fortunate and blessed.  Can you picture or feel the joy and the calm of the fuller cup sensation, compared to either the half full or the half empty alternative? 

If there is only one take away from everything I ever share with you, may it be this one:

Get a smaller cup, and relish its fullness.