When we reframe things, we gain a better perspective with the things happening around us. April Shprintz shares how you can start reframing things, especially during the most challenging and frustrating moments.
Check out April’s Reframing playlist: http://bit.ly/4myKXeb
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Reframes & Fire Alarms
I am so glad you’re here. Have you ever had an amazing photo taken of yourself by a professional photographer? You know what I’m talking about. It’s one of those photos where you’re like, “Is that me? Do I look that good?” One of the things you might notice is that when they get that amazing photo, it’s because they turn the camera a certain way. They have a different angle than you normally would.
It’s all about the photographer’s perspective that they’re taking on you that gives you this beautiful picture. Guess what? You can use the same technique to get a perspective on your life and the situations that are happening. That is exactly what we’re doing when we reframe things. We’re changing our perspective so that we can feel better about what’s happening and be in a position to gather solutions much more easily.
Reframing During A Fire Evacuation
It has been too long since we talked through some reframe practice. I want you to do this as much as possible, because the more that you practice reframes on your own and see different examples from me, the more easily your unconscious mind is going to be trained to do it for you automatically. I had such a great example of this. I was in Hilton Head doing a speaking event. I was at this beautiful resort and had gone to bed late. I tend to get excited when I’m going to do workshops like this. I can’t quite fall asleep. I had only been asleep for maybe 1 hour, 2 hours at the most, when all of a sudden, I heard this awful noise, which was the fire alarm, and the instructions that we all needed to evacuate the building. It’s 1:30 in the morning.
I grab some things quickly, like my wallet, my phone, and some water. I figured if the whole place burns down, I’ll still be able to take care of whatever I need to. I head out of the building. As I’m heading out of the building and experiencing this, I’m noticing all the ways I’m automatically reframing what’s happening.
As I go down the stairs to get outside, there’s a woman who has a couple of dogs. They’re too big for her to hold both of them, so I offer to take one of them downstairs for her. I love dogs, so I feel good about helping with that animal. When we get outside, it isn’t raining. It has been raining on and off that whole day, so I thought, “What a blessing that it isn’t raining while this is going on.”
The more you practice reframes on your own, the more easily your unconscious mind will be trained to do it for you automatically. Share on XWhen we were out there, we were only out there for maybe 45 minutes total, which is awesome. That’s not that long for something like that because there was a fire. No one was hurt. That was wonderful. While I’m out there, I’m entertaining myself by seeing how many other people are in animal print pajamas. I felt like we were in a secret club.
I kept reframing and finding all these little things to focus on that felt good instead of doing what I would’ve done a few years prior, which was disasterize and worry about the fact that I’m not getting any sleep, so I’m not going to do well for everyone tomorrow. What if we don’t even have the conference because there’s a huge fire? What if all of the things that I have with me get ruined? It’s easy to spiral and go in that direction, but practicing reframes allows your unconscious mind to start pointing out things that are good and that will make you feel better about a situation automatically.
I want to practice them as much as possible. That’s an important part for this one. Reframing things, practicing it with other people, watching television shows, and trying to see how something could be working out for you or someone else helps you in these tense situations. A lot of times, you don’t know how it’s working out for you, but you figure that it will.
I’m going to go back to the earlier example where you would probably say, “How did that fire drill work out for you?” Every time you do a speaking engagement or you’re meeting a whole bunch of people, you’re always trying to find common ground with them. You’re trying to find a way that you can relate so that they can hear the information that you want even easier, even better. We had something we could bond about because every single person who was at that conference experienced the same thing that night. In being able to crack a couple of jokes about it, we were able to build a rapport that allowed folks to learn even better at the conference.
Check Out April’s Reframing Playlist
Here’s my assignment for you. If you haven’t been practicing reframing that much, I want you to start reframing situations. They don’t even have to be yours. Reframe situations you see happen to other people in your mind. Reframe situations that you see on television. If reframing isn’t something you’ve practiced a whole lot, I have a reframing playlist that you can click through and listen to all the episodes I have on reframing. I will take you through the full reframing process several times. I’ll give you tons of examples in short episodes like this one, so that you can learn how to do this more easily and lead yourself to having a more peaceful, happier experience every single day. Here’s to your success.
