Skip to main content

The power of reframing



If you ask most kids to clean up their room, they're going to say, "No way", or be out  the door before you can finish your sentence. But when I was little, my older sister had an ingenious way of getting us to pick up the house. 



Image result for king and queen old photo
We'd be hanging out in the living room, and suddenly Sherry (my older sister) would announce, "Would you guys like to play "king and queen' ?" We would leap to our feet, all excited, and ready to go. 

She would then exclaim  in solemn tones, "King, I command you to go over and pick up that stuffed teddy bear"- or whatever the thing lying around was- and I would reply,  "Yes, your majesty", and run off to pick up the aforementioned item. Then it would be my little sister's turn. She would take her order and  run to pick up the next thing- and in a few minutes, the whole living room  would be clean, and my sister had achieved her goal of a tidy living space. 

 In her creative way, my sister had "reframed" an arduous task, and turned it into a special activity that others  were eager to do. Not only did she get her work done by someone else-  we had fun doing it. That's the power of reframing. (For an example of this in literature, see Mark Twain's famous chapter in Tom Sawyer, where Tom gets his buddies to paint a fence). 
Cognitive restructuring is the fancy term psychologists use for the process of reframing or rethinking events. The goal is to help people by teaching them alternative ways of thinking about things, ways that might have more healthy and positive outcomes. 


In the example above, my sister could have just yelled at us and said, "OK you punks... it's time to clean the house. Get on it, before I give you hell!".... Instead, by reframing the job as a game, she tapped our creative imaginations and role playing skills, which most kids love. 
In his book, Growing Up Mindful, Christopher Willard cites a famous study by play expert, Lev Vygotsky.  Lev asked four year olds to stand still for as long as they could -which they could do for a few minutes. But when he asked them to imagine themselves as guards at a factory, they could stand about four  times as long. 


Reframing can be very powerful when it comes to managing emotions like anxiety and stress. Nearly 20% of Americans, struggle with anxiety, and there are some powerful ways to reframe that emotion. 


Consider these phrases for reframing anxiety:



My anxiety isn't dangerous- just a nuisance. It will pass


I'm not anxious, I'm excited!


It's just my body/ brain stem  doing its thing


This is nothing 


Notice how in all of them, anxiety is reimagined- as either a pesky little event that will pass, or even more positively, as excitement.

Perhaps the most powerful way to reframe a stressful situation is by thinking of others.

Anxiety is often a byproduct of thinking about the self- protecting our self image, or hoping to project an image for others to admire. If that image is threatened, we can feel immense discomfort- similar in physiology to how we feel when we are truly in danger, like by being hit by a speeding car. When people fear public speaking, it's not death they fear, but shame or embarrassment: a blow to their self -image.

But if we go into a situation with a mindset of service, or thinking of helping others in even a small way (like making the speech about serving others) , then we have left the island of self, and will be much more comfortable. Or even if we continue to be uncomfortable, we can say along with Marcus Aurelius, "I do my duty; other things trouble me not."

Sounds like something a king might say.










Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Exploration Day: Art from Within

                                                                                                                                                                        On Friday of this week, our entire school took a break from our normal schedule, and instituted a day of "exploration." Teachers were asked to prepare lessons outside of their normal curriculum, and we offered everything from mask-making  to "reading cafe," cooking, "Shrinky Dinks," one-act plays, thoughtful movie watching, and even a trip to the local police station (and much more). Although it was a busy time of the quarter, I decided to embrace it because in fact, "exploration" is exactly what education should be:  less focus on grades or  homework. Just trying new things, and engaging in some reflection to boot.  I've been experimenting with abstract ideas in my own art, so I decided to try it with my students, entitling my workshop, "Intuitive Drawing." We be

The art of doing nothing

Enlightenment comes in many shapes and sizes. The classic story of St. Paul on the road to Damascus, or the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree, or  Sir Isaac Newton getting hit  on the head with an apple, come to mind as examples of  insights that changed the course of history.  Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash      But for most of us, insights come in more modest packaging. And  like the previous examples, they can come after months or years of preparation.  Suddenly, one day, we see something differently that changes our lives.  I recall a moment  many years ago,  when something I knew intellectually, abstractly, I suddenly knew with my whole being.   One of my own breakthroughs came as I was sitting on a noisy bus.  I had been struggling with anxiety, and here I was again, feeling jittery.  And then, it hit me:  I don't have to do anything. I can just let these feelings be there.  Bam.  Years of striving to find the right  way to cope with my emotions  just seemed to

Working skillfully with the teenage mind

Mindfulness in the classroom sounds like a good idea on paper.  Take a break. Let kids breathe. Listen to the bell. Follow your thoughts. Simple, right?  Maybe... or maybe not.  Anyone who has worked with teenagers knows that even the best lesson plan can go awry, or that a teacher can encounter unexpected resistance from unexpected quarters. Then the teacher is dealing with the resistance of the student, and possibly,  their own irritation at the  student's "misbehavior." Resisting resistance! Jeremy Squires is a veteran social studies teacher at Highview, and recently shared how he deals with students who don't want to "follow the program" during mindfulness time (also called, "brain break").  Paradoxically, he found, by allowing kids to opt out of the exercise, it  gave  them permission to participate-while letting them save face in the process. His discovery  also reminds us of the self-consciousness that many kids feel at this age. Here'