The Power of the Reframe | Ep. 42
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?
[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek.
[00:00:42] Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host. Brandon Ward. Back with another episode. Of order within episode number 42. Today, we're going to be covering the topic of. The reframe. And the power that it holds for us to deploy in our lives. This is bridging the gap from discussing learn helplessness, which was what we covered in episode 40.
[00:01:11] And then last week we covered, learned optimism. Which is carrying on that conversation around learn helplessness and learn optimism. And things that we can do to understand how we see the world. And the levers that we can start to adjust on and pull to, to make changes that will benefit ourselves.
[00:01:31] To feel more balanced, more meaningful. More at peace within ourselves. The reframe. Is incredible because ultimately it's such a. It can be a shortcut in many ways to the challenges we face. In the problems. We're trying to solve. The way we think about things, the way we look at problems, the way we address our healing.
[00:01:56] Can be substantially shifted when we reframe the way we're thinking about problems or the perspectives that we have. And so that's the essence of what a reframe is. We're going to go over. Understanding reframing. We're going to define reframing. We're going to look at some reframing techniques. We're going to look at the benefits of reframing.
[00:02:15] I'm going to share a few studies on reframing, talk about a few movies and shows, and then we're going to conclude. The episode.
[00:02:23] First thing here. We have the definition of reframing. Reframing is the act of changing the way we interpret and respond to a situation or event. It involves shifting our perspective from negative to positive and viewing challenges as opportunities for growth and development, as opposed to setbacks.
[00:02:46] And be something being wrong. If you will.
[00:02:50] So that's the basic definition of reframing. And how it works. Is it. We changed the way we think about a situation and by changing our beliefs and attitudes towards it. It's a powerful tool to overcome challenges improve our mental health and wellbeing and find fulfillment. In the chaos of the world, which many of us struggle with today? That's the reason, one of the big reasons why I started order within.
[00:03:17] Was just how much people are struggling with depression and anxiety and sadness and isolation. It's a huge reason why I've extended my content into a coaching service because people struggle with this. We don't learn how to care for ourselves. We learn how to go to the gym. We learn how to put on appearances.
[00:03:36] A lot of the fake it till you make it concepts, but that's not authentic expression and it can be very dangerous if we do that. For an extended period of time. So the idea here is we want to leverage reframing so that we can apply it in our life and start to overcome some of these challenges. Start to heal ourselves in a meaningful way.
[00:03:54] That will allow us to have lasting change in our life to, to level up. Our baseline from one of pessimism. And negativity to a more optimistic, positive and hopeful outlook on life, which leads us to being more fulfilled at peace. And finding that meaning that we seek so desperately in our lives, that so many of us seek so desperately.
[00:04:19] The reframing of it. Obviously the benefits of that is that it can help us overcome tough things. Challenging situations and challenging beliefs and how we can actually change our attitude, our beliefs, our perspectives to overcome the madness in the world and to overcome the challenges that we face in our life.
[00:04:38] The power that we hold lives within each of us. And it's our task to activate that power and learn to leverage it in our lives and use it in a meaningful way. To cultivate the. Meaning and purpose that we so desperately seek.
[00:04:55] All right. So let's look at. So you can see how we can use the reframe. In all areas of our life. If we're struggling in an area, if we're struggling with negativity or lack of optimism or hope. This can help us reframe things by thinking about a problem differently, understanding that challenges are opportunities for growth. The growth mindset in general is a huge reframe.
[00:05:22] When we understand how we grow, how we evolve, how we master things. When we recognize that the process. Involves us making mistakes. Learning how to adjust because the mistakes show us the correct way to move forward. When we make mistakes, we're learning and we can pivot and we can collect that knowledge over time. We become masters.
[00:05:41] That's the process that we go through. When we learn, we engage and we're open to the process of growing and learning. It's very difficult. If we're not open to that. And that's what reframing can help us with.
[00:05:56] So the first one here, reframing technique that we have is the street three step reframing process. So the first thing to do is identify the limiting belief or negative thought. So you gotta become aware of it first. It could be a negative self-talk loop such as I'm not good enough, or I can't do this, or I.
[00:06:16] Don't have the skills. I'm not worthy. I don't have the abilities. I'm not creative. I'm not smart. It's all of these. Absolute statements. So we have to start recognizing first and foremost, this, the statements that we're making about ourselves. In an absolute way. This is the permanence that we talked about.
[00:06:35] Uh, last week relative to our explanatory style. And learned optimism. It's personalization. The permanence and the pervasiveness of this. So the permanence here is what we're talking about. We want to identify those beliefs that we believe are permanent and negative. Then we can start to unpack them. So the I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I'm not smart enough.
[00:07:02] That's a statement that says. It's like that always, I'm not smart enough. I can't do this. I'm not good enough. That's a. Always statement. So we want to start to work on. Reframing that, but first we identify that belief. So we start there now, the second step is to challenge. That belief and find evidence to the contrary.
[00:07:27] It's important to challenge the limiting belief and find evidence that proves it's not true. For example. If you believe. I'm not good enough. You can ask yourself what are some reasons? What are some things I've done well in the past? Or what do others see in me that I don't see in myself? That's actually a really great question.
[00:07:47] Because most of us will have a person or a friend or someone in our life that, that enjoys us. That looks up to us. What, how does that person view us? Think about that. And also think about the things that we have done. Good in our lives. What are some things that we've accomplished? Don't judge yourself here, be open and honest. It doesn't matter.
[00:08:08] What have we done in school? What have we done in our personal life? Have we developed a skill that we feel proud of? We just need to think about some things that we can start to identify and recognize that it's not true, that I'm not good enough and that I can't do this because in my life. I've shown areas. I've shown it to be true otherwise. So we have to start identifying those things to truthfully say, that's not true. Here's evidence on the contrary.
[00:08:35] And then the final step there is to replace that limiting belief with a new empowering belief.
[00:08:41] It's to
[00:08:44] replace the I'm not good enough to reframe it to something as I have strengths and skills that I can bring to any situation. So instead of I'm not good enough. I do have strengths. I do have skills that I can bring to any situation. I have abilities and I've used them in my life. In the past. These are moments that I recall using them.
[00:09:03] I can do things. I am capable. I have abilities. I have talents now. This is a process. What I find to be very helpful too, is going a layer deeper. This is where inner bonding can become very powerful as well. Is exploring why we may feel those things in the first place, getting to the root of empathy.
[00:09:24] Because it's not about rehashing all this stuff that we struggled with when we were younger, it's more about cultivating compassion and empathy for the things that we experienced when we were young, the perspectives that we have. And understanding them now. So that the adult that's. In the driver's seat today can reflect back and go back to that child.
[00:09:46] That still lives within us and start to heal and help them grow and repair the damages and wounds that have happened in our past. We all have them. We all have these wounds of some kind. There are ways. That all of us were not accepted fully as we are. And that's completely okay. That's normal. This is part of the process of becoming human and learning about who we are. And.
[00:10:08] Activating ourselves. This is the journey that we go through of on self-mastery. And so by doing that, We can start to slowly understand what's happening and where these things are coming from, and then begin to reframe them. Once we challenge those ideas. But we have to first start with recognition.
[00:10:24] We then have to challenge that belief to find the evidence to the contrary. And then we work to replace it. And we do that. Consistently we're gonna have bad days. We're gonna miss. We're going to forget. We're going to fall back into old habits. That's okay. Be kind to yourself know that that's okay.
[00:10:42] So start small, be gentle. And build from there. So that's a three-step reframing technique that we can look at. You can do this in real life situations, too. A person who feels overwhelmed by work can reframe their situation by focusing on the tasks they have completed. Rather than what they still need to do. So again, it's remembering that we can do stuff. We have done stuff.
[00:11:04] And recognizing what we've done and then feeling good about what we've accomplished and then focusing, shifting our focus to the things that we have to do, and then doing one thing at a time, just pick one thing off that to do list. And work at it. I know there's a million things you gotta do. It can be overwhelming. Just pick one and work on it. That's it don't think about anything else. Pick one and just start working towards it.
[00:11:27] This is how we progress.
[00:11:30] If you're anxious about public speaking. You can reframe that fear as excitement and view it as an opportunity to showcase their skills and knowledge. And you can recognize that that anxiety and energy that you feel. Is your body getting excited. About the experience that you're about to have the power that you're about to hold.
[00:11:49] Public speaking can actually be a lot of fun. You can take in all that energy. You can command a crowd, you can be entertaining, you can engage people. It can be a lot of fun. So you can envision yourself as a powerful person in that moment, as opposed to being someone afraid. I've done this a lot. I used to be terrified to speak in public.
[00:12:08] I would freeze up every time. But I work to reframe it. I wanted to reframe how I thought about. Public speaking and what it could be in the experience that I could have and slowly through practice and. Doing it. These are things we have to do, right? It's not just thinking about it. We have to reframe and then take action. That's a key thing because that anchors this new reframe. So taking action is critical out of this.
[00:12:33] So we can do it like that. The. It's the big part of it is too though, is when we're looking at our daily live and how applying the reframe in our daily life. So much of it is becoming aware of our thoughts and negative self-talk that's the first bit. This is why I'm such a believer in journaling.
[00:12:52] Cause we can start to identify some of these thoughts that we have regularly. These. This negative self-talk loops that we find ourselves in.
[00:13:01] Identifying them, writing them out and becoming aware of them can help us start to diffuse them and break apart their power. When we're unaware of them, they operate without resistance and therefore grow. It's when we start to change our awareness about it and apply our awareness, that things begin to change and we start to feel better because our awareness is healing.
[00:13:22] Our consciousness. Heals us. So when we apply it to ourselves, we can start to heal, but we have to do it with our full intention and we have to be present and be caring. And that. That's the effort. As we have to be kind and present. With ourselves.
[00:13:39] So going through again, starting that awareness and then starting to ask yourself to challenge those limiting beliefs to help reframe them. Are they actually true? We will find that when we really explore what's happening, the self-talk that we're. Doing with ourselves. So much of it is not true, or maybe it was true at one point, but it's not true anymore. There were a lot of things that I believe when I was a kid.
[00:14:01] About the power that I didn't have because I was a kid and I depended on adults that were true when I was a child that I still held true as an adult that we're no longer true. I'm not a powerless kid. I don't have to rely on other people. I can go out in the world and do things. So that process started to help reframe how I thought about myself.
[00:14:21] And truths that were once true, no longer applied. So I started to re work them. So this is a process that we can do to go through. It's by challenging those thoughts. And. Building that habit of reframing them around the negatives to the positive. So always identifying positives out of that negative doing one, if there's a negative aspect, find something positive from it.
[00:14:44] Even if it's a lesson, even it was a mistake we made. So let's say I have. Very negative habit of drinking too much. The positive would be. I realize that my hangovers are terrible. I feel like crap. But they're showing me. I need to adjust my behavior. So the positive is. My body's signaling to me that I'm tired and burnt out. And.
[00:15:11] Hung over. And we need to make a change so that negative can actually be a positive to inspire us to move forward and make changes to explore. Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I doing to this to myself? So that can be a positive. Out of a negative. We can work to find the silver lining in those scenarios to learn from them and move forward.
[00:15:34] And then a last one here is just to surround yourself with supportive people who encourage empower you. The beautiful thing about the time we live in now is the internet is available to us. We can build communities. No matter where we live. We have the internet and we have access to it. We can start to make connections and build community. So find your tribe.
[00:15:51] On LinkedIn on Twitter, on Facebook, wherever it may be. Find your tribes, Reddit, it doesn't matter. Just find
[00:15:58] people that you align with. Find the people that you're inspired by and you want to learn from, get around them. Lean into them. Follow them. Consume their stuff.
[00:16:07] learn, engage and grow.
[00:16:10] We have all this connection right around us. And I think we forget that sometimes it's easy to forget that with the way. The world operates.
[00:16:19] All right. Let's look at some benefits of reframing. So one of the biggest thing that we're going to look at is going to be an increased resilience and coping skills for tough situations. Reframing helps individuals adopt a more positive outlook on life and improves their ability to handle stress and challenges and enables them to focus on the positive aspects of a situation and find creative solutions to a problem.
[00:16:45] Instead of dwelling in the negative. We're looking for opportunities. We're looking for challenges to overcome. We're looking for ways to enhance our thinking and find new solutions. So problems become opportunities for growth. And evolution, not things to fear to run away from. So it's going to increase our resilience and our coping skills to handle negative situations because life happens and we all go through them and we really get a sense of our inner state, our inner mental health, when things go really bad in our life and how well we handle it or don't handle it.
[00:17:19] That's an indicator of our inner world. And if you're going through some tough things right now, and you're struggling. Going within maybe a great time and a great way to create some balance and.
[00:17:32] Peace in your life.
[00:17:34] It has improved mental health and wellbeing. Reframing can help individuals overcome negative thoughts, reduce anxiety and depression and improve their overall mental health and wellbeing. The wonderful thing is now. Is modern science and research has shown us that depression is so much connected to now there's biological elements of this, but so much of it is connected to our beliefs.
[00:17:55] And if we believe we have no power. Then naturally we will find ourselves in a state of depression. That is the result of believing. We have no power. We have no impact. If that were true though, it's often not naturally. We are depressed. We are sad. We are down. Because we believe we have no power to change anything.
[00:18:16] Challenging those ideas and understanding that there is almost nothing that can't be changed in life and ourselves and our circumstances. And it's just the willingness to get after it commit to it. And bit by bit. Make progress. You just have to start to believe that change is possible. You have to at least believe in the hope that change is possible. And I promise you, it is.
[00:18:37] You just have, you don't have to believe it necessarily. You just have to hold it. Just a mustard seed of faith is. Is what we're is, what we're told is all we need. That means just a little bit, just a tiniest amount can go a long way. Can move mountains, right? The mustard seed size faith can move mountains. We just need that tiny bit of hope.
[00:18:57] And the last thing is here is just a more positive outlook on life. By changing the way we think about ourselves in the world around us reframing can help us develop a more positive outlook on life, which leads to greater happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment in our personal and professional lives. Honestly, that's what we all want. And that's really what this is about.
[00:19:13] It's not about feeling bad about who we are comparing ourselves to. Other people is all about being. The fullest version of ourselves. Feeling and experiencing fulfillment within ourselves, experiencing that inner peace, experiencing that inner confidence and serving the world in a meaningful way that, that matters to us.
[00:19:33] Connecting with our fellow human brothers and sisters. And making a difference. Ultimately, that's what it's about.
[00:19:41] All right. So a couple of studies here. On reframing.
[00:19:45] So reframing has been found to improve psychological well-being reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and increase life satisfaction. This is from the. Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for retraining your brain by Susan, J Ashbrook and Jennifer L Wilde in 2012. The great thing is that's what I was saying earlier. All this stuff is now being validated by modern science and research. So it's not just the woo woo stuff. We really know tangibly how our brains operate our reward systems.
[00:20:16] And how reframing our perspectives actually influence our brains. And our experience.
[00:20:23] Another study conducted by researchers at the university of Pennsylvania found that individuals who engage in reframing experience increased resilience. Lower levels of stress and improved coping skills compared to those who don't use reframing techniques. This is from reframing resilience, cognitive behavioral perspective by Sona Dimidjian, 2003.
[00:20:45] And then last. Reframing has been found to be an effective tool for overcoming negative thoughts and improving self-esteem. A study conducted by researchers at Stanford university found the individuals who regularly engaged in reframing, experienced an increase in self-esteem. And a reduction in negative thoughts.
[00:21:04] This is coming from reframing the mind, the benefits of cognitive restructuring, Stanford psychology journal, 2005.
[00:21:12] So we know we can do this. This is literally the science of mental change, which is incredible. And. All this is sitting here waiting for us. At the helm for us to leverage.
[00:21:25] All right. So one of my favorite things to do. It's to not only look at the signs and what research is showing us, but also look to culture. And the arts. For things that we can learn from. And one of the ways that I love to do that is to talk about movies and shows.
[00:21:42] That reflect some of these concepts. And I listed out a few movies here. And one show, which is an interesting one.
[00:21:51] It's just I'm just going to share them with you all. But so the first one is going to be the pursuit of happiness. It's a movie starring will Smith that tells a story of a man who uses reframing to overcome obstacles and achieve his dreams. Now in this movie, him and his son go through a lot of like they're homeless.
[00:22:09] He's trying to sell these medical devices. He is struggling. With very little luck. And he has these very powerful moments of sadness, pain, struggling. But through the movie, he works on his mindset and continues to press forward. Eventually becoming a very successful. Sales rep and then moving on to do a bunch of other really cool stuff as a human it's it's based on a real guy.
[00:22:33] And The movie is. And so he, in that movie though leverages the power of the reframe to get through challenging times, press forward and deployed in his life. Great example of that. Another one, which is a really fun Pixar film. Is inside out and it's an animated movie. That goes over our emotions and how we experienced them as children. And the biggest thing about that movie is that.
[00:22:59] They were losing their joy and sadness was taking over everything and they were trying to keep them apart. But what they came to realize is that. Much of our joy comes from the potential and those sad moments. Like they are. It's the ability to combine our joy and sadness that make for these incredible enriching experiences and memories.
[00:23:19] So by reframing our emotions instead of thinking so polarized. Reframing to see that sadness. Works together with joy to bring about balance in this beautiful depth, the life that we get to experience when we embrace the quote unquote negative. And so in this instance, negative would be sadness.
[00:23:38] It's a great movie about reframing our perspective on emotions and how we manage our emotions. This is the one I was talking about too here breaking bad. So Walter. Walter does a huge reframe. He's a high school chemistry teacher. He ends up getting diagnosed with cancer and then in order to leave his family.
[00:23:59] Behind a successful legacy, he decides to become a methamphetamine producer. And sell. An insane amount of methamphetamine. But the concept here is, is that he goes from a high school chemistry teacher. To producing this insane level of methamphetamines. And now I'm not encouraging you to do that. That's obviously I don't encourage methamphetamine usage or production of illegal drugs.
[00:24:23] The concept here is about the show. And how he applied the reframe, even though he applied it. In a negative way that ended up not being so well for him or his family didn't turn out very well for him or his family. If you've seen that show, you know what I mean? But reframing can be powerful, even when used and not so good scenarios.
[00:24:44] All right, the last one here or two. I'm sorry. We've got a beautiful mind. And this is a biographical movie showcases the power of reframing. As the main character overcomes schizophrenia and goes on to win a Nobel prize in economics. So he takes this incredibly, usually negative experience like schizophrenia. He has this incredible mind. That's why it's called a beautiful mind.
[00:25:06] The way he can work numbers. And solve things in his head, the way he sees patterns. And.
[00:25:14] It's a very powerful Russell Crowe plays this role, the character in the movie. It's a great movie though, and taking a very negative. Usually downward trending scenario and turning it into something beautiful and leveraging his mind a beautiful mind to go on and help. With the world of economics and increase and expand our knowledge.
[00:25:37] Around. Economics and how the economy works. It's an incredible movie. It's a very powerful movie. It's been a while since I've seen it, but it's one of those ones that's very touching. And it's nice that it's based on real life. So you can see how this. Is deployed. Transforming the negative into the positive.
[00:25:53] And then the last one, a little lighter, a little funner. The secret life of Walter Mitty. And this movie explores the power of reframing as the main character escapes from his mundane life and goes on the journey of self discovery all within his own imagination. Like he reframes every scenario in these very boring mundane situations. Now he does a bit of things where he's escaping his boring life.
[00:26:13] So there is a limit here. Where we don't want to get to the point to work, escaping our lives. We want to reframe and then build. So we can make our life a reality. These dreams, a reality, but Walter Mitty uses the power of reframing in his imagination to envision a life that he truly desires. And to align more with what he wants in his life.
[00:26:36] All right.
[00:26:39] Reframing is a simple but powerful tool. And when we understand how we can use it in our life, we can leverage it in very. Challenging times, negative times tough situations. The reframe has the ability to transform our life, to turn pain. And misery and sadness. Into power and to triumph. And to glory.
[00:27:00] It's a process. But it's integrating our shadow self, our negative selves, whatever we want to call it, integrating our wounds into one. This is the process of transformation. It's the rising of the Phoenix, as they say, it's when we. Become our merging of selves become one, both our dark and our light cells become one.
[00:27:19] And in that process, we find power. Reframing. Enables us to do that. It teaches us how to do that. And it's a tangible means to leverage it. And our life in big ways and small ways, which over time, add up. And create a lot of power in the way. We live and move.
[00:27:38] All right, John.
[00:27:42] So I hope you're enjoying the show. I hope you're learning from them. I got some, I got a really great message. From an older lady. A lady in her seventies, if you're listening, I appreciate your comments and feedback. It's just really encouraging. This is exactly why I do this show. I want to help people.
[00:27:58] Who are struggling with the lack of meaning. And purpose in their life. And I got some great feedback on how a lady was struggling with meaning and feeling things that are pointless just the way the world is. And she was telling me that my content has really been helping her activate. Some meaningful exploration.
[00:28:14] And realizing that we can. Change some things in our lives. A lot of this through reframing. So it's very encouraging. So I hope you're enjoying the. The podcast. We coming back next week. I've got a lot of great ideas and I'm working on here and rolling out. So I hope you're enjoying it. If you have any ideas or suggestions for episodes, you can hit me up on LinkedIn or Twitter or go to my website and send me in a contact form. Send me a message on there.
[00:28:41] I'd be happy to chat or take suggestions. I'd love to align my content even more. Around what my audience is looking for. If there's anything you think would be helpful or you'd like me to cover, just let me know. I'd be happy to do a little digging in and see if I can put together an episode for.
[00:28:54] Also, if you're looking for help. To transform that pain into power. I've got transformation, coaching services. Initially, I started out focusing on men. I'm also helping women now as well. It's just because I see the patterns in both men and women. It impacts us in different ways, but there's tools and ways that we can leverage these things to transform and change that in our life. So you're looking for some direct help and you want to work. One-on-one.
[00:29:18] Hit me up. You can message me and let me know. You're looking to work together. I've also got a form that you can fill out on my website, too. intake, it get some information for me, and then you can schedule. A 20 minute connect call to see if we'd be a good fit to work together in my personal power coaching program. So let me know if you have any questions. I really appreciate y'all. I hope you're enjoying the show. Hope you're finding value in it.
[00:29:41] I love doing it. So hopefully you're having a good week. And with that being said, Until next time y'all.
[00:29:47] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.