One of the most important skills to master is the ability to find realistic, positive re-frames.The quality of your life is the quality of your re-frames. Because of its importance for living a happy life, we will discuss it again here. Let us define the word re-framing. Events, situations, and occurences in themselves do not cause you happiness or unhappiness. Events just happen. It is always your personal, subjective evaluation of those events that create your emotional reaction. If you evaluate, or re-frame, something as neutral, you will not be affected emotionally. If you evaluate, or re-frame, something as negative, you will experience either sadness, annoyance, frustration, anger, distress, or suffering. If you evaluate, or re-frame, something as positive, you will experience happiness, joy serenity, relief, or pleasure. It is your way of thinking about something that creates your emotional reaction. Even if others evaluate somthing as positive, you can evaluate it as negative. And even if others evaluate something as negative, you can evaluate it as positive. It's all up to you. You are constantly re-framing,either consciously or unconsciously. We all have an initial reaction to things. If your original re-frame was positive, great. If not, you can then re-frame, or re-evaluate, the wat you perceived what happened. A master at positive re-framing will live a happy life. He or she seeks out positive re-frames before, during and after events, situations, and experiences. Even if it is difficult to find a positive re-frame for an unpleasant event, it can still be experienced many ways. For example, "I'll be glad when it's over." "I'm grateful that my life is usually better than this." This is adding depth to my character." "I will devote my life to help prevent others from this suffering." Depending on your entire life history, you will either tend to be a positive re-framer or a negative one. Those people who had an early environment with positive re-framing will usually find it easier to find positive re-frames throughout their life. But even if you grew up in an environment of negative re-frames, it is never too late for you to begin to master positive re-frames. Here are some questions to ask about events and experiences that will help you master the skill of re-framing. When you become an expert, you won't have to make an effort to think of positive reframes. They will be your automatic reactions. What is good about this? How can I grow from this experience? How can I find a long-term benefit from what happened? What character trait can this help me develop? Why is what happened not so bad? What are some creative possibilities how later events might turn this into something positive? How will I look at this in a year, ten years, fifty years? What is humorous about this? How can I use this for spiritual enlightenment? How could I reframe this for someone else? What would an expert re-framer say about this? To your success Daniel Anderson
www.journeytosuccess.biz |
