The Art of Reframing
It’s not just for artists and professional framers.
Reframing is a psychological tool that can simply transform your life. I know, it sounds pretty cliché, however- it’s the truth.
The other day I was parked in our 5-speed Nissan Sentra facing the playing field outside of my children’s school when I had a premonition of a tragedy about to occur. As I scanned the grass for signs of my boys, my car seemed to move forward with a mind of its own- straight into the students’ busy game of dodge ball! Adrenalin raced through my blood as I futilely slammed on the foot brake while simultaneously jerking the emergency brake upwards- all to no avail, as my car veered dangerously closer to the children.
I know that stick-shift cars (if you’ve ever driven one, you can certainly relate) tend to roll, so I pulled the emergency brake up even higher, and then I realized that my car wasn’t going anywhere at all; rather the minivan on my left was backing out of its parking spot, and the optical illusion made me feel that my car had been moving forward.
Thankfully, that terrifying scare was simply an illusion- an incident that appeared all-too-real, yet with the benefit of hindsight and clarity of vision, was obviously nothing to be afraid of.
That got me thinking- how many times does it happen that we are afraid of something that seems imminently real and totally frightening, depressing, or frustrating- which later turns out to have been not much more significant than my optical illusion in the parking lot?
There’s a famous line that coaches and mentors often use; “Will it matter in five or ten years?”
A tremendous amount of wisdom is implied by that question.
How many of the things that we have done 5 or ten years ago would we have eliminated if we had truly thought about the consequences of our actions? Personally, I’m feeling far too embarrassed to answer such a question publicly!
There’s a statistic I once read which stated that your child will confide in you at the age of seventeen 10% of what he’d shared with you at age seven.
With that in mind, it wouldn’t it be prudent to look ahead and create more bonding moments with our children?
Five years from now will it matter that the kitchen floor remained a bit sticky for an additional day because we chose to look through old photo albums with our kids one evening?
Ten years from now will we look back with regret that we lost out on a good night’s sleep because we took a family trip?
When we look at the big picture, the little things simply fade away as though they were meaningless optical illusions.
Let’s plan ahead, as we make parenting choices this holiday season, with vision and clarity!
P.S. Feel free to share any holiday questions or concerns about parenting during this joyous season below- so we can address them in the coming weeks:)
