The importance of reframing your thoughts

The Discovery had a puncture on Friday evening; initially, I felt this was a disaster, but after a bit of thought, I actually considered myself to have been quite lucky!

I wasn’t driving when the tyre deflated – I could have been doing 70 on a busy motorway!

I wasn’t in a hurry or going anywhere important – So plenty of time to swap the wheel safely!

I was wearing my scruffy stable yard clothes – This isn’t really a job to do in your suit!

The car was parked off-road, on a hard surface and under cover – Not on the side of a busy road!

It was light – So I could see what I was doing!

As I was at home – I had access to some additional tools which turned out to be useful!

I didn’t have any passengers – So no extra worries about the safety or welfare of others!

Realising I was actually lucky and that it wasn’t a disaster made me feel a whole lot better!

This type of reframing is an NLP technique we use all the time in our EAL sessions: It’s often the case that clients are not even aware they’re thinking in an unhelpful way; however, we may find it easier to spot unhelpful thoughts and then help change the thought for a more positive one.

Reframing your thoughts is about learning to think more flexibly and be more in control. If you can learn to identify and separate unhelpful thoughts from helpful ones, you can find a different way to look at the situation and help break a negative spiral and realise that often things are not as bad as we think.