Read these reframes over for yourself. Read them again another day, perhaps tomorrow even. Become familiar with them. Maybe you will want to write down the ones that resonate with you and post them to your bathroom wall and beside your computer, like I do. This way, when life throws you a curve ball… you will see that these reframes can help you find an alternative to your negative state of mind. The very act of writing strategies down can help you commit them to memory in such a powerful way that it will almost seem like they are a result of your own thinking, of your own problem solving skills. With practices, they can become a habit, an automatic response to a negative feeling.

When life becomes challenging, look to reframes to help you get back into a more resourceful state. Remember, your brain operates very differently when you are in the throws of negative emotions. What seems obvious during a calm state of mind can seem like a deep revelation when you are all jacked up on fear or hurt. Try each of the reframes until you find a strategy that makes a difference, no matter how small.

Try reading them silently. Try reading them out loud. Listen to a recording of your voice saying them out loud to you on your smartphone. By considering each strategy in these 3 different ways, you are engaging multiple lobes of your brain instead of just one. You are increaseing the chances of a strategy making sense to your stressed brain. You are increasing the chances of reducing the overwhelm of negative emotion, so you can let it go.

#1 Consider how small this experience really is. When I was in the early days of my marital separation and feeling down, one of my girlfriends said to me, “Jen, your life is like this big.” She spread her arms wide apart and then she said, “This part right now, this crappy part, it’s only about this big.” And she spread her thumb and index finger about 1 cm apart. “Just one little part,” she repeated. I am not great at visualization but this really struck a chord with me on that day. Remember, I was in depths of despair, not all cylinders were firing. Your brain thinks differently when your are stuck in a negative emotion. Another way to look at it is to imagine yourself, right where you are. Then zoom out and imagine looking down at the building or outdoor setting you are in. Zoom out again and imagine looking down at the town you live in. Hover even higher and imagine looking down at your province, then continent, then the world. From way up there, you look down and see tiny little you. Some people say that watching a documentary on the many social crisis faced by developing countries can get them unstuck and shift their focus themselves. An exvellent read for shifting your focus, to get out of your head and into your life is John Gary Bishop’s UnFu*k Yourself.

#2 Just because you have a thought, doesn’t make it true. We have all kinds of thought going on in our heads all the time, some of them can be quite unrealistic and have very little to do with our current circumstances. There is a constant chatter going on in our heads, a continuous dialogue that is usually on high alert for all the things that could go wrong. We were designed this way, it’s the factory setting for your brains CPU, it was meant to keep us alive during our tenuous early existence as humans. Olive Fox-Cabane calls it our “negative bias“: finding the negative elements of an experience the most relevant. It’s just a factory setting you didn’t realize existed, it’s not the real you. Many of us are just becoming aware of our inner critic and are making efforts to detach from it and take conscious control over our own thoughts. A powerful resource for this task is Micheal A. Singer’s, The Untethered Soul. Now, think of all the times in the past that you thought something was amiss, was it always true? (And, were the negative feelings you suffered worth it?).   

#3. Will this really matter in 10 years? Really? This is one of my favorites because it is so simple and often applicable to so many negative experiences. So your father in law has to be the smartest person in the room at every family reunion, will this really matter in 10 years?

#4. When you consider your memory of the negative experience, is it possible that you missed something? Scientists theorize that there are roughly 11 million bits per second (bps) of information that our brains can be exposed to in any given moment. The thing is, our minds can only perceive about 500 bps and some scientists say that information is even chunked down further, into 5-9 groups (Source: basicknowledge101.com). On top of that, we have our own preferences for how we use our representational systems to perceive and process that information and then store it for retrieval in our memory. Now layer on our belief systems which shape our perceptions and therefore our experience of the world. Let me ask you again, is it possible that your memory of the negative experience is missing some information? My best example of this is when I listen to my sister talk about a recent holiday she took with her husband. My sister will recount, in great detail, all of the fabulous new experiences she had during their holiday while her low-key husband watches her in surprise and wonders out loud if he was with her during this part of their vacation.

#5. Consider your negative experience like it is a silent movie that requires subtitles, or perhaps like a scientific observation and then, get curious. I always think back to a Tony Robbins video where he notices that he is having the experience of a negative emotion and he taps his fingertips together under his chin and becomes subjective, speaking his thoughts out loud. Try saying to yourself, “Hmmm, how interesting. I am having the experience of a negative emotion.” Now take a moment to name the type of emotion and say, “The feeling seems to be ______ (e.g. resentfulness, loss, overwhelm, etc). Isn’t that interesting? I must have some work to do in this area. I welcome the challenge!” Naming the emotion subjectively detaches your mind from it and reduces the power that emotion has over you, so you can take control of your thoughts again. Take a moment to think back on some of the earlier times in your life when you experienced this emotion, notice the experience and also notice how far away that negative experience is from where you are now. Is this challenge a recurring theme? Isn’t that interesting? After some practice, you will be feeling wise and powerful.

#6. What about all the things that are going right? Or, what about the things you did that were successful or were helpful to others? Here is another way to shift our focus. Again, our brain’s bias towards the negative can have us focused on the unfavorable parts of the experience and forget about all the good things. This type of thinking can create a lot of anxiety for us, which will undoubtedly result in more negative reactions to future experiences. This is when a good friend or a coach can really help us talk it out and help us to remember all the good things that came out of the experience. Depending on the experience, a Gratitude List or a Gratitude Journal is probably the fastest ticket out of negativity. If you think back to some of the mistakes you have made and cringe, you can instead focus on what the experience taught you. Think about all the challenges you have made it through, all the projects you have completed, the times you took a chance and it did work out. Even just the simple realization that you have shelter, food in your belly and a good friend in your corner can often be enough to shift our focus to the higher vibration of gratitude.

#7. Imagine that your negative thoughts are being spoken to you from someone who you don’t really respect. Is this really what you want to listen to?

#8. Remember all the times that you felt this negative emotion before. Think back on some time in the earlier part of your life when you felt this negative emotion. At that time, it seemed like it would last forever but it didn’t, you got through it, didn’t you? Now is the time to remember that you have had these kinds of problems before, and that you made it through. You will make it through these challenges too, and you will come out on the other side a wiser person that will be able to handle any other challenges that come your way. Get certain and get confident that you can handle this, because you can. You got this.

$9. Think of the worst case scenario outcome for your current situation … are you still alive? Think long and hard about the things that could happen as a result of this negative experience. Does someone die? No? Enough said.

There are a lot of strategies here, I know. You probably have one or two more you could add to this list. Go ahead. We are all different, with different belief systems, a different set of experiences and our brains are wired a little differently with different levels of hormones running through them. What works for me, may not work for you. What works for being angry at someone, may not work for being fearful about your future. That’s why its important to have lots of strategies at the ready.

Consider each strategy, give it a chance and next time life throws you a curve ball, go back to your list. Practice will bring more happiness. Practice these strategies and you will find that the time you find yourself in that negative emotion, it will be a little shorter. Is it simple? Yes. Is it going to be easy? Not always, but if you do the work it will get easier. By practicing strategies that reframe your negative experiences during the curve balls of life, you can’t help bit get better at playing the game. Then you can devote your precious energy to the more enjoyable things in life. But that’s … another sticky note.