Re-framing: a powerful tool for transformation

Re-Framing is an important and powerful tool, always at our disposal. All that is required to put it to use is to listen closely to the words you use. How do you describe an event to yourself or others? How can you change the wording to better serve your interests? And how do you know what will serve your interests? By how what you say or think makes you feel.

Supposing you have a massage, and don’t feel great afterwards. Rather than "it made me sick" you could re-frame your experience to say "That massage was deep. It may have released toxins a little faster than my system was able to discharge them, so I need to go a little more slowly and more gently for now. It wasn't the end of the world. It did help me understand just how important this body work can be in helping me heal. Apparently my first step is getting some of this stuck toxic stuff held in the tissues of my body to move, but I can do that at my own pace. My body will respond just knowing that I am getting more connected to it all the time and that I am focusing on my needs right now so that I can continue to move toward greater well-being.

Any of the books by Jerry and Esther Hicks – including The Astonishing Power of Emotions, The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing, The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham, or Ask & It Is Given-- are excellent resources to help you get the gist of how potent a tool re-framing can be. These books are filled with examples of various situations to which you can apply this tool, staying in touch with how each statement you make leads you to feel.

The Sedona Method, developed by Lester Levinson, provides a useful method akin to mindfulness for connecting with and releasing emotions. The method describes in detail a hierarchy of emotions starting from the lowest vibration – Apathy, and working up the scale through Grief, Fear, Lust, Anger, Pride (the false kind where one feels better by comparing oneself to someone else – which usually covers over a deep sense of inadequacy) and on up to Courageousness, Appreciation, and Peace. This is good training to become more conversant with feelings, to recognize the differing vibrations of each emotion and to know what emotions are behind the thoughts that are being generated at any given moment.

However, one can, as Esther Hicks repeats in channeling the entity known as Abraham, “reach for a better feeling thought.” In other words, all that is essential is to notice whether your thought or statement makes you feel better or worse. If better, keep going. If worse, change the way you are expressing yourself. The task itself is simple. However, it requires changing habits, and thus paying attention to your thoughts. This takes considerably more investment: awareness, intention and attention. Listening to what you say and think is the key to change.