Reframe Your Negative Thoughts: Change How You See the World 17/30 How to Process Emotions

In this video I'm going to teach you a technique  that therapists use in almost every session but you probably didn't know about, and when you  learn how to do it yourself you can change how you think and feel. But to begin with I'm going to  do something kind of weird, so just give me 30 seconds. And in case you didn't know, I use  a lot of acceptance and commitment therapy.

And one of the things that comes with  acceptance and commitment therapy is doing experiential therapy, meaning therapy through  experiences. So we don't just talk about, we don't just, you know, think about our  problems, but we try to create experiences that lead to a change in our perspective. So  that's what we're gonna do right now.

Okay, so 30 seconds. I just need you to answer this  question: how is the desk the mother of the chair? Go ahead and pause this video for 30 seconds  and write down your answer in the comments section.

I'm really curious to hear your different  answers. How is the desk the mother of the chair? Okay so maybe you think the desk looks  older so that's why.

Or because the chair is padded - that's an upgraded generation,  so it must be newer. Maybe desks were created before chairs in the history of humanity, so  that's why the desk is the mother of the chair. I've asked this question of dozens of clients, and  I always get different answers, and they're all great answers - and they're all wrong.

The desk is  not the mother of the chair. But when I asked you that question your mind immediately began filling  in that answer. Your mind is a story creator.

It automatically creates connections between  things, trying to figure out how the world works. And when it doesn't know why something  happens, it makes its best guess. But when it makes these guesses it doesn't feel  like a guess; it feels like the truth.

And we do this over and over. These assumptions,  these these stories create our reality. Your unconscious interpretation of situations  creates how you consistently feel and act.

So stick around because today  we're talking about reframing. Now once I was working with a client who was in  her late 30s. She came to me with depression, but the biggest difficulty in her  life was that she wasn't married yet.

She lived in a culture where marriage and family  were praised as the highest purposes of life, and she longed to have a family of her own.  The longer she went without getting married, the more she wondered why. How come  I can't find someone to love me?

She started to think maybe it's because I'm a bad  person. Maybe it's because I'm not good enough to get married. Maybe there's something defective or  broken about me.

Maybe I'm too unattractive. Then one day she said something that, like, haunted me  even more than her self-deprecating stories. She said maybe the reason I haven't gotten married is  because God doesn't want me to ruin any children.

Now up to that point we had been focused on other  issues, but at that moment I knew we had to work on this one. I knew I had to intervene, so  I started to question that story. I mean, I know this could sound bad and I didn't mean  it this way, but I just asked her, like, to look around and tell me if the only people who get  married were perfect, attractive, saintly people.

She thought about it for a minute, and she could  give me quite a few examples of unattractive, mean, or unskilled people who had gotten married.  Some of them had gotten married multiple times. Now obviously it's possible to get married  even with some really terrible characteristics.

Now obviously this this story, the the reason  she had created that she wasn't married because she's defective, this story was false. She  was actually very kind, smart, hard-working, healthy, attractive, just really good human  being, so I asked her to question her narrative. You know, what other ways could  she think about the situation.

What if it's not about your goodness as a  person, but there's just a skill you're missing. Maybe you don't know how to date. Maybe you  don't know how to dress.

Maybe you don't know how to be vulnerable. Yet these are skills that  can be learned. From a religious perspective, maybe it's not in God's plan yet.

Maybe there's  something else for you to learn through this process. From another perspective, maybe it's a  problem of numbers. There are more eligible women than men in her community.

Maybe it's because guys  are intimidated by you. Maybe it's because guys don't know how to date anymore. Maybe it's because  our culture downplays the value of marriage.

I mean, what if this isn't about you at all?  As my client questioned her stories, some space opened up for her to do something different.  So instead of believing the first story that came to her mind, which was, you know, I'm just  defective, she changed her story to what skills can I learn?

Se started exploring her negative  self-talk and replacing it with self-compassion. She started dating differently. She started  allowing herself to be a little more vulnerable.

And within a year she'd met a good man, and  within two years she was married to him. Now in this situation the way she was interpreting  her challenge was creating a roadblock for her. How we consistently see problems, how we  interpret life, that creates our reality.

One of the ways that we can change our life  is by opening up some space for new stories. I like to use the six-pack exercise to do this.  I have no idea why it's called the six-pack exercise.

The trainer who taught me this, he was  not into beer and he was not into ab workouts, so your guess is as good as mine. But this exercise  is all about creating space around our thinking so that we can hopefully choose which set of  stories to believe, which set of stories we want to act on. And when we do this we can change how  we feel and we can solve problems in our lives.

Let's use an example of someone who's really  frustrated with their roommate, right, so she keeps leaving her dishes out. It's selfish,  it's dirty, and it's embarrassing when I have guests over, right. This person feels like I I  get so stressed out and angry about this.

Okay, so that's the example we're gonna use. Um, take a  look at your interpretations. These are what I'm calling stories, right.

The easiest interpretation  is she is so selfish. I'm being mistreated. Or I'm the clean one, the good roommate, and she's  the bad one.

Um, all of these thoughts leave you feeling angry. Great, how helpful is that, right?  Do these stories give you the power to act?

Are they truthful? Does it give you  any room to resolve your emotions? The way that I'm thinking about this problem,  the story I'm telling myself, you know, she's being awful.

I'm innocent. She's ruining my  life. This makes me angry, and it gives me no room to act.

Now just for fun I want you to think of  six other ways to interpret the actions of this, um, this roommate who's not doing her dishes,  right. Take a look at your assumptions about why she's doing what she's doing. And just to  clarify before we do this, right, these stories, these new ideas, this six-pack of ideas,  they don't have to be helpful, correct, or accurate.

You just make something up,  right. Here's a few examples of stories: she's doing this out of spite. She's doing it  just to bug me; she knows that I don't like it.

Here's another one: maybe I'm just a terrible  human being who deserves to be treated badly. Okay, now obviously, right, this is  obviously an unhelpful interpretation, but what we're doing right now, we're  not judging; we're just exploring alternatives. Okay, maybe she just comes from a  different background and doesn't know how to wash dishes, or culturally she's used to her mom  doing it and she's not aware that it's up to her.

Maybe she's completely overwhelmed. She's  struggling with depression or she can't cope with life in school in a job and a boyfriend,  right. Maybe she has no idea that it even bugs me.

Maybe I can learn something from this like how  to communicate my expectations or how to serve someone. It literally takes me five seconds  to put her cereal bowl in the sink. Okay, so there's my six stories, my six pack.

Okay, and  just to show you that there are so many more ways to interpret a situation, I'm just gonna throw out  four more, right. Maybe her dish system is just different than mine. Maybe she likes to do them at  night or first thing in the morning.

Maybe she's a space alien from another planet where there was a  magical ray that cleaned the dishes automatically. Maybe I'm actually the one being way too uptight  about cleanliness, you know, maybe I'm being rude by demanding that the dishes get done immediately,  I'm the one letting rigidity get in the way of nice feelings in the apartment. Maybe she has ADD  or a brain injury and has a hard time following through on tasks right now.

Some of these might  seem a little out there, a little bit unrealistic, right, like the space alien one. That's okay. Just  because we think something doesn't mean it's true, but how we consistently think leads to how we  feel.

So my thought she's so selfish leads to me feeling angry. Thinking I deserve to  be mistreated left me feeling depressed. Thinking maybe she's completely overwhelmed helped  me feel compassion for her.

And thinking what if she doesn't know what bugs me gave me a little  hope that things could improve if I talk to her. You can choose how you consistently feel by  choosing which stories, which interpretation of situations you consistently believe. When we can  only see things one way, we are rigid, inflexible, and we often feel powerless to act.

When we  open ourselves up to different ways of seeing, we can choose which thoughts line up  with the values that we want to act on. So here's the technique that therapists use all  the time. It's called reframing.

Reframing is when a therapist says something like let's look  at this from another perspective. And now from my previous story you know how to do this yourself.  So check out the workbook activity.

It's called the six-pack exercise. Think of the last time  you got really bugged at someone. Close your eyes and for a minute just put yourself back in that  situation.

What were you feeling and what were you thinking about that person? And then use your own  example to create at least six different ways of seeing the problem. If you catch yourself getting  really stuck on right or wrong or true or false you may be creating unnecessary rigidity.

I am not  saying that all stories are equal; I'm saying that the process of considering alternatives, it's  this process that frees us to choose healing. So allow yourself to explore different ways of  seeing things, and then after you've opened up to seeing these different alternatives, then you  can choose a story that's most helpful for you. Here are three questions you could ask yourself  that may be helpful in deciding which story you want to act on.

Question number one: is my story  truthful? And you gotta check your stories for self-deception, self-justification, and cognitive  distortions. We're gonna be talking about all of these in upcoming sections, and then after we've,  you know, checked our stories for untruths we can then choose between a variety of stories based on  our values.

And that leads to question number two: is my story kind? Now kindness is one of my  values, right, so I want to choose a story that lines up with the kind of person I want to be. So  do you value giving people the benefit of doubt?

Do you value looking for the best in people or  assuming that they have some good reason behind their actions, no matter how frustrating their  actions may be? Choose a narrative that's both truthful and helps you live your values. You want  to choose a story that works for you, not against you.

And I would say in general kindness leaves  you feeling happier and more peaceful than anger, right, but there are definitely some times for  setting boundaries and protecting yourself. Okay question number three: does my story give  me the power to act? So focusing on whether the situation is good or bad or, you know, whether  your roommate's a jerk or you're a jerk, right, that all leaves us powerless.

Asking instead,  you know, where's my locus of control, how can I change or influence this situation? When when we  have a story that gives us a little bit of power in our situation, this is going to give us more  ability to choose ,you know, what we're going to do and how we're going to feel. Gandhi said, "You  must be the change you wish to see in the world.

" Am I getting so bugged about the situation that  I'm acting the same or worse than the person I'm bugged at? So I mean, for example, you think about  a parent yelling at their child "Don't yell," right, or someone being so mad at another person  for refusing to forgive them. Check yourself for the value that you'd like to see, and then ask  am I living that?

Those three questions can help us get a little bit of clarity on which story we  want to choose and act on. But what if we feel too stuck even to do the six-pack exercise or to ask  ourselves the three questions about our stories? Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our stories  that we can't see the situation any other way.

Sometimes we get stuck in seeing the other person  as awful, horrible, terrible, even when you're no saint yourself. And sometimes the reality is  that the other person really is being awful. But regardless of the other's actions, we need  to find a way to personal peace.

When we get so sunk into our own perspective and we can't  get out we need to step back, slow it down, and reach out to our resources. So here's a couple  of things you can try when you feel stuck in how you're seeing a situation. Take a break from the  situation.

This gives you a chance to come back to it later when your head's clear. Do some activity  that helps you feel calm, loving, and open. Maybe it's playing the guitar or watching  a funny show or going for a walk or getting out in nature or praying about it.

Write about the  problem. See if you can get some clarity that way. And another thing that can be helpful but comes  with a caution is getting another person's perspective, right.

It can be helpful to hear  what someone else has to say about a situation, but you've got to look out for depending on  others for justification or rationalization of your story. So I'm going to encourage  you if you're going to use this one find someone who doesn't always agree with you,  and then listen to them for perspective. When you slow things down and you try to get other  perspectives, you open yourself up to having more choice in your life.

One of the most powerful ways  to take a situation that makes you feel helpless and turn it into a situation that empowers you  is to use a growth mindset. And what this means is that with each challenge I face, instead of  using "Oh, this is awesome, this is good" or using "This is a bad, uh, situation," right,  instead of using that kind of mindset, I ask myself what can I learn from this? Or how can  this experience help me become a better person?

When we consider problems from this perspective,  we can almost always find some way to grow in strength. Sometimes I even pretend that everyone  else is a robot just sent here to test me, to test how I'm going to react to a certain  situation and whether I'm going to do it with integrity. The bottom line is we make an  interpretation of every circumstance in our life, and our interpretations, our stories create our  reality.

They color our view and they determine how we feel and how we act. But if we can learn to  notice our stories, we can choose which ones we're going to give our energy to, and that can free you  to change how you feel and solve more problems. Basically, learning the skill of reframing  is a key to living a happier life.

This video is one skill from my 30-skill  course: How to Process Your Emotions, where I teach 30 of the most essential  skills for resolving depression, anxiety, and improving mental health. Emotion processing  is an essential skill for working through intense emotions, but most people have never been  taught how to do it. I'm putting every single main video lesson on YouTube for the world to  access for free.

You watching these videos, sharing them, contributing to my Patreon  and my sponsors make this possible. If you would like to access the entire course in  one place ad free with its workbook, exercises, downloads, extra videos, live Q&A's, additional  short readings and links to extended resources, the link to buy the course  is in the description below.