Learning to Reframe Your Life Experiences

Have you ever noticed that two people can go through similar experiences... yet come out completely different?

One becomes bitter. The other becomes wiser. One stays stuck. The other grows.

The experience may be similar. The meaning they give it is different.

As I'm working toward my Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Certificationthrough The Psychology Institute, one of my favorite concepts from the first part of my training has beenreframing so I thought I would teach you what I learned.

You might be thinking, Tara, you're a REALTOR. Why are you doing this? 😂

Because I'm passionate about people. I'm fascinated by the way our minds work, and I want to continue learning practical tools that can help people grow and move forward in their lives.

And reframing is one of those tools. I believe everyone should understand this concept so you can bounce back faster, learn from your experiences, not become a victim, and help others more.

In NLP, reframing is changing the meaning or perspective we give an experience in order to change how we respond to it.

The facts don't change, the lens does. And sometimes changing the lens changes everything.

We experience something painful and begin attaching a story to it:

"I failed." “Just my luck, this is what always happens to me.”

"I'm not good enough."

"I'll never recover from this."

"Why does this always happen to me?"

We repeat the story so many times that eventually it doesn't feel like a story anymore.

It feels like the truth. But what if it isn't the only truth available?

Instead of asking: "Why did this happen to me?"

What if you asked: "What can this teach me?" "What can I do with this?"

Or maybe my favorite: "Who is this experience inviting me to become?"

Let me give you a few examples.

A Divorce

Instead of: "My marriage failed."

What if the reframe became:

"That relationship taught me what I value, what I need in a relationship, where I need to grow, and what I want to do differently moving forward."

The divorce didn't suddenly become a good thing.

You simply stopped allowing it to mean that you were a failure.

A Business Failure

Instead of: "I'm terrible at business."

What if it became:

"That business gave me an education I couldn't have gotten from a book. I know things today that will make me better the next time."

The failure didn't disappear.

But it became tuition instead of a life sentence.

A Difficult Childhood

Instead of: "My past damaged me."

What if it became:

"My past gave me compassion for people who are hurting. It taught me resilience. And maybe it gave me the opportunity to become the person I once needed."

You aren't pretending the difficult things didn't happen.

You're deciding they don't get to write the rest of your story.

And I think this distinction is incredibly important: Reframing isn't asking you to call something good that was bad.

It's asking whether something bad can still produce something good.

It's not denial, it's not pretending, it's not toxic positivity.

And it certainly doesn't mean we don't grieve, hurt, get angry, or need time to process what happened.

It means we don't have to stay imprisoned by the meaning we originally gave it.

An experience is just an experience, it doesn’t mean anything until you give it meaning. The question is, is the emotion serving you? What if you changed the story?

Try This With Me

(An exercise I did in class, so powerful, don’t cheat yourself, sit with yourself and do this.)

Think about one experience from your life that still carries some weight. In fact if you want to do a brain dump on all of your experiences that come to mind that were hard, tragic, or still bothers you, do it, and pick one to start with. (I did a couple)

Maybe it's a relationship that ended or a loss of a loved one.

A business that failed.

Someone who betrayed you.

A mistake you still regret.

A dream that didn't happen.

Or simply a season of life you wish had gone differently.

Now ask yourself:

• What story have I been telling myself about what happened?
• Is that story helping me move forward or keeping me stuck?
• What did this experience teach me?
• What strength, wisdom, compassion, or perspective did I gain because of it?
• Who have I become because I walked through it?
• How could what I've learned someday help someone else?

You may not have the answers today, some experiences take years to understand. Some experiences will always hurt and we can learn from them & become better or live for a lost one through something positive in honor of them.

We can choose what we allow it to create within us.

That's the power of reframing, you're not changing your past.

You're changing the power your past has over your future.

Your experiences don't have to define you. What matters is the meaning you choose to give them and what you decide to do next.

So maybe today, instead of asking: "Why did this happen to me?"

Ask yourself: "Who is this experience inviting me to become?"

And then GO BECOME!

One of my favorite mantras: Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

Your Friend,

Tara

From the Vault: If this hit home, you'll love Perspective Changes Everything.