Framing and re-framing is an important part of Coaching and teaching. Before I teach a subject I set up a frame: “this is what we are going to talk about in the session. Today the frame for this blog is framing and re-framing; I have been thinking about how to present that to you in the line of my blogs for a couple of weeks. We use framing in many aspects of life because the meaning of the events our life is related to the frame we have around it or its context. Changing the frame or the context of an event will change the way we perceive that specific event.
I work with many clients where reframing is an important part of the change work, both in business and in life Coaching. And I have just learned how that is so in the brain, during my newest training “Coaching the Brain: Neuroscience applied to Coaching”. There seems to be many processes involved with reframing. Said in a very simple way our brain tends to seek for patterns and therefore it repeats behaviour and doesn’t search for new solutions unless we consciously take the decision to go about something differently or someone like a Coach, may suggest a reframe. In my case it was a close friend of mine, he happens also to be a therapist.
My daughter was entering her adolescent period and to be quite honest I had only heard negative things about this period of being a parent. In the end, it has turned out that it is as wonderful and challenging as any other phase of being a parent. Anyway, I expressed my worry to him and he gave me this reframe: Adolescence is like a new birth, yours and your daughter’s. Your daughter is pushing to make more space, this time not to be born and begin life as a baby, this time she is making space to begin life as an adult. It is also a birth for you, you will now have more time to yourself and begin a new phase of your life. It’s a longer process than the first birth and for some it can be a more painful one.
I must admit I have cherished that reframe as it has taken me down the path of parenting a teenager with another perspective (read my blog from last week about perspective here if you like)
Now I’m preparing myself for her to go to university, she has chosen a degree she can only do in the UK, so she is not only leaving home, she is going to live in a different country. There is only a year to go and so I prepare myself for her leaving the nest. I’m going to miss her and my reframe to myself is that I’m proud. Since she was born it has been my job to teach her to become independent, to eat, to walk, to talk, to express herself and now she has taken a decision to follow her own desires without considering where her mother might be. She has independent thoughts, I have done my job and the next phase of parenthood will be very much inspired by my own mother; my door will always be open, I will support her in any way that I can and she can always come home. You see there is a lot of freedom in that because our brain often focuses on what we lose and not on what we gain. So if she can fly from the nest knowing that she has not lost anything, I’m still here and I know that I have not lost anything either but gained. Then we can both grow in happiness and that is what you can use a reframe for.
Can you think of something you can reframe for yourself? In your business or your personal life?
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and remember being kind is for free.
Best wishes
Ivalo.