The Power of Reframing

Hey there,

Can you believe we’re already halfway through the year? Is it me, or does January feel like it was five minutes ago and five years ago, at the same time?

Yeah… 2025’s been a doozy. But tell me, did you make a New Year’s resolution?

Yeah, me neither.

Well… technically I did, but I didn’t tell anyone about it. It wasn’t some big “new year, new me” thing. I just kind of whispered an intention to myself:

“To try to think more positively this year.”

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I believed it. Because I tend to default to skepticism. But I like to say I’m a realist.

However, if we’re being real-real, I’m just emotionally preparing for the worst at all times… it’s kind of my thing. Either way, six months in, I’ve realized something:

“Think positive” doesn’t really work for me.

And if you fall into the same camp, I think you’ll know what I mean.

But what does work? Reframing.

Not fake optimism. Not pretending everything’s fine. Just learning how to look at the same story from a slightly different angle and one that doesn’t leave me stuck in the same old loop.

It’s one of the most powerful tools I’ve been practicing this year.

And it started to really click at the end of last year right after I witnessed something that, at the time, didn’t seem like much.

But I think about it all the time. Because some scenes don’t leave you. They echo.

The Power of a Single Reframe

It happened at the gym, of all places.

There’s this guy, mid-fifties maybe. Ex-military, I think. Built like a truck but quiet and keeps to himself. I see him there often.

One day, I noticed him sitting on the bench, just… staring out into space. I gave a casual nod, and he said:

“You ever have a week where your whole life falls out from under you?”

I listened. He told me his wife had left. His daughter wasn’t speaking to him. And he'd just been medically retired. Apparently, a bad medical scan was the final straw. Then he said something I didn’t expect.

“I used to think strength was about holding the line. Not complaining. Not cracking. But now… now I get it. Peace is on the other side of surrender.”

Then he let out this small laugh like he was embarrassed by his own wisdom.

That one sentence rewired something in me.

He didn’t pretend it wasn’t painful. But at that moment, he reclaimed the story. Not as the fighter who lost everything. But as a man who finally knew true strength and what was worth fighting for.

That moment—the stillness, the reframe, the shift in the air—is exactly why I started writing Shifting Focus in the first place.

Because most of what keeps us stuck isn’t what’s happening out there.

It’s the way we’re looking at it.

What Reframing Really Means

So what does reframing actually mean?

Let me start with what it’s not.

It’s not pretending things are fine when they’re clearly not. It’s not denial. It’s not “just be positive.” And it’s definitely not the self-help version of gaslighting yourself into pretending everything’s fine.

Reframing is asking:

“Is the way I’m looking at this helping or harming me?”

And if it’s harming:

“Is there a more useful frame I can hold instead?”

Psychologist Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), called this “cognitive restructuring.” In simple terms: your thoughts shape your reality. But your thoughts are not facts.

You can challenge them. You can change them. Research confirms that this practice literally changes your brain’s wiring and the voice of your internal narrator over time.

That part works with your thoughts. But coming at a reframes from several different angles is even more powerful. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett takes it beyond the cognitive appraisal and goes deeper into changing emotional states through reframing.

She says emotions aren’t fixed states. They’re constructed by your brain in real-time, based on past experiences and language.
 

That means your fear, your shame, your guilt... they don’t just arrive. You build them with the words and interpretations you use. In a study cited by Harvard Business Review, researchers found that performers who reframe nerves as excitement consistently perform better under pressure.

Instead of “I’m anxious,” they say “I’m energized.” Both states exhibit the same physiological signs: increased heart rate, excessive perspiration, increased blood flow. But totally different outcome, depending on how you frame it.

Using the Beck’s cognitive reframe and Barrett’s emotional clearing, reframing isn’t just a fluffy technique. It’s functional… and it works. Here’s a little mantra I’ve been using when I find myself going into a tailspin of bad framing:

Real-Life Reframes

We’ve all heard the classic “is the glass half full or half empty” debate.

Reframing offers a third option: you’re the one holding the glass. You can refill it, pour it out, or shatter the damn thing if it’s not serving you.

Here’s what reframing sounds like in real, everyday moments:

These aren’t lies. They’re just different angles. Angles that give you your power instead of taking it away.

Why Reframing Feels So Damn Hard

You’d think reframing would be easy, right? Just flip the script and move on.

But it isn’t. Because familiar pain often feels safer than unfamiliar peace. We get attached to our pain, not because we enjoy it, but because it’s predictable. There’s comfort in “I’m just this way.”

There’s safety in staying in the same loop, even when it sucks.

Also: reframing is work. Mental work. Emotional work. And frankly, it threatens the ego. The part of you that’s invested in being the victim, the martyr, the misunderstood one? Yeah, that part’s gonna fight back.

But the thing is: You can’t build a new future with the language of your past.

READER POLL

Final Thought - Shift Your Focus

Most of us are walking around on autopilot, narrating our lives using scripts we never wrote.

• I’m bad with money.

• I never finish what I start.

• I’m too sensitive.

• I’m not like other people. I’ll never be able to...

Some of these lines came from your childhood. Others from teachers, exes, the culture we’re marinated in, or the voice in our head that kicks in when life gets hard.

Over time, those phrases calcify.

And after years (sometimes decades) of repetition, these stories harden into an identity. Not because they’re true, but because they’re familiar. Familiar becomes believable. And believable becomes how we live.

If you take one thing from this week’s newsletter, let it be this:

Your story is powerful. But you are more powerful than your story. You are the narrator. The editor. The architect of meaning. And if the story you’ve been living by is no longer helping you, It’s time to write a new one.

Start with one sentence.

You don't need a perfect rewrite.

Just a better frame.

See you next week,

Shakila

P.S. Here’s the results of last week’s poll.