What is a Reframe, Anyway?

July 28, 2020

I have a client who is diligently doing Radical Forgiveness Worksheets and experiencing surprising shifts in her relationships! She came to me to work on her relationship with her husband and is discovering new openings in several other relationships as well – mostly with herself! During our third call, she said, “My mom called me! She never calls me! And, she was supportive of me too! She has rarely been supportive of me!”

How does this work, anyway? How is it that filling in the blanks in the Making Room for the Miracle Worksheet results in shifts in our situation that could sometimes be described as miracles?!!

According to the late Colin Tipping, author of Radical Forgiveness, it has to do with getting our conscious mind out of the way and allowing Spirit to guide us and to make changes in the “morphogenetic field”, the energy field that connects everything.  We do that in five stages:

1. Tell the story – our old, victim story, that is
2. Feel the feelings – feelings is where the energy is stuck in our physical body
3. Collapse the energy in the story – just be willing to be open to the idea that there may be something else going on besides what we have been attached to as our reality
4. Reframe the old story
5. Integrate the new story in our physical body

Today, I want to elaborate on whate “Reframing the old story” means.

We can look at this in quite a literal sense, actually! Have you ever taken a painting or photograph to a shop to have it framed? That’s the most challenging and time-consuming part, right? The effect of the picture changes with each color, texture, size, and thickness of the frames the technician tries! When you find one that works just right, that’s the one you order.

Well, it’s like that with reframing our old stories when doing a Radical Forgiveness Worksheet. You see, in our old story, our picture was framed by our limiting beliefs. Frames like “I’m not good enough” or “I will always fail” or “Life is always a struggle” or “I’ll never have enough money” surround our picture of an event or set of circumstances. We get pretty attached to these frames and keep seeing the same pictures over and over again.

Then, we hear about Radical Forgiveness and try out a worksheet or The Thirteen Steps or play a game of Satori. Something happens! We feel lighter and get the idea that maybe the way we’ve been looking at this story in our lives could just maybe have a different meaning that we have been giving it all these years! We play around with possible “New Stories”.  That’s what happens in Step 19 of the worksheet or when we land on “New Story” in the Satori Game. We hear new ways of looking at our situation or try out a new way of seeing our lives. “I’m perfect just the way I am” or “When I show up as me everyone loves me” or “Money flows easily in my life now” or “My life is an exciting adventure”.

These stories are examples of putting a new frame around our picture! Nothing changes about the facts of the upsetting event. What changes is what we have  made that event mean in the context of our lives. Many stories can take on a new look right within our “world of humanity” view.  For example, my story of rejection by my friends when I was 13 was fairly easy to see as an opportunity for me to grow in self-respect and careful choosing of friends. Other stories, however, seem much more difficult to reframe in a way that gives us peace.

• Untimely death
• Divorce
• Violence
• Genocide
• Betrayal
• Etc.

Even these, however, when we allow an energy bigger than our world of humanity view, can be reframed as Spiritual Big Pictures. If we become open to the idea that from a Spiritual, big picture view of what has happened, then our inability to understand the purpose makes sense. Of course, we wouldn’t know what Spirit has designed for our situation! For these types of Victim Stories, if we allow ourselves to simply state a vague reframe, then step aside and let Spirit do the rest, we can experience peace.

What’s an example of this kind of reframe? Here are a few:

“Even though I don’t understand why, I am now open to the idea that so-and-so came into my life to help me learn and grow in love. I am willing to release my attachment to my old story and refuse to put any more energy in it. I surrender to my Higher Power and trust in the knowledge that this will continue to unfold for the highest good of all concerned.”

OR

“Even though I can’t see it yet, I can now see that so-and-so has been mirroring back for me something about myself that I have not been able to love or some new way of seeing myself that I have not been able to be. In that sense, he/she has been here in my human world to play a role for me to urge my soul to become more loving or more courageous or to experience the opposite of love, or something I may not even recognize. Now that I see that, I can thank him/her for playing this role and maybe I won’t even need him/her to be that for me anymore!”

OR

“I now see that this person came into my life to help me experience the pain of separation from love by showing me the opposite of love. Maybe I had an agreement with Spirit to bring a certain quality of love to the world – like _____ (e.g. forgiveness, or tolerance, or courage, or fairness, etc.). I needed somebody to help me become that and they did! Now that I see that, my soul can thank his/her soul for that lesson and I can be love! It’s my true nature! ”

Is this giving you an idea how to play around with a reframe? Remember, there’s no way we can actually KNOW what Spirit’s purpose is for our lives. Moreover, this whole way of looking at our life is a story itself! What’s different about our reframed story, is that it feels better! We have more energy and better relationships when we look at our situation that way. So, why not use it?

If you’re struggling with reframing your story, let’s have a chat! Make an appointment here and bring your story!

https://regina.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php