Am I looking forward to something coming up in the future?

Reframing is something every person does every day and often completely unconsciously. Thereby events are interpreted within the framework of certain expectations, thought patterns, and assignments. They thus give them a certain framework, which, depending on the perception of the day, presents itself differently. This results in a positive or negative reinterpretation. In the long run, it is very difficult to live with negative interpretations because they mean an inadmissible restriction to partial aspects. Every person who wants to change something resorts to positive thinking to do something about it. Theoretically, this is nothing other than reframing or neuro-linguistic programming, since things are no longer viewed under negative but under positive signs. But how does Reframing work? Time and again I've seen the strongest disbeliever be given the gift of an open door at exactly the moment he or she needed one. I remember the surprise of one skeptical client in particular who received an unexpected phone call from a previous employer asking him to rejoin the firm the day after he had been laid off from his job. To this day he still talks about it with amazement! You'll have a great opportunity to practice using your creativity if you've heard yourself say: This has nothing to do with me, it's _____'s fault. If you recognize yourself in the above phrases, don't worry. Self-awareness is the first step on the road to reclaiming ownership of your life. You simply need a reminder of how powerful you really are. Let me tell you about two simple exercises that demonstrate my point. One early June weekend I had the privilege of speaking at Mile Hi church in Lakewood, Colorado. As stereotype threat hypothesis 2 predicts, when participants were reminded of their race, there was a significant drop in the performance of African American students but not in the performance of White students (see FIGURE 1. This pattern of results is referred to as an interaction, which occurs when the effect of one independent variable on the dependent variable depends on the level of a second variable.

In this study, the effect of the reminder of race depended on whether the participant's racial identity was African American or White. For African American students, the reminder of racial identity led to lower performance; Thus, even though we cannot randomly assign a person to his or her race, the fact that a reminder of race influenced Blacks and Whites differently suggests that racial identity is what mattered here. Interaction A pattern of results in which the effect of one independent variable on the dependent variable depends on the level of a second independent variable. Stereotype Threat Black students performed more poorly on a test when reminded of their race. White students were unaffected by such a reminder. It is very easy. You give a new, different meaning or sense to an event or a certain situation by relating it to another context. To illustrate this, here are some examples. How you look at a situation depends on several things. These include the shape of the day and your basic attitude, whether it is positive or rather negative. Both are reflected in reframing. Think about a half-filled glass of water. You know the famous question: Is it half full or half empty? If you look at it objectively, you always get the same picture. However, many facets are based on perspective. When my event was completed, I spent some time with Karen Thomas, the activities and events director. During our conversation Karen mentioned that Richard Bach, the author of the bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull (among many others), had recently visited the church to conduct a weekend workshop.

When I mentioned that I was a fan of his work, she handed me the audiotapes recorded during his program. It was such a pleasure to listen to him again. While riding in my car I paid attention as Richard spoke about a little exercise that he used to remind himself of his ability to create his own reality. Richard said he would choose an object, any random object, and firmly hold an image of this object in mind. Then, once he was able to see this object clearly, he let it go, affirming that it was now moving toward him. He then waited for the image to appear in some form in his life. Although this exercise seemed simplistic to me, I decided to give it a try and was quite surprised by the results. I pulled over, closed my eyes, and envisioned a plump, ripe, red tomato. The vertical bar graph plots the main items solved by black and white subjects in race prime and no race prime. The x-axis of the graph represents race prime and no race prime. The y-axis represents main items solved beginning from 0 to 20, in increments of 2. Black subjects are represented by blue colored bin and white subjects are represented by red colored bin. Main items solved by black subjects and white subjects in race prime is 4. Main items solved by black subjects and white subjects in no race prime is 8. How Experiments Make Causal Inference Possible The experimental method overcomes the limitations of the correlational method so that causal inferences are possible. As we previously noted, the first major obstacle to drawing causal inferences from correlational studies is the reverse causality problem because you typically can't tell which variable is the cause and which is the effect. In an experiment, because the researcher determines whether a participant is exposed to the experimental condition (race reminder) or the control condition (no race reminder) and subsequently measures performance, it is impossible for the participant's poor test performance to have caused him or her to be reminded of his or her race. The following are very practical examples from professional life: If your boss is yelling at you from the side as soon as you arrive at the office in the morning, he may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed first, or he may have fought with his wife or children early in the morning.

The fact that you didn't get the dream job after all has a good side because you don't have to leave your familiar, loving environment and move. These examples inevitably raise the question of whether reframing is perhaps a denial of reality or a creative way of coping. Critics call it self-deception, as this technique is used to make negative things nice. However, those who only talk about the negative things up beautifully have not understood the meaning of reframing and neuro-linguistic programming. After all, it is not about suppressing unpleasant things and feelings and quickly putting on rose-colored glasses again and creating a feel-good zone. Just like positive sensations and ways of thinking, negative and unpleasant situations, thoughts, and feelings such as anger or grief have a right to exist. Reframing is all about finding the right mediocrity. For example, Intveen says: Once I saw the tomato in my mind's eye, I let it go and got back onto the highway to get to my meeting. As I listened to the radio, I occasionally thought about this image. One hour into my drive, a truck in front of me moved into the right lane and, as I passed it, I noticed a larger-than-life, plump, ripe, red tomato painted on its side. Hmm, I thought, this stuff just might work. Being a skeptic, I decided to give it another try. This time I envisioned a Rolls-Royce (a car that is not seen frequently in the part of the country in which I live). With the image firmly in mind, I quickly let it go. The next morning, while driving home from visiting a friend, I not only saw one Rolls-Royce, but two within 30 minutes of each other! What do a tomato and a Rolls-Royce have to do with your power to create your life? Your thoughts are like magnets. Causes must come before effects. Consequently, the causal sequence problem is eliminated.

What about the third variable problem? Recall that in an experiment, the only thing that differs between conditions is the independent variable. Everything else is held constant. The researcher treats participants in the various conditions in identical ways: the same instructions are given; All this is done so that if there is a difference between conditions, we can be confident that the cause is the independent variable. By holding everything constant across the various conditions in the experiment except the independent variable, the experimenter solves the third variable problem. Controlling the Impact of Individual Differences by Random Assignment But how do we know that the participants in the experimental group and the control group didn't simply differ on the dependent measure to begin with? Everybody knows that bad news affects the way you think and that it is hard to get a clear thought. In the vernacular this is called a blow to the forehead. The brain is flooded with stress hormones at this moment. They make thinking suddenly become difficult. Many people tend to pay too much attention to this deficit. Only the obvious is seen, namely the things that immediately come to the fore. Beautiful things and small successes that lie in the past are no longer present and have disappeared in a gray area. Once again, the event of the dream job cancellation is taken up: self-deception would be if you told yourself that you did not want the job at all. In doing so, you simply put aside your bad feelings. Meanwhile, you prevent yourself from reflecting critically on yourself. What you think about and focus your attention on shows up in your life. When you focus your emotional and mental energy on a particular thought, you draw the physical manifestation of that thought toward you.