Creative Positive Reframing
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire
Creative Positive Reframing: Taking limiting beliefs and creatively transforming them so that they become supportive rather than destructive.This is what I am calling the process that I outline in my book - This Way Up. So today, the second of August, 2016, I'm letting all of my readers know that Creative Positive Reframing is now *named! (*kinda trademarked, if you will)The process involves several steps, but one of the central points is the use of questions. We are often advised to use affirmations when we are trying to rid ourselves of a bad habit or in getting out of a negative thought spiral. And it's a wonderful, helpful tool. However, sometimes if we are using affirmations that do not feel real to us, our brain rejects it, and challenges us on it. For example, if I am struggling to save enough money to buy a car, and I say to myself, ‘I am wealthy and have plenty of money for a new car’, my head will say, ‘that’s not true’ – and then my brain will work to prove that I am wrong. Affirmations sometimes work brilliantly, but sometimes they don't; and if they don't seem to be working on certain problems, there is a body of research that shows that the use of questions instead of affirmations works very effectively. Questions spark the brain’s tendency to work to solve problems. Ask a question and your brain will toil to find an answer, so that your brain is working with you, instead of against you.I read a great article in Daily Good the other day called Living by Questions. In it, poet Jane Hirshfield explains:
To ask a good question is a way to carabiner yourself to intimacy, a doorknob that turns only one direction, toward open. A good question can send you on a long journey in rain and cold. It can terrify, bringing you straight into your own fears, whether of heights or of loss or of all the mysteries that never go away—our own vulnerability, the heart's utter exposure, the capriciousness and fragility of events, of relationships, of existence.In times of darkness and direness, a good question can become a safety rope between you and your own sense of selfhood: A person who asks a question is not wholly undone by events. She is there to face them, to meet them. If you’re asking a question, you still believe in a future. And in times that are placid and easy, a good question is a preventive against sleepwalking, a way to keep present the awakening question that's under all other questions: "What else, what more?"
What a stunning description, so, well, poetic!I will go into more deteail about Creative Positive Reframing in future posts. But for now, I'd like to close with a TED talk - 'How to Ask Good Questions.' [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkcHstP6Ht0[/embed]I’d love to hear what you think about the name I've chosen for my process - 'Creative Positive Reframing.' And any thoughts you have about the use of questions. And as always thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.