Framing

 Most people have heard the familiar saying that “one can choose to look at a glass as half full or half empty”.   Like so many idioms in our life, this one is frequently heard and yet implemented with great infrequency and difficulty.

Psychologists often call the perceptions and choices we make for our thoughts and behavior to be the process of framing.  We have the power to observe or participate in some situation and make the decision on how we choose to ‘frame’ what we see and/or feel.  We have the power to choose a positive or negative frame focus for the various parts of our world.

My experience has led me to believe that this is a very strong power for we humans and can alter many of our difficulties into more positive perceptions.  Unfortunately, I see so many people verbalize this power, but decline to implement it into making positive changes for their own life.

It tends to be a sad situation when an individual chooses to frame his/her feelings and behaviors as something that they have no power to change by utilizing the process of re-framing.  Many times these persons find themselves choosing the self-reference of becoming a victim with their lives that definitely leans toward the ‘empty’ side of living life.

Recently a friend of mine lost $500 cash in her purse at a dining establishment.  She discovered the lost at her next stop and attempted to retrieve it.  However, the finder had long gone with his/her new treasure.

My friend told me about it and made the optimistic choice to see this as her getting to be a senior citizen and this being the first time in her entire life that she had lost a big amount of cash.  There was no‘ poor me’ chorus that so many individuals choose.  Her choice was to frame this event as a compliment to herself. This seems so very difficult for most of us to do.

I am now 71 years of age and have never been a patient in a hospital since my birth or had a major illness.  After recently seeing so many family and friends who have not been so lucky, I have a choice whether to frame my behavior as a blessing (which I do) OR spend time worrying when my time will some since statistics tell me that eventually my time will come.

There are many people who dislike their job for some reason.  Each has the power to frame their attitude with a focus on how unhappy they are to be trapped in this job OR they can frame their attitude that they are very fortunate to have a job in this economy regardless of how much they dislike it.  A third choice is to feel guilty about choosing to feel trapped or the guilt of having a job when so many do not.  The power to frame any part of our lives is our choice and has a significant impact on how we live.

Another aspect of this framing power is that we each are able to define the type and degree of attitude in which we frame our feelings, thoughts and behaviors.  A frequently overlooked corollary is that when we have the power to define and frame our world, we also have the power to redefine it.

Implementing the powers to frame and define our thoughts, feelings and behaviors can do so much to determine whether we live a life that tends to be more full or empty, sad or happy.

This is the type of personal power that we each have to determine the way we choose to live our daily lives.  I find it such a treat to interact with someone who chooses to focus on the positive power to frame a fuller life and feel sad for those who choose not to do so.

Fortunately, I know that people choose the ‘full’ or ‘empty’ viewpoint based on meeting their needs, not mine.  Just having the power to change one’s life does not guarantee that an individual will choose to implement it.  

Hopefully, knowing that we each have so much personal power to make our lives into ‘full’ adventures will give us the reminder we need when we write our Life Journey.

Comment welcome.  Email: silverchatline@gmail.com

Resolutions

As a new year begins, many of us are preparing for a time-honored tradition of listing our resolutions for change during the upcoming months.  There seems to be something about beginning a new year that brings out the desire for us to plan some type of change for the way we are choosing to live our lives.

At the number one position on many American lists is the resolution to lose some weight.  We know that a very large number of our population is over weight and obese by a significant number of pounds. 

Socially we interact with people using food as a facilitator for our gatherings.   For a wide range of reasons, many of us not only eat too much food quantity, but also eat food that is not especially healthy but tends to taste good and easily puts on the pounds.

For many, if not most, people this resolution to lose weight is not only the first on their list to achieve, it is usually the first one in which a person finds themselves failing even if they had some initial success.   As a resolution that tends to stand alone, the success rate tends to be low.

There are some techniques that may help some better achieve this or any other resolutions.  The first question for someone to ask himself or herself is if they really want to lose weight and why.  Challenging the degree and depth of personal motivation is usually difficult; being honest with self is frequently a life-long struggle.

If one finds that the basis of their resolution is to meet the expectations of others, they usually will experience weaker motivation to achieve.  Contrary to social expectations not all of us are born to be rich, healthy, intelligent, beautiful and thin!   

If the resolution stands alone and is not integrated with other life changes, the chances for success are also weaker.  For example, if the weight-loss resolution does not include commitments to include exercise, a specific pattern of changing one’s eating style and content, not having a support person or group for the tough times, concrete measures to determine success with accountability, etc., the chances of one succeeding in losing weight are remote.

One can also be aware that losing weight might have nothing to do with will-power or motivation.  For example, there many medications we may be taking which have weight gain as a side effect.

Based on this premise one can see that their chances of change increase when one is honestly and deeply committed to working for change rather than just wishing something different would happen.  Yet many people handle their resolutions list as though it were a wish list and that changes in one’s life happen by some form of magic.  

A Hugheyism to recall is:  "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always have gotten."

While our focus has been on the most popular resolution for the new year, the dynamics for success and failure with other goals for change in one’s life are similar.   A diet usually fails for the long haul, because it is short-term focused and not a real change of permanent behavior.  

The same is true for any other resolutions we have.  To truly work, any resolution needs to focus on the long-term behaviors of how we choose to live.  Until this integration truly takes place, we are short-term focused and can easily slide back to the natural (for us) way of behaving.

This tendency for many of us to focus on the immediate gratification of our wants is one reason the resolutions list we prepare in January seems to have the same goals on them year after year.  Without the input of effort to make a change work as a integral part of who we are, we usually go through our lives making the same choices over and over.

As always, change and choices to manage them remain our personal challenges.

Comments welcome.    Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com