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What are the right kinds of words?

One way to really change the way someone feels about something is to use words that make the person see the thing in a different way. I call this reframing.

The classic example of reframing is the glass is not half empty, it’s half full. In this reframe you are trying to get the person to see the positive side of things, and not focus on the negative side.

You can use reframing for more complex things by changing some very simple words in a sentence. For example, think about the difference between these three sentences:

It’s beautiful outside today, but it’s going to be cloudy tomorrow.

It’s beautiful outside today, and it’s going to be cloudy tomorrow.

It’s beautiful outside today, even though it’s going to be cloudy tomorrow.

Each of these sentences describes the same thing, but by changing just one or two words you change the way you think about each day. Read these three again and think about how each makes you feel about the weather today, and tomorrow. Notice the difference?

There are a lot of different ways to reframe things.

You can use words that make the frame bigger, so the person you are talking to can see the big picture.

Like, when a person is at a store and is worried about buying a pair of shoes because she knows that a store across town has the same pair for a few dollars less, you may say something like, Wow, I know that the other store has the same pair for a couple dollars less, but that’s an hour away. How much gas do you think you would use up driving over there?

You can also reframe the context of a situation.

Friend: Man! I really wanted to go to the beach today but its so windy outside… it wouldn’t be any fun.

You: Ya, it wouldn’t be much fun sitting on the beach in the wind, but look at the wave! It would be a great day for surfing!

Another type of reframe is the content reframe.

Friend: Can you believe that guy! He just passed us doing a hundred miles an hour! What a jerk!

You: He was going pretty fast. He had his emergency lights on, maybe he is going to the hospital.

So you can see how changing the language you use can actually change someone’s attitude about things.

Reframing is very powerful because it is a type of conversational hypnosis.

When you reframe things you actually distract the person’s conscious mind and force him to think deeper and listen to his subconscious mind.

The person does not go into a deep trance like you would expect in a hypnotist’s office, but he does look inward to the subconscious to think differently about things.

Learn more about conversational hypnosis and reframing, and try it out.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 3:34 am and is filed under Conversational Hypnosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.