Emotional Reframing and Happiness (E81)

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete talk about emotional reframing and happiness– it’s not about what happens, but how you frame it. 

Show notes

Cognitive Reframing

Link to article on cognitive reframing 

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: And we’re back again.

P: Howdy, howdy, howdy.

M: Hi, hi, hi.

P & M: Laugh.

P: I’m trying to be really nice and open because it’s a miserable day here in Sydney. Laugh.

M: I think it’s miserable everywhere in Australia.

P: It’s so cold! Eh, true.

M: Yeah.

P: Even if it was sunny.

M: Yeah, pretty much… Well, no… Look, Brisbane might get out of lockdown today.

P: Yay!

M: Possibility?

P: Laugh.

M: Everyone else is going into lockdown. So, you know, poor Melbourne back again. More areas of Sydney, Newcastle, Armidale.

P: Mmm.

M: Yeah. So, this is actually a really good time for us to be talking about emotional framing and reframing.

P: Ooh, reframing. Let me get out my chemistry set, laugh.

M: I kind of go more towards like the pretty pictures on my wall. Do I want a white frame or a black frame?

P: Laughter! Whichever analogy works for you folks.

M: Laugh.

P: This is exactly what we’re talking about reframing. Looking at things from the other point of view, laugh.

M: Exactly. So, I think what we’ve just proved Pete is exactly what this conversation is about.

P: Laugh.

M: Which is that the same event, can be perceived differently by two different people. So, the difference is due to internal factors, and it really comes down to the fact that we’re all unique. We’re all individuals, and we all bring with us a whole lot of emotional baggage, which shapes who we are in both positives and negatives.

P: What are you talking about? I’m not emotional at all!

M: Laugh.

P: She says, casting a thing [rucksack] over a shoulder.

M & P: Laugh.

M: Yes, so we all come with our life experiences and that shapes how we see everyday events and how we live our lives.

P: Very much,

M: So, we all subjectively evaluate our experiences, and we can, unfortunately, shade experiences with negative emotions because we’re seeing things through a negative lens when they’re not actually negative.

P: So true, and it’s interesting that that’s the first place that I went to when you spoke about this reframing. I went, ‘Oh, it’s about the negative, half cup full [empty]’ kind of thing. Let’s flip that on his head, but it goes a little bit deeper than that, Muz. You sort of mentioned that this is not just about being negative and positive.

M: Yes, and look, we’ve had an episode on positive affirmations before, which really kind of rubbed the cynic in me.

P: Laugh!

M: I just felt uncomfortable the whole episode.

P & M: Laugh!

M: And cognitive reframing or emotional reframing also is that borderline. But I think everyone out there knows someone who is just negative, so negative.

P: Mmm, mmm, mmm.

M: And my heart goes out to them in theory in the safety of this conversation, because there has obviously been something that has made them feel that they need to respond that negatively to everything that happens.

P: Yes.

M: And that thing can’t be a good thing.

P: No.

M: Right?

P: Definitely.

M: But gosh, their hard work those people in practise.

P & M: Laughter.

P: They’re energy suckers. If we put it into an energetic context, they are the people that just drain you physically and emotionally, and you come out after 15 minutes with them like Oh my God, I need a martini!

M: Uh huh.

P: Laugh.

M: And you feel like crap sometimes too!

P: You do! People who are aware of this energetic transference call it energy suckers. And it’s this whole thing of pulling from your belly button and they just drain everything from the bottom of your reservoir. Laugh.

M: Absolutely. Yeah. So, for those people, welcome to the show.

P & M: Laughter!

M: Good for you.

P: Can you identify yourself as an energy drainer?

M: Laugh.

P: I don’t think anybody would.

M & P: Laugh.

P: I’m one of those people, I suck… [internet issues]

M: Laugh, you suck.

P: Oh, this is hard. Laugh!

M: Um, I will apologise for everyone. I think we’re doing OK at the moment, but we are having Internet and bandwidth issues in lockdown. So, there might be some conversations that end with Pete saying, “I suck.”

P: Laugh!

M: You know.

P: This could be fun.

M & P: Laugh.

M: All right. So, cognitive reframing it is transforming specific negative events into more positive ones.

P: Mmm.

M: Which sounds like throwing out a memory and recreating it. And it is not that at all. It is not about distorting reality. It is about understanding the bias that we apply to reality and looking through different lenses.

P: Dare I say it? That’s again, the hard work. You can’t just paste something on top of it and go, ‘Oh, I’m just going to change this from an orange lens to a green lens.’ Doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. You’ve actually got to dive a little deeper into that and actually do the work of understanding. And that can be confronting because that brings into play your biases, your prejudices, all those conditional elements that can go right back to your childhood.

M: Oh, absolutely. And that oftentimes are formed in your childhood in your early formative years.

P: Yep.

M: You know, when Sallie Mae dumped you in front of the football team.

P: Laugh!

M: That sticks with you, that hurt. It’s embarrassing. And it’s part of how you’ll relate to other women moving forward.

P: Mmm.

M: Things like that, for instance.

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: I don’t know why I went there specifically.

P: Sally Mae, what a mole.

M & P: Laughter!

M: Mole.

P: Laugh.

M: Alright, so from Sallie Mae, we’re going to jump to Lester Levenson. I’m going to tell a little story. There was a gentleman called Lester Levenson, and at the age of 42 he found himself in hospital following his second heart attack.

P: Oof.

M: And the doctors pretty much said, ‘you might have a couple of weeks to live.’ And with no, no additional hope to give him.

P: Mmm.

M: He had major liver problems, ulcers and was also depressed, so he was sent home for bed rest and pretty much told to prepare for the end.

P: Okay, all right, yep.

M: And so, he got home and you know, he was obviously very depressed and contemplating suicide, and that, that really is a shock to the system. That type of thing, right?

P: Mmm.

M: So, he was contemplating life and death and realised that he had so much knowledge that he gained over his 42 years of life. He had been a successful person in life, but he had no knowledge about how to live a good life. And what living a good life meant.

P: Ah. He was following the formula.

M: He had this realisation that, Yep.

P: Laugh.

M: He’d gone to work. He was a typical, I think 1950s or 60s man who had the promising career and a lot of stress and none of the tools at that stage to discuss emotions as many men in that generation, also had.

P: Mmm, very much.

M: And so, in that moment, he decided to dedicate what little of his remaining life he could to understanding what life is actually all about and how he could find happiness.

P: He gave it two weeks?

M: Exactly. And, you know, if it was only going to be two weeks, it was only going to be two weeks.

P: Oh.

M: But, you know, it lit a fire. That death sentence lit a fire in him.

P: Mmm.

M: And he decided he needed to know what lead to happiness and a good life.

P: Mmm.

M: So through – Here’s the good part story.

P: I was about to say we’re going down a really negative path here. Let’s bring some light and colour back in. Laugh!

M: Through years and years of research, and he found that the path to a good life is internal, not external.

P: Mmm.

M: And he started by looking at what made him happy. And he realised that through his very successful life that success has only led to temporary happiness. He thought about being loved as happiness, and we’ve spoken a lot about social bonds and relationships.

P: Yeah, mmm.

M: But he was loved by his friends and family, but he was still unhappy.

P: Mmm.

M: Still depressed. He thought about the joy of camping with his friends and the joy of being with his ex, and he found the unifying theory. So, it’s not being loved. He thought

‘Happiness is when I am loving.’

P: When you’re giving love.

M: And so, he resolved to be loving towards everybody.

P: Fabulous.

M: So, he directed his love towards the doctor that had told him he only had two weeks to live, and he sought to turn the anger that he felt towards that Doctor into love.

P: Interesting.

M: And once he realised that it was about him and not the doctor, he felt that weight lift off his chest.

P: Mmm.

M: And he continued to release the anger, moving slowly to resentment and then finally moving to love and realising that that doctor was trying to do his job and deliver news that he didn’t want to deliver either, that he felt helpless delivering that news.

P: Yeah.

M: And so, this really triggered a cascade of, uh, you know, cognitive reframing within him, which wasn’t a term at that stage.

P: Laugh.

M: And through the rest of his life, he kept asking again, ‘Can I replace this painful emotion with love?’ So, he started looking back through his entire life, and sometimes it took minutes, sometimes it took days to release those negative feelings.

P: Mmm hmm, yeah.

M: He went through his whole memory and transformed his anger to love for all people. And then once he practised that and spent all this time doing that, he’s developed the ability just like training a muscle to do it in the moment.

P: Uh, yeah, that’s a gift. That’s such a gift. And there are people like that who are out there who have this innate ability to look at a situation and go hang on pause. Take the emotion out of it. Let’s look at that a bit more objectively and they turn the situation around. They turn the emotion around and they stop their emotions from ruling their consciousness. And I think that’s the crux of what we’re talking about here. It’s like, Let’s just pause. Let’s not react. Let’s address.

M: Yep, absolutely. So in a way, he healed his heart.

P: Mmm.

M: That broken heart.

P: Laugh. Yeah, though it’s interesting, Marie, because you’re saying he had a two week sentence. And yet now you’re talking about the rest of his life. I mean, how much longer did he live for?

M: So, he did heal his heart and as he let go of that negativity and that anger and resentment and other people and all the things that they had wronged him with. And the things they did wrong at work and the bus driver who was late and all of that. He eventually became a spiritual teacher on all of this, and he died in his eighties.

P: No way.

M: So, almost twice as long as he had previously lived.

P: That’s great.

M: So, he was 42 when the doctor gave him a few weeks to live.

P: Goodness.

M: And we’ve spoken before about happiness, and one of the biggest blockers or stoppers of happiness is negativity and negative events.

P: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

M: And negative affect and if you’re in that spiral and circle of negativity, it’s really hard to be happy. And so, what Lester Levenson did was create a whole movement and books and followers and really kick-started cognitive reframing.

P: Yeah, wow.

M: And he did that by asking himself. So, his technique about reframing is,

‘Can I change this negative feeling into a positive one?’

‘Can I change this feeling of X into a feeling of Y?’

P: Yeah.

M: When he looked at his doctor? ‘Can I change this feeling of anger towards the doctor who gave me information that was bad –

P: Negative and horrible.

M: – to a feeling of love?’ And eventually, when the bus driver was late, he didn’t take that personally.

P: Laugh.

M: He didn’t even get upset about it because he had refrained how he looked at life.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: By doing this activity deliberately over time repeatedly.

P: There’s a really contemporary aspect of this argument who hasn’t got mad at the call centre person.

M: Oh, yes.

P: So you ring up the call centre and you’re so frustrated and I think a really practical example of this is when you’re in that moment, ‘I just want to yell at you!’

M: Laugh, mmm hmm.

P: You have to take it back and go, ‘It’s not this person’s fault.’ This is a person on the other end of the line. So, I think that is an opportunity to exercise this cognitive reframing and go ‘ah, it’s the situation that I’m angry at and frustrated by.’ I need to dial it back, bring the emotion out of it and address how I’m going to overcome the situation rather than trying to make this person on the other end of the line who I don’t even know work with me as opposed to against me. And I think that’s a really practical application of this entire concept.

M: And to take that even further, why are you angry in the first place?

P: Ah, yeah. Well, that’s more of an existential question, isn’t it?

M: Well, not really because if… Do we expect people to be perfect?

P: Mmm, yeah…

M: Do you think that the banker or the bank that you work with or the telco or the power company deliberately cut power to your house this Saturday afternoon.

P: Laugh.

M: Or decided that their technology wasn’t going to work when you needed to make your transaction.

P: Yep sure.

M: There’s actually nothing deliberate and malicious about a lot of the things that make us angry when we call into a call centre.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Yeah.

M: And it’s not about you at all. And some poor person who caused the problem is having a far worse day than you are I’m sure.

P: Laugh!

M: But reframing that into – again what we spoke about a few weeks ago with layers of control, control versus and influence.

P: Yeah.

M: When we talk about that, just letting go of the anger and knowing that there’s nothing you can do about it, especially not at the time.

P: Mmm hmm. Yep.

M: And that it’s not within your control to do anything to fix a lot of these things and that it wasn’t personal at all, that that can be really empowering. So, you don’t have to yell at the person.

P: Laugh, yeah.

M: You don’t even have to try and control that emotion because it’s not there.

P & M: Laugh!

M: I’ve got a quote here from Lester Levenson, I do love that name.

P: Laugh.

M: It’s just old-school.

P: It is.

M: Especially with the black and white pic.

P: Yeah, definitely. It’s this sort of, you know, Clark Gable-esque kind of vibe.

M: Mmm hmm.

M: So he said, Lester said:

P: It’s very Buddhist Marie. It’s a very Buddhist concept as well. The Dalai Lama talks a lot about this in terms of forgiveness and how to approach conflict with a forgiving heart. And, you know, he talks about it a lot in his dealings with the Chinese leadership over Tibet and being able to stand opposite someone and still come at the situation with a forgiving heart. It’s, it’s a huge lesson to learn.

M: And it’s more than anything, when I started looking into forgiveness and it’s one of the chapters in our book, actually, just checking that in there.

P: Laugh!

M: When we started researching forgiveness, one of the things that I’d never stopped to think about was that forgiveness is not about the other person. It’s not about the person who harmed you or hurt you.

P: No, no.  

M: Or whatever it is that they did. It’s about you, releasing that pain and that anger.

P: Absolutely.

M: Yep.

P: I’ve got a great quote from the Dalai Lama on that, and he says, he’s talking about forgiveness, and he says,

“We won’t often get the closure from another that we desire. This means that we must discover it on our own. Forgiveness is how we find peace, no matter if they want to give it to us or not.”

M: I love it.

P: Mmm.

M: It’s about taking back control and not letting that other person dictate your emotions.

P: Completely.

M: But you saying, ‘no, enough is enough. I’m going to be at peace with this and I’m going to move on and not let it be part of my emotional baggage that shapes and taints the way I view the world.’

P: There’s a lot of talk about surrendering and releasing that with behavioural therapists. They talk about standing in the midst of the storm and surrendering to it. Yeah you’re going to get buffeted around you’re going to get blown off your feet. You’re going to get picked up like Dorothy in the vortex of atmospheric pressure.

M: Laugh.

P: Out of Kansas, and dumped down in the land of Oz. Laugh. But if you go, if you don’t fight against it, sometimes it’s best to surrender to it and in that becomes a certain amount of peace and understanding. And with that and then out of that comes opportunity.

M: Absolutely.

P: That’s another conversation, laugh.

M: I guess. Look, we haven’t gone into the how and all of the workings, but there’s a great article which deep dives into this, which we will put into our show notes. So, the article is called cognitive reframing. It’s not about what happens to you, but how you frame it.

P: Mmm.

M: And really, how you frame your life has such an impact on your life.

P: Yes, definitely.

M: Walking around with rose coloured glasses. Even if the world is not rosy right now, it can definitely help with resilience and mental well-being.

P: Yep, hugely.

M: Or even if you’re just kind of in neutral, better than negative.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Because there is a lot going on right now and a lot of people are struggling with their mental health. So, it is really important right now for us to just be a bit more aware, more cognizant of our emotions and of things like this, so that we can potentially make things a little bit better and nicer and shiny.

P: And as the story of Lester Levenson proves:

Unhappy people die!

M & P: Laughter!

P: Our little mantra, laugh.

M: Our mantra? Unhappy people die? Oh dear, laugh.

P: Get happy people!

M: Laugh. I think we need a tag line, Unhappy people die on Happiness for Cynics.  

P: Laugh.

M & P: And on that note – Laughter!

P: Have a happy day!

M: I can’t even say it, bye folks.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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