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Cognitive reframing · also called reappraisal

how to think about it differently

Reframing is changing the meaning you assign to an event without changing the event. The situation stays identical; the story about what it says regarding you does not. It is the single most studied technique in cognitive behavioural therapy.

What to do about it

Write the sentence you are telling yourself, then write one other sentence that fits the same facts.

How people say it

Nobody looks this up by its clinical name. These are the ways it actually gets said.

  • change how I look at things
  • stop making everything mean something bad
  • my brain jumps to the worst
  • how to think about it differently
  • same situation different story
  • I take everything personally
  • how to stop catastrophising
  • my inner voice is brutal
  • how do I argue with my own thoughts

Written by Brian Spiker, who has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — the receipts. More terms in the encyclopedia.

About the author

Brian Spiker has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — a real service business with real customers, real Google reviews, and 13 years of work most self-help authors will never do.

He writes the way operators talk: brutal, funny, and built from work that actually has to get done. Verify everything at spikercarpetandtilecare.com.