Reframing is a way of using words, using your language to change how you perceive a situation. It can be done in many situations but where I have found it most useful is in changing my internal dialog.

When I was a young adult, I experienced profound anxiety. I remember situations, especially around groups of people, where I would start to feel anxious and then, quite honestly, I would focus on that feeling and it would grow into the need to flee. I would just need to get out of there as quickly as possible and I often did. I allowed myself to leave situations where I felt anxious.

That is one approach that can be helpful, and sometimes necessary in the moment.

However, there came an experience where I discovered I could change my experience by labeling it differently.

I was involved for a time in community theatre. Mostly behind stage, but I had a desire to be like my friends and to be onstage.

I finally got my opportunity when I asked a director I knew to allow me to be onstage.

She granted me the opportunity. I auditioned and I got a part.

I studied my lines judiciously and almost obsessively, running them before each show. And before each show began, I felt anxious. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I also could not leave as I could not let the cast down.

I realized one day that the experience of being excited has some similarity to the beginnings of feeling anxious, so I began to ask myself if instead of feeling anxious, I was feeling excited. I realized there was truth in that. Not that I didn’t feel anxious, but I also was excited. I enjoyed being a part of the show.

Overtime asking myself that question helped to shift what I experienced. It allowed me to focus differently. The anxiety didn’t grow as much but the excitement did.

I then used that experience to shift how I felt in other situations and it lessened the need to flee and the experience I had of anxiety.

I feel that focusing on my excitement began to allow the possibility for something better than the fear. It opened a door, and it allowed me to experience situations more fully. I then began to build evidence that I could perform when feeling excited and I could grow that feeling more than my anxiety.

I have a friend that experiences fear that good things will be taken from her. She has past experiences that have built evidence for her that this is true. What strikes me is that other people in her situation may use different words to describe the same fear. They may say that they are afraid they will lose things.

I’m not suggesting that the fear of losing something is preferable to something being taken away, but it is interesting to me that losing something has a different locus of control than having something taken away.

If you fear having something taken away, there is a sense of a loss of control whereas losing something places the person in fear at the center of control. It’s an interesting shift in perspective. One that places the individual in a position of potential to change the course more so than someone afraid something will be taken away.

To me, words are very powerful, and they shape the experience we have.

Notice what you tell yourself when fear enters your system and look for evidence that it is not true, even if the evidence seems really small. It can help give you a foothold to shifting that experience.

I have recently begun feeling anxious again in certain situations and I can affirm that I am not feeling excited in these moments. But when I search for something different, something underneath, I find that what I am identifying is uncertainty. I feel uncertain and even that shift gives me the opportunity to see where I do have control. I can then shift my actions to support what is certain, what I can take care of, what actions I can take.

That simple process then shifts the experience I can have as I turn my attention to other things.

We cannot control everything. In fact, we need some uncertainty in our lives for them to be interesting. But in normal life, even when there is fear and uncertainty, there are likely things that can reorient us towards the things we can control.

It may seem small, but these shifts are radically important.