Description

Actively shifting your perspective from negative to positive or neutral.

Benefits

Reduces stress, improves emotional resilience, promotes optimism.

Example

After a brutal breakup and a bad quarter at work, Nina found herself spiraling into negative self-talk. Everything felt heavy, like she was carrying a storm cloud around. A therapist suggested trying “cognitive reframing”—not toxic positivity, but deliberately pausing and questioning her thoughts. She didn’t love the idea, but she committed to testing it for 30 days. She wrote down one frustrating thought per day and then challenged it: “What else could this mean?” or “What would I tell a friend in this situation?” At first, it felt forced—like trying to convince herself of something she didn’t believe. But slowly, her brain started to play along. She wasn’t thinking “everything sucks” anymore. It became “this is hard, but temporary.” Reframing didn’t fix everything, but it gave her just enough distance from her thoughts to stop believing them so blindly. Now she keeps a tiny notebook in her bag for on-the-go reframes and calls it her “mental first aid kit.”