Reframing perspective is such a fascinating subject,
It is is a power tool involving awareness as a first step, as you cannot reframe a perspective if you don’t know there is another one.
Here is the process: Awareness, intent, the possibility of Reframing, action, and the result, seen as consequences or benefits.
When you understand the numerous angle of perspectives, you open the world to so many possibilities.
As coaching stretched my mind, it can never go back to its original size, and I now realize that I often found myself in some situations where I had the tools to reframe but didn’t, lacking awareness. Maybe I was not ready for it at the time.
I just realized that some of my favorite artists have the power to opening eyes and making ordinary objects looking different. It is a way of reframing perspectives.
The first one that comes to mind is Antoine de St Exupery, a french author famous for writing “the little prince,” mistakenly classified as children’s literature.
The book begins with the author telling his story as a kid, showing one of his drawings.
He had just watched a documentary on animals, and he drew a snake that had eaten an elephant, as the documentary explained…showing it to some adults asking what they thought about it. The adults interpreted it as a “hat.” So he had to design in transparency the elephant in the body of the snake.
Different perspectives and interpretations depending on your beliefs and your mind setup.
In the book, the story goes on and on with the example of reframing perspective.
When the little prince is ready to leave, he explains to his friend how he should not be sad and should not see the space he will be feeling, but instead remember him with every happy moment they had together. Take every opportunity to reflect on him. With the glowing stars, they were watching together, the crystal sound of bells that would remind his laughter. When one person feels the pain of a missing friend, the other feels the happiness they shared.
Christoph Nieman is another artist who reframes perspective when he uses daily use objects to transform them into something else. A coffee cup becomes a man waking up, a marker pen becomes a man dressing up, and so on.
I came across the street artist Bordelo II that transforms garbage and recycling material into animals. What do you see first? The trash or the animal?
We see we think, and we process information depending on the angle we look at it. The mindset and believes we have to change it all.
The question as a coach is :
how do we make our client reframing a perspective?
How do we flip our client’s minds?
I like to use the tool of looking at a room from the top of a ladder or being a little bird flying over space and situation.
As St Exupery writes in his books, when kids become adults, they change their way of seeing things.
As we go through life and get involved with emotions in different situations, we see things differently.
The examples I give are kind of simple but so accurate.
What is the difference between perspective and Reframing?
The perspective is how one sees a situation, as Reframing is looking at the same challenge from a different angle or through different lenses.
- Running instead of driving and you perceive the road differently, you notice the sidewalk and the details on the asphalt; your eyesight level and speed change the things you look at.
- When changing a light bulb on the ceiling using a ladder, you notice that the coach could be placed somewhere else and make the room look bigger or that you thought you cleaned everywhere, but the cabinet is dusty on the top.
- Stepping into someone’s shoes for an hour or a day can make you realize that this person’s life is not what we imagined.
- The goal of draining out all our energy could become so much easier to achieve if you change your approach and split it into a smaller step goal.
Reframing is like cutting a big tree blocking your view; see the forest behind the tree and discover a whole new world. It makes you realize that you are not alone in this situation and can get assistance from different people. It helps to see that your actions are part of someone else life and have consequences.
It makes you try new things and help you make decisions;
Reframing perspective can be life-changing, an aha moment, usually difficult to reach alone.
The role of the Coach is crucial, and with the Awareness and possibility of Reframing, he allows the client to so many more options.
It is like seeing the light in the light. Data change to enable you to think differently and make an appropriate decision.
It is a learning moment in someone’s life.
