Framing and reframing

What does a teardrop mean to you?  It might conjure up an image or a feeling - sadness, perhaps, or tears of joy.  You might associate it with the sounds of someone crying (or laughing!)

But a teardrop has no absolute meaning, no meaning in itself.  The meaning we attach to it comes from the context - the surrounding frame.  Consider these different frames for teardrops:

• The flood of tears on chopping an onion
• Weeping, softly, silently, in the quiet of an empty room
• Tears of sorrow at saying goodbye to someone who is leaving for ever
• Tears of joy when you see someone you thought was lost
• Crying with laughter at a comedy show
• Emotions washing over us at the birth of a child
• A baby crying with hunger, frustration and fury
• The sting of tears when we read a beautiful poem
• Eyes watering on a windswept walk along a cliff

The context provides the frame, and the meaning.  But often we imagine what the context is and come up with our own frames, often out of habit (for example always assuming the worst - or the best!) But those frames won't always show us the whole picture.  They might well be different to the frames that other people use (and that can lead to a good deal of misunderstanding).  They might be frames that do not allow us to feel resourceful, or to recognise that we have choices.

Becoming more aware of frames allows us to:

• see things from a different perspective - or many perspectives
• see things from another point of view
• try out new frames that will make us feel more resourceful, and give us new choices