NLP: Conversational Reframing

If your wife cheats on you, be glad she cheated on you and not on your country.
— A. P. Chekhov

Our internal goals—our intentions—are inside us. But we live in the real world, which, as it happens, is outside. We need to connect these intentions with what’s happening in the world. We do this through meaning. That is, we assign meaning to external events, which links the event to our values. That’s why meanings play such a big role in our lives: external events are connected to our inner world solely by the way we assign meaning to them.

• She’s giving me a weird look—she must not like me.
• If you’re late to work several times, it means you don’t value your job.
• If I swim five meters, it means I’ve learned to swim.

The process of “making sense” of things—assigning meaning—is highly subjective, irrational, and hard to understand, especially if you’re not the one assigning the meaning. But we often want to influence this process, to make the meanings fit what we want. Another name for this process is evaluation—connecting events to values.

Let me introduce you to reframing: a powerful model for playing with meaning and changing how we evaluate events.

What Is Reframing?

In English, “reframe” can mean changing the frame around a picture or changing the way you look at the picture itself. In NLP, “frame” usually refers to the way we perceive a situation, so “reframing” takes on a deep and important meaning. A rough translation into Russian is “restructuring,” but that doesn’t fully capture the concept.

The general idea of reframing is to rearrange elements to create a new, more acceptable state. For example, imagine you’re sitting by a campfire. To keep it burning, you use big logs. After a while, the fire weakens. What do you do? You stir the logs, and the fire flares up again. You didn’t add anything new—you just changed the combination of elements. That’s reframing: knowing how to rearrange things to get the best result.

Another example: rearranging furniture in a room. At first, it seems perfect, but over time, you realize it’s not convenient. So you move things around. Maybe later you’ll want to rearrange again. Reframing is like that—changing the arrangement to get a better outcome.

Reframing on a Sensory Level

Recall an unpleasant situation from your past, but imagine it as a picture with a border (not a panorama). Now, put a simple white frame around it. Did your perception change?

• It feels lighter.
• It’s more neutral.
• It feels frozen in time.

Now, make the frame black.

• It feels much worse.
• It’s like someone died.

Try a gold frame, like on old paintings.

• It feels very important, even overwhelming.
• Or it just feels like a painting—something distant.

Now, imagine a frame with flashing lights, like Christmas lights.

• It’s even fun.
• It feels like a comedy.

You can experiment endlessly. The key is, we didn’t change the content, just the frame—and that changed our perception dramatically.

Conversational Reframing

Picture a hedgehog standing on a stump, shouting, “I’m strong! I’m strong! I’m strong!” A bear walks by, listens, and blows the hedgehog into the bushes. The hedgehog gets up and says, “I’m strong, but light!”

Reframing lets us change evaluations and play with meaning—even in everyday conversation. Let’s look at some examples:

• I was late to work by ten minutes yesterday.
  You have a good memory if you still remember that today.
• The Zaporozhets is a bad car.
  But it’s small and cheap.
• My boss annoys me.
  That shows your professionalism—if you can follow orders from someone you don’t like.
• I’m greedy.
  I’d call it being thrifty.
• I don’t like my job.
  You must be very responsible if you still go to it. There’s little challenge in only doing what you like.
• No one loves me.
  That’s a reason to change something in your life.
• I’m too lazy.
  At least you won’t make unnecessary mistakes.

Is it enough to just say, “You’re not greedy, you’re thrifty,” and everything changes? Sometimes, yes—but not always. For reframing to work, it has to fit the person’s worldview (“map”). Reframing works by showing someone another way to see things. If that new perspective fits their map, it’s likely to work.

Types of Conversational Reframing

There are two main types:

• Meaning Reframing: Assigning a different meaning to the same event.
• Context Reframing: Placing the event in a different context where its meaning changes.

Meaning Reframing Example

A girl confesses to a priest: “Father, I’m sinful. Every morning I look in the mirror and think, ‘How beautiful I am!’”
The priest replies, “That’s not a sin, my child, just a mistake.”

Or, a father complains to psychologist Virginia Satir that his daughter is stubborn. Satir points out that he himself succeeded in life through persistence. Suddenly, the father sees his daughter’s “stubbornness” as “determination.”

Context Reframing Example

A wife tells her husband, “Honey, I stopped by your work during lunch and took $300 from your jacket.”
He replies, “No problem, I haven’t worked there for two weeks.”

Or, “I’m too quiet.”
“But you never say anything unnecessary.”
“Bosses like quiet people.”

How to Reframe

If you can phrase a statement as “I’m too Z,” you’re doing a context reframe. Responses start with “But at least…”
If you can phrase it as “I feel X when Y happens,” you’re doing a meaning reframe. Responses start with “That means…”

Exercises

Exercise: “Call It Something Else”

Come up with pairs of words or phrases that describe the same action or quality, but with different evaluations:

• laziness – energy saving
• greed – thriftiness
• nitpicking – persistence
• snitch – socially active
• tasteless – original
• careerist – ambitious
• hysterical – emotional
• dishonest – diplomatic

Exercise: “I’m Too…”

Write a statement like “I’m too…” (e.g., “I’m too lazy”). Exchange papers with a partner and come up with as many responses as possible, starting with “But at least…” and mentioning a situation where this quality is useful.

• I’m too lazy.
  But at least you don’t make unnecessary mistakes.
  But at least you focus on what’s most important.
• I’m too trusting.
  But at least you believe in people.
• I’m too scatterbrained.
  But at least you don’t waste time on useless things.
  But at least it reduces your stress.

Reframing in Practice

Reframing is a way to look beyond limitations and see events from a new perspective. It doesn’t change the behavior or desires themselves, just the attitude toward them, which can restore balance. Sometimes it’s more effective to help someone change their behavior, but sometimes it’s more useful to change their attitude.

If the problem is negative perception of the environment or oneself (“my husband doesn’t love me,” “the weather is always bad,” “my job is awful,” “the kids are impossible”), it’s often more helpful to change the evaluation of the situation. If the problem is behavioral (“I can’t change jobs,” “I can’t learn English,” “I can’t say no”), conversational reframing may help less, but it can still be a useful first step.

Reframing in Sales and Negotiations

Reframing isn’t just for personal issues—it’s also useful in sales and negotiations. For example:

• “Your prices are too high.”
  That’s so we can offer you a good discount.
• “This shirt has too much synthetic material.”
  That means it’s easy to iron and wash.
• “Your salespeople don’t explain anything.”
  That’s so you can make a completely independent choice.

It’s not about lying—it’s about seeing different sides of any situation and helping others see them too.

Summary

• Meaning (evaluation) is the link between an external event and a person’s internal value.
• Reframing is a way to change the evaluation of an event.
• You can reframe by offering a different meaning (meaning reframing) or by placing the event in a different context (context reframing).
• For reframing to work, you need rapport and to match the person’s worldview (“map”).
• Reframing is used both for building rapport and for creating change.