Leah wrote a really helpful blog on throwing out her 30 year old frock, and how doing the same with our stored emotions may be needed. She asked us are we hanging on to anger, resentment and bitterness that is, at best, not helpful and at worst, harmful.

It made me want to share a technique I've used to help me move on from things that are no longer useful. It made a big difference in how my relationship with the father of my children went forward and is now healthy. It was key in helping me conquer my unhealthy dance with alcohol. Maybe you already use it. It's called re-framing. It is simply looking at something from another direction but this can be a hard thing to do and we can often be quickly pulled back into our usual way of seeing things. Try this:

Think of the thing that is troubling. Think of the emotion which accompanies it for you. Now re-frame it by putting it into the past tense.

"I'm so angry at him for not caring."

"I used to feel angry at him."

"I love having a glass of wine as I make dinner."

"I used to need a glass of wine as I made dinner."

It may only be a subtle change but its simplicity is its success. If you keep doing it you will nudge yourself into a shift of thinking. And it will also become second nature to talk of the past as the past and talk of your emotion at that time. It then has no hold over now. Now is a new time.

Imagine being a tiler, they use spacers to keep a distance for grout between the tiles. Re-framing gives you that small but vitally important space. Suddenly you can see your situation from a new perspective. Let's be tilers today. I reckon that means we can also drink copious quantities of builder's tea and eat biscuits galore and maybe even wolf whistle at Leah in that 30 year old frock! Builders used to wolf whistle...

Love from

The room above the garage

A Moodscope member.