is most likely not getting us what we actually want. Reframes are the basis for most humor, putting a new twist on the meaning or changing the context of the interaction.

As a CLSC and effective communicator, this is an invaluable tool to influence change subtlety and powerfully. It open us the thinking about boundaries or previously imposed limitations of a problem. Often is the right hemisphere that can see a situation from a new perspective and has the quick-witted response.

Value Level Reframing with Softeners:

These are reframes delivered at the Value Level on the Hemispheric Levels of Experience Chart. These reframes increase the intensity to the value or identity level and are the most useful in the Self-Image processes that are following. Value reframes are ones that often create an “A-ha!” experience. Softeners are the language we use to deliver the reframe that allow the client to accept the new possibility through curiosity, choice and possibility. It is a way of giving options without giving advice.

Example: “So, I’m curious what if X really means Y?” “I’m curious…” is the softener.

Learning Opportunity: The Language of Reframing (thinking “outside of the box”)

Find a partner to practice with and add into your daily repertoire of thinking the questions, “What else could that mean that could be a positive support? Where else might that be useful, valuable or beneficial?” This skill building practice helps develop our creativity in thinking on the spot and being curious.

Person A – Make a complaint in the form of “I’m too lazy.” (bored, wish-washy, busy, shy, etc.)
Person B – Deliver a reframe by either changing the meaning of the experience or behavior, or finding a context where the experience or behavior might be useful.

Example:
Person A – I’m too lazy.” (Delivered in a tone of voice that makes it a negative quality about A.) Person B – “Wow, how wonderful that you take your time to make a decision before you take action.” (New possibility: Lazy could mean something beneficial)

RePowering Self

In many kinds of consulting, cheer leading, and coaching, well-meaning advice often is given to a client who wants change in their life to “Just do it!” Results are often sporadic, temporary and frustrating. Remember back to earlier in this course where we talked about the importance of influencing all Elements of a System: States of Being, Strategies of Thinking, and Behaviors. Hemispheric Integration offers the technology and understanding for answering the question, “Just How?”

RePowering self to be who you are authentically means clearing the mind clutter from old patterns of thinking and behaving that no longer serve us. Rather than being influenced and controlled from the Outside – in, RePowering self is to make a shift in thinking and behavior where the center if power and choice to be who we are comes from the Inside – Out.

It is another important sorting filter to discover where we might have given our power away, or have been brain-washed by circumstances as if they were true.

There was a client with the presenting challenge of “never having enough time for relationships.” She was in a doctoral program working in the field of science and brain research and was driven to produce, at the expense of her social life and often even her physical health. Her statement was, “What I do, is who I am.” Think about the presuppositions in that statement. If she stops “doing” she ceases to exist.

This is the DO → HAVE → BE sequence of thinking.

For example: “If I do it perfectly. I can get their approval. and then I will be OK.” Because this so depends on the opinions of others it doesn’t work in the long term.

We recommend the very powerful and effective sequence of BE → DO → HAVE.