Negative thoughts have a sticky habit of leading to confirmation bias. 

After one anxious or negative thought shows up, it’s quickly followed by another, and before long you may be looking for evidence that the world actually is as bad as you fear it is. Before long, you can be stuck in a spiral, where everything you think confirms your worst assumptions.

Cognitive Reframing is one way to interrupt that downward spiral. It's not about forcing yourself to think positive thoughts or pretending everything is fine when it’s not. Cognitive Reframing is about catching yourself before a negative thought spiral takes hold, using the power of curiosity.

The technique comes from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and it works because negative thoughts are most powerful when they're automatic. 

When a thought happens and you don't question it, you collapse the space between yourself and the thought. Without that space in-between, you can come to believe the thought is reality, no matter what the thought is, or how harmful it may be.

However, most thoughts that we have are not fact – particularly the negative ones. After all, how can a negative thought be all fact? We don’t know everything, and so there is always some part of our assumptions, worries, or imagined scenarios that are made-up, or unknown to us. Getting curious about the unknown is the opportunity that Cognitive Reframing enables you to tap into.

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How does Cognitive Reframing work?

1. Become aware of a negative thought

Cognitive Reframing starts when you notice a negative thought in the first place. As soon as you catch yourself thinking "my boss hates me" or "I'm terrible at this," you've already broken the spell a little, because you're no longer fused together with the thought. By opening a gap between you and the thought, you can use curiosity to take some control back, before thought leads to more worries that can take over your mind

2. Examine it

Once you've noticed the thought, the next step is to look at it from a different angle.

What do you actually know is a fact, vs assumption or fear? 

What is the feeling tied to the thought? 

Is that feeling actually trying to call your attention to something important?

This works best when you write your questions and answers down, or even better talk it through with someone else, rather than just thinking it through. Translating the questions from your head into the real world forces you to see or hear how the answers sound, which enables you to find insights or inconsistencies you wouldn't catch otherwise.

3. Play it forward

What would happen if you kept believing this thought? 

How would it change your behavior? 

Would that help you, or harm you?

The point here is to see how the thought might not just be annoying, but actively harmful. This can widen the gap between you and the thought, and in that space can build up your motivation to pursue a different belief. Without actually analyzing the thought and its impact, an unchecked negative thought can easily grow stronger and spawn more negative thoughts.

4. Put the facts into a different frame:

Finally, think of a different frame that fits the underlying facts that your curious questioning uncovered. 

This isn’t about putting on a fake positive spin, either. The new frame can be neutral and still be quite effective, because neutral thoughts don’t have as much of a pull towards multiplying or consuming your energy as do negative thoughts.

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Here's what Cognitive Reframing looks like in practice. 

First, catch a negative thought, such as: “my boss hates me, and I'll never get promoted." 

Second, examine the thought. “I know I haven't been promoted while others have. I feel like our relationship has been strained lately, and I don't know why. I feel frustrated and stuck, and I hate not knowing what’s going on.”

Third, play it forward. “If she already hates me, maybe I should just stay out of her way. But that might make our relationship even worse, and I’d be even less likely to know what’s really going on.”

Fourth, find a reframe. “I don’t have a good feeling, but I don’t really know what she’s thinking about me.  If I could get some more information from her – even if I don’t like what I find – I would be relieved to at least know. I want to think of how to raise my feelings to my boss, but it’s hard for me to think of how right now. So I'll start by asking my friend who’s great at work relationships how to approach this.”

Even though Cognitive Reframing doesn't make hard situations easy, it can help stop you from spiraling in the moment, and give you a chance to take an off-ramp to a productive action.

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