Reframing Experiences

Reframing means to change the meaning of something. Once we learn to stop identifying with the personality and see it for what it is — simply our conditioning — we are free to improve the situation to our advantage.

Our reality appears the way it does because it was conditioned this way. Each and every individual has their own specific reality. However, we tend to only associate with those whose reality is close to our own, so we make the mistake of thinking there is just one, objective reality.

We can recognise that our personality is simply how we have been taught to react. This ‘teaching’ is largely unintentional and includes the biases of our parents, culture, and nation. Recognising that personality is not identity, we might see these mental defilements going back through generations. Superficially we can blame our parents, culture, and nation, yet each generation suffers the same and perpetual confusion.

Our personality is also a dynamic — but it is much less dynamic than our sense of self. The sense of self reacts immediately to our thoughts, feelings, memories, and experiences, whereas personality is a cluster of conditioned responses. If one mistakes the personality for the identity, this tends to reinforce unhelpful behaviours. By recognising that one’s true identity is neither personality nor sense of self, one is liberated to take control of both.

Once we free ourselves from the idea that we are our personality, we can reframe it into something much more useful. For example, we might recognise our wildly troublesome emotions arising from a chronic betrayal of trust. This creates trouble when, in later and possibly wholesome relationships, we create drama as our phobia of trusting manifests.

Do you see how recognising this dynamic grants you control over it?

Now, we can start to become curious about how we respond, rather than feeling helpless and powerless. We can recognise these as conditioned responses and reflect on their origin. This reflection might upset our sense of self, but we are to expect this — and now we know it cannot last. Furthermore, as we identify less with both these feelings and the conditions that created them, this helps us let go and eventually heal from the trauma. ❤️🙏

“Man is disturbed not by things, but by the view he takes of them.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion