Reframed

Every year since I turned 40, I make sure that I take a day’s vacation leave on my birthday. A friend I met about 15 years ago always took leave on her birthday.

She spent the day with herself.

She would head off to the movies or to have a massage, pedicure or lunch by herself.

In the evening, her family would celebrate her.

But the day? The day was hers.

I thought, “This QUEEN!! I must learn from her.”

So, I did.

Whether I’m heading off to a spa, having lunch somewhere or just lying in and watching a movie, I decided that my birthday was a day to do things I want to do.

Last year was the big one.

Everyone celebrated me to the maximum (I’m still spending vouchers I received!) and I also made sure that the year, despite the bumps, upsets and tumbles, was a year to remember.

I went off to Cape Town to spend time writing and be with one of my best friends. I had not left my family alone overnight in about 7 years.

I was in the Drakensberg several times, saw Louis Giglio and Passion, saw Lord of the Dance ( a gift), attended Cece Winans live (another gift) I was awarded a trip to Rio……errrr yes Rio De Janeiro (not from friends or family), watched Roland perform a concert in Rio, was taken to Knysna for a weekend, back to Drakensberg and ended off in Cape Town for Fish on the Rocks in December. I didn’t pay for any of these trips.

Cape Town TWICE in one year when I had not seen that city for the past 8 years?

I won things throughout the year.

To give you an idea of how inexplicable things got in 2025, I attended a random event and randomly answered a question (the answer was purple-which happens to be one of my favourite colours) and won a hamper of beauty products worth about R4500.

I jubilated for my jubilee year!

This birthday I made and wanted no plans.

I headed off for a serene 3km walk. I was aiming for 5km, but hey something better than nothing. Some lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, an extra gift thrown in from my husband as we browsed in a shop and I cooked myself some curry for a chicken bunny chow, which I savoured, right down to licking my fingers.

Although I will eat chicken curry again soon, the bunny chow experience is one I can only indulge in every 6 months. Bread and gluten and all that nonsense. Broken record there.

I also glugged down some Coca Cola, like a real Indian.

Curry and coke. That’s a winner slogan right there.

My brother-in-law will be so proud of me.

I started a book I was dying to read – Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.

A gift, last year, from my cousin (an academic, witty, an activist in his day so his recommendation cannot be ignored) but I have not had a chance to dive in.  

I chose to start Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials because, on your birthday in our home, you get to pick what to watch, and the others must suffer through it.  

I’m sure we are the only family that behaves this way (not!), but you can have 10 streaming platforms available, and you will fight and fuss to find one movie that everyone will enjoy!

This happened once and I cancelled two subscriptions.

Now, everyone just sits through whatever the birthday person wants to watch.

If you know me, you know I’m not joking when I say, “I will cancel ALL streaming platforms!”

You know I’m 80% township.

Just suffer in silence through Fast and Furious, Maze Runner and Agatha Christie!

I always want to chuck out something that has impacted me or I will be trying in the next 12 months before the next birthday and this year is no different.

It really is more than just me hoping someone reads this and finds value.

It’s also about putting it out there, knowing I will now be held accountable, because I have chosen to put it out there!

My friends don’t play.

Almost like Miranda, Charlotte, Carrie and Samantha.

Less sex and the city and more bible verses and “I will slap that demon right out of you!”

They do not hesitate to say, “Remember when you wrote that???”

Whilst on holiday, we picked tons of seashells.

The girls have since returned and found some fancy, creative way of getting them into glass jars while the shells looked like they are suspended in the jar.

I have every intention of using mine to create a border for a frame to print at least one photograph from the holidays to put up.

During my de-cluttering episodes before I returned to work, I found some framed pictures that were lying on a shelf in the garage.

I thought that the frames looked so outdated, although the pictures were still intact and maybe re-framing them might make me lug them out of the garage and onto the books shelves or bedside tables to display. Re-frame. Re-vamp. Re-display.

Case in point, this wedding photo frame will soon be 26 years old. It needs a new frame. It sits on a bookshelf. When visiting Paris in 2010 as a 10th wedding anniversary gift, Roland took me to the Musèe du Louvre and it's not hard to see the difference a frame makes. I spent a lot of time just sitting on the benches enjoying not only the artwork but the framing of the piece.

I will mention here - you know when you watch movies and there’s photo frames displayed on the grand piano and people gravitate towards them and pick them up? Usually, it’s a murder investigation and the detective walks in, scans the room and finds the photos and then draws some conclusion from it.

Well – I might just end up dead if I ever did something so atrocious as placing ANYTHING on our grand piano. Framed or otherwise.

You all know who the suspect will be.

Yes. Him.

This whole concept of reframing is one that is very popular in coaching and mental wellness discussions. It is a psychological technique of changing an emotional, negative response to a circumstance into a positive or constructive or neutral one, without minimizing, diminishing or denying the facts around the situation.

Sjoe. Someone tell Dr Caroline Leaf I’m being so smart about this cognitive process!!

This might be something you need to practice or something you need to assist someone else to grasp. We all have a way in which we view how something has unfolded. Very often, it will affect how we feel. It will affect how the day or week or even year unfolds.

Wouldn’t it be helpful, if someone took the time to say, “Let’s see if we can reframe this so that you don’t feel that way anymore.”

We are not invalidating what took place or that someone has every right to feel the way they do, but what we can do is help ourselves and others bring something positive out of that negative way of thinking.

Look at it as if you are disrupting their thoughts. Giving a new perspective.

Helping someone re-frame how the day, the week, the year might unfold.

The steps are simple.

Recognize it, challenge it, replace it.

Or even more simplified.

Catch it, check it, change it.

Some examples of when you need to reframe might be always finding the negative in people or situations. Although there’s good things, we always focus on the negative.

Always expecting the worst outcome. The worst-case scenario mentality.

Seeing things as only bad.

Seeing yourself as solely responsible when bad things happen.

To reframe these kind of thoughts means you will need to catch it as soon as you start focusing on the negative. You check if what you are thinking are facts. If you had to present it or verbalise it to someone else, can you show some evidence to support why you think what you think. Change it by looking at the situation through a different lens. If your best friend was in that same situation, facing the same scenario, what advice would you give them to change it?

Sounds so easy and it really is NOT.

Now, you may be able to do it yourself. You may need a friend to nudge you into checking yourself. You may need to book a therapy session.

You may need family therapy.

You may need to be in a group discussion to work through it.

Whichever works for you, research shows that there are going to be innumerable benefits if you start applying the reframed process.

It’s hard for me not to take this back to scripture. To what I rely on daily but often find difficult to apply. The word of God. We have scripture that guides us on the very same concepts.

The most popular one that pops up is Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Renewing our minds is biblical. Changing how we think, changing the narrative we tell ourselves and dragging ourselves back to the word so that we know what is God’s will for us in a situation. What is good. What is acceptable. I am no theologian but it’s almost self-explanatory. Don’t do what the world thinks is right. Renew your mind to think about good and acceptable things and do those good and acceptable things.  

Proverbs 4:23 ESV

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Check what’s in your heart. Usually, what’s in your heart comes right out of your mouth. I have heard it often. From myself. And from others. It should be a daily practice to examine your heart the minute you wake up and ask God to remove anything from it that will oppose what He is wanting from you for the day.

2 Corinthians 10:5-6 ESV

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, ⁶ being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

This one is a bit more complicated and might need you to go do some more reading. Please share what you find with me!

Taking a thought captive to obey Christ is the most difficult thing.

I usually start off with, “This person did this to me” and by the time I’m done, I can script 3 Broadway plays about how I get even!

The obedient thing to do if I apply this verse is to love my enemy. That’s obeying Christ. Plotting and planning what I will say, what I should have said and how I’m going to teach them a lesson is disobedient to what is required of me as a follower of Christ.

Capture the thoughts before they take you captive.

Philippians 4:8 ESV

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Once again, I’m no bible teacher but the verse is spelling out exactly what we should be thinking about.

I know. Easier said than done. It’s why a daily renewal that is needed.

Isaiah 43:19 ESV

Behold, I am doing a new thing;now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

This was written as a promise to the people of Israel being held captive in Babylon. Almost conversely, when he dried up the Red Sea so that they could cross over, He is now promising to make rivers flow in the desert. Both impossible things for humans. Both only came about because of a good, great God.

Just as they tried and failed until God intervened, we can try with all we have, but God has promised HE will do a new thing. We can do our bit. But when a good, great God takes over, there is so much more that can happen.

New hope for us. New beginnings. Inexplicable things.

Musèe du Louvre 2010

This reframing of our minds can’t be done just by having a strong will and determination. Not for me in any event.

I need help and you can rest assured my friends are going to send me the link to my own blog to point out what I had said I was going to implement, when I find myself falling short.

But in addition to them, I need Him to help me. To help me take those truant thoughts captive. To help me check those thoughts.

He will reveal what is true and what isn’t.

And He will change the situation as only He can. Always for my good even when it doesn’t seem like it. Always to draw me closer to Him when I feel I am far away. Always for me to be His representative to a world that needs to know there is Savior they can turn to.