When do I Bring in Positive Statements (Reframes) While Tapping? How do I Come Up with Reframes?

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After neutralizing negative thoughts, it makes sense to install positive reaffirmations. These are also known as reframes. This is another big area that newcomers to tapping struggle with.

You switch to positive statements or affirmations once you start to feel okay or neutral about a situation. Forcing a positive statement before you are ready isn’t going to work because you are not done with neutralizing all the negativity. If you try to tap in say, “It is going to be alright”, your mind is going to retort, “Oh, yeah?”. So there goes your positive affirmation.

You need to get into a somewhat receptive state of mind for affirmations to take root. But how do you figure out if you are in that state?

To check if you are ready to use a positive statement yet, here is my secret sauce:

If no, you’re ready. If yes, keep tapping on the negative and bring it down further.

Now there 2 ways of reaching good reframes.

1. Often reframes arise spontaneously. Your job is done, nothing to do. An example will make it clear.

Say you were worried about being given the pink slip by your manager Bob. You tapped on your worry.

As you continue to tap on your layoff worry, you may get reminded of how Bob hinted just last week about a higher position opening up, and even with his poker face, you could see he was hinting at you getting promoted.

Blinded by your layoff worry, you interpreted it as though it was a hint about you being moved out and not upwards. Now you get it. Phew! So that was it? Yes, that was it. That was a reframe. A reframe is nothing but your thoughts changing. And your thoughts of worry have changed to those of hope. Now you can stop tapping.

2. You form your own reframe. You come up with your own statement about how you would like to view the situation from now on. This statement can be a choice statement or a simple affirmation.

Basically you are trying to tap into a feeling of hope and wellness. What sentence can you come up with that describes that feeling for you? That is your reframe for the situation.

Your reframe for the situation can be a choice statement as well. Such as “I choose to be …”. Choice statements put the power back in your own hands. One thing to remember with choice statements is to not make them not-not sentences. Here is a not-not choice statement – I choose not to lose my cool anymore. It is better to focus on how you want to be, not how you don’t want to be. So a better choice statement in this case would be – I choose to be calm and confident.

You can choose very specific reframes (I choose to be calm and centered talking to Bob from now on) or a general feel-good phrase (All is well in my world).

Here are a few examples of reframes.

“I am now calm and confident.”
“I am now calm, confident and full of hope.”
“It only gets better from here.”
“I choose to do the best I can under the circumstances, and hope for the best.”
“I choose to release any remaining worry and get on with my work, diligently, and be my best self.”

Don’t get too caught up with finding the right words or forming an all inclusive statement.

Sometimes we fear that if we don’t incorporate the choicest and juiciest of positive words, our affirmations will be meh, limp. Or that we will miss out on at least some good vibrations if we are not forming an all inclusive reframe. Not so. Verbose reframes are only going to bog you down unless you connect with them at some level.

A reframe should feel true to you. Then tapping it in enhances the vibration of the reframe.

Reframes are not rocket science. A choice statement is not a club to hold over your head.

In the comments, post your particular situation that you are struggling with. Let’s together come up with reframes for those situations.

This question is part of The Burning Questions Project. For answers to 100+ questions on EFT tapping, check out The Burning Questions Project and ask your own questions.