It was a special evening and we’d been shopping to buy the ingredients for a wonderful romantic dinner. Its once in a blue moon that we decide to cook at home when we’re out in Goa.

We were about to dine on a combination of flavours and food that we couldn’t get here in the restaurants.

(although the amount of wonderful food here is incredible)

But it wasn’t to be. The gas cooker broke. There would be no cooking.

The rice and lentils were soaking and the exotic veggies had just been purchased, super fresh.

Now the cooker isn’t working, so there is no cooking. Both of us were really looking forward to it… now something different was going to happen.

Both the lentils and rice were soaking and not going to be cooked… instead I realised the opportunity to create some new raw dished I’ve been wanting to make... sprouted rice salad and sprouted dried lentils ground to make a flour for a raw papadum experiment of mine (I'll let you know how it goes).

I could have gotten upset about not being able to do what I had imagined in my mind. Instead because of still smiling, the solution presented itself almost instantly… make the raw food meals you’ve wanted in a couple of days time.

Every thought we have has a hidden frame behind it. The frame is created from our beliefs… we believe X so we see it in the behaviour of others or in situations.

There are two types of Reframes: Content and Context. The situation and the behaviour.

Content Reframe

A Power cut can be viewed as a big issue because of everything that you need to get done. Or you can choose to think “its a message… I should go do something different”, or “oh well, I can’t work on that now… what else could I do that will make a difference”.

Power cuts and the internet dropping out are frequent in north Goa… I’m very used to it. And that important thing that 'has to get done'… well nothing that can be done about it now, so as they say here “shanti, shanti”.

“If you have a flat tyre, you have a flat tyre. Do you want a bad mood as well?”

What has happened, has happened. How can you view it differently? How quickly can you find the Golden Lining?

Context Reframe

“He’s so mean with his money” - Because he is careful with his money he has been able to send his children to private school, even though he has missed out on many fine things.

“Wow, thats so expensive” - Buy cheep, buy twice. Spending that little extra now means in the long run its a bargain.

Ask yourself, When would this behaviour be valuable in a different situation?

Life is about the way you chose to react to it. And the way you choose to react it the measure of your character.

A while ago I wrote a series of articles about Reality Tunnels (a fancy and somewhat cool name for the phrase ‘a different point of view’).

What we ate instead...

Get the Conversation Started... Reframing for the Golden Lining