"The world is going crazy," is a phrase I hear multiple times daily. With so many people feeling lost in our current global climate, it's hard to feel any different. As a psychotherapist, it is my job to find light in a world of darkness, which can sometimes feel impossible.

I decided to pursue a career in the mental health field after being in therapy for seven years through my tough adolescent phase. I found myself seeing the negative in the people around me, constantly looking for reasons why they are "bad" as opposed to the reasons they were "good" (and sometimes not even realizing the pessimist in me was taking over my brain). Throughout the training in various internships and graduate school, I learned that this idea of bad vs. good is not as linear as I always thought it was. Instead of looking at the glass half empty or half full, sometimes we have to ask ourselves "What type of wine is in that glass?"

Let me be clear, by no way am I suggesting we as a society should put blinders on and look for the rainbows and unicorns in negative situations. Though I have found personally that it became increasingly beneficial for my own mental health to not only ask "why" and start looking at things through more abstract lenses. Within sessions, it has become easier for me to put my own biases aside in order to provide the best support possible to clients in situations that are complicated or somewhat controversial. Yes, this is my profession, therefore I have to find ways to accomplish this neutral stance multiple times daily. But this is also something that anyone can achieve. The secret? The ability to reframe in order to change one's way of thinking.

So what is this reframing business, you ask? To reframe is to look at situations, relationships or people in general differently by "changing its meaning." Once we are able to change the meaning, we can look, feel and interact with it differently, hopefully in a more positive light allowing ourselves to feel emotionally lighter. This was an essential tool for me to take away this idea that everyone around me has negative intentions, which feels like getting punched in the stomach all day.

Reframing has helped me deal with anxiety, stress, anger management, the list goes on. Of course, it is not the only tool I utilize but it is something that helped me find some peace in situations that seem hopeless.