Positive Outlook and Re-Framing

One morning, I was driving my car and saw traffic ahead. My initial response was: Ugh, traffic! Then I re-framed it to see all the positive sides of traffic. I was glad I left early enough to go through traffic and not be late. I was glad that I wasn’t the cause of traffic, thankful for not being in an accident. I was thankfully I saw the traffic ahead and had enough time to react without causing another wreck. I’m safe and patiently waiting for this to pass. I found all sorts of ways to be thankful for traffic and at that moment I knew I had begun to rewire my brain to a positive outlook. When you can come upon traffic and instead of thinking ugh, you can find ways to be grateful, you know the gratitude you’ve been practicing in your every day life is paying off.

Another example: I re-framed, “Ugh! Why did that person pull out in front of me and make me slow down?” To: “I am grateful that I had the time and ability to react quickly enough to prevent someone else’s poor traffic judgment from becoming a wreck. I am thankful to be safe and unharmed.”

What reasons can you think of to be grateful for traffic or people pulling out in front of you?

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash