Reframing

Now, if my last post left you waiting in anticipation for something called "Why write another post about blogging", then you'll be disappointed. But disappointment is where I'm going today, so please come along. (I'll guarantee you won't be disappointed).

Last night, 14 months after my father died, my brother signed the papers accepting my offer to buy his share of the house that we both inherited. Yesterday, CW and I changed the name of the Let's Blog Click06 blog to blog the conf, after the Click06 committee asked us to. Both events were the tail end of much to-ing and fro-ing and many phone calls.

Let me tell you about how I learned about "reframing". You'll see why further down. Every year we take Mr3 to the Kalparrin family camp while Mr8 has a weekend with his grandparents. This year we had breakfast with two Clown Doctors, who are people with real hospital name badges and the very serious job of using humour to lighten the stress for everyone in hospital. After much fun and laughter, the kids went of to be even more silly and we parents settled down to learn about using humour in our lives.

One of the exercises involved breaking up into small groups and each of us describing a problem that was bugging us. These people have kids with disabilities, so as you can imagine, the problems not trivial. What did the others have to do? Reframe it. Describe why it was actually an advantage. Make it funny. Take it to ridiculous extremes. Have fun with it. One person complained that she had to go to work the next day. "Well, you won't need to do housework". "You'll be in airconditioning and out of the heat", "That makes you appreciate being here more", "You're out meeting people", "You may be discovered by a talent agent and go on to be really famous". All around the room, we were erupting in gales of laughter about the most serious and complicated things.

So, do you want to know what I did yesterday? I learned about some people. I discovered how supportive other people can be. A couple of things finished up so I can use my energy on other things. I had a chance to really piss some people off and refrained. I learned that the workshop CW and I are giving tonight to help librarians understand blogging really is necessary. I went on a picnic with my kids and rolled down the hill in the sun and got grass stains all over my jeans.

Hope your day was as much fun as mine.