A boulder, a toddler, and what my daughter taught me about seeing things from a different angle.
I will start this with a story. In the warmer months, my husband and I like to burn off our toddler’s energy by taking a hike in the forest near us. So one day, on our usual trail, my daughter was playing a game where she’d stand on stones and pretend she was on top of a mountain. That is, until we came to a rocky area with a big boulder. As we passed it, she suddenly ran back and decided she wanted to climb this “big mountain.” But it seemed just a little too tall for her.
We just watched. We didn’t want to intervene in her adventure. As she struggled to get her leg up, we realized she wouldn’t be able to do it from that spot. But from our view, in front of the boulder, we could see that the opposite side, near the ground, would have been an easy climb to the top. From her perspective, though, she couldn’t see it at all. So, sadly, we called her back and said we’d try another day. That moment turned out to be a very real illustration to me of what cognitive reframing actually is.
What my daughter taught me about perspective
As tall as we are, and as short as her toddler self is, we see very different realms of possibility. To her, that mountain was truly huge and unclimbable. Even though we assured her she could do it, how would she know that? After all, in her own experience, she’d tried and hadn’t managed. What we couldn’t communicate that day was that if she’d simply gone around the boulder, she’d have found a natural climbing spot, and that mountain was definitely one she could climb.
But because she couldn’t even fully take in the instruction to go around, it was pointless to force the situation. So we found satisfaction in knowing that was her ability at that point. She tried, and we applauded that. We also knew that since we hike this trail often, next time she might see it differently. Maybe she’d even approach it right the first time. And luckily, kids don’t hold onto perceived “failures” the same way adults do. She soon spotted another mountain she could tackle and was on to the next adventure.
Reframing my relationship with my own journaling habit
When I was building Renew90, I first started with the 90-day journey. That felt natural, since I journal in seasons rather than daily. It’s very rare that I do it as a daily practice, and people who talk about habits would say I lack discipline, by world standards. And yet, to me, journaling and reflecting isn’t about productivity. It’s not a performance for a streak, even though there are times I do enjoy building one up. But just because I don’t fit that discipline mould doesn’t mean my sporadic journaling doesn’t do anything. My inner world was never made to be optimized and squeezed into a perfect mould. That’s not a superior stance, and I’m not saying people who champion daily habits are wrong. I’m saying sometimes the mould doesn’t fit, and that means either the mould or you are misaligned, not that you’re broken.
That alone, changing how I evaluate my relationship to my hobby, was an exercise in cognitive reframing, before I even knew the term existed as a psychology concept. This is something I enjoy, but the way I enjoy it doesn’t fit the contemporary narrative of how a habit is formed and maintained. Is something a habit because you do it daily? Weekly? Monthly? What about hobbies you do once a quarter? Do those count? Are they contributing to your daily habits in any way? Think of someone who goes fishing every warm season, or skis every cold one. In what way are those hobbies, or seasonal habits, still a part of who they are?
The invisible habit
While things you enjoy once in a blue moon may not be considered top-tier habits, they’re still habits. They inform your worldview, even on your off days. There’s something behind those rare or spare practices. For me, I realized that yes, I don’t reflect daily, and I don’t think I want to. I allow myself as much of a break as I need. But do I reflect on a daily basis? That’s a resounding yes. It’s just very invisible to anyone but me. So by conventional standards, I’d feel like I was failing at this habit. But when you peel back the layers, it becomes clear that the habit, while invisible on some days and with nothing to show for it, shows up in my everyday, almost moment to moment. I’m trying to make sense of my life daily. I’m processing. From different angles. Churning the thought over. Sometimes in mostly unproductive angles of overthinking, too.
How the Flip Journal found me
I found that one journal entry, unpacking two previous intense weeks, revealed themes I had no idea were there. So I spent a few days, a week even, just sitting with some of them, until there was no more juice left in them. That’s how I saw a very natural connection between my mood entries and cognitive reframing through the Flip Journal. Yes, you just poured your heart out. But there’s usually one crucial thread running through the entry, so why not offer a different perspective? Most of the time, the first perspective is a very human one, layered through blurred lenses. So I started trying to tap into a version of myself that had made a genuinely wise decision before, especially when I wanted to distill the main point I was circling and see it from another angle.
Now, true psychology practice is definitely different. I haven’t done this under the guidance of a professional. But I can definitely see where a friend and I have talked through a problem and tried to access different perspectives. What were we tapping into, if not a different way to look at the same issue? That’s why it’s such a natural thing to see friends sharing sorrows and joys, and why it always feels relieving. You encounter someone else’s perspective, and that challenges you to think differently. Or maybe it doesn’t. Either way, it shows you there’s no single way to see something. There’s a different angle, or a factor you’d overlooked.
The higher self perspective
That’s Renew90’s approach to cognitive reframing: to ask, what other way can I look at this mood I’m feeling? The belief underneath it is that if you’ve made even a handful of genuinely good decisions for your life, that part of you that makes those decisions isn’t a temporary glitch. You can practice accessing it, by calling on it more often. We simply refer to it as the higher self perspective. The wise, higher self, as distinct from the human self that’s currently experiencing the mood.
What changed in my everyday conversations
After a month or two of using this tool, I found this ability started following me into conversations with people outside of my journaling. I could speak from a different perspective, and I found myself genuinely enjoying conversations with strangers more. I knew that the way someone tells me a story is just one perspective, and I could choose to see it through a different lens. I could invite them to look at it differently too. I started to really see how many perspectives exist, and how much they shape what we take from a situation. Having my own perspective challenged felt jarring at first, but it soon started to feel like an invitation, a chance to notice the faults and cracks in my own reasoning and underlying beliefs.
Reframing isn’t fragility, it’s strength
So that’s my own experience with a simple cognitive reframing tool, not anchored in clinical psychology, but in natural human curiosity. It’s an invitation to ask yourself, as you experience your moods and emotions: is the way I’m thinking about this the ultimate truth of the situation? Most of the time, the answer is no. And being comfortable enough in yourself to know that just because there are different ways to look at something, doesn’t mean your way of thinking is the absolute truth, and neither is anyone else’s, is a real strength. It’s what lets you be sure of your sense of self while also knowing you don’t have to be fixed and rigid. Changing your perspective isn’t fragility. It’s actually mental strength, because it means you can learn more about yourself and others, and adapt more easily to different environments.
In today’s world, where an opposing view is so often treated as an attack, this is how you build real mental resilience: the capacity to know that views differ, and that’s okay. If you can look at your own emotions and thoughts from more than one angle, it becomes far easier to accept that someone else having a different perspective is completely fine. Expected, even.
FAQ
What is cognitive reframing? Cognitive reframing is the practice of intentionally looking at a thought, feeling, or situation from a different angle, in order to loosen its emotional grip or reveal options and perspectives that weren’t visible from where you first stood.
If this resonated, Renew90 Journal is available on iOS and Android.