Reframing: Seeing Each Person Within Their Own Frame

Have you ever had a conversation linger in your mind longer than expected? A stray comment, a look or a tone that suddenly feels heavy? Or maybe you’ve said something lightly, only to watch it land with way more weight than you intended.

I’ve been thinking about this through the lens of a simple idea:

What if we imagined a picture frame around every person we interact with?

An invisible frame, centred on them, containing the dominant elements of their world in that moment. Their stresses, joys, memories, expectations. Things they may not even be fully aware of themselves. The contents of that frame shapes how they think, feel and speak, and also how they hear and interpret what’s said to them.

You don't know what's going on inside someone else's head

This helps us understand why a passing comment from one person might ripple deeply in someone else. Or why something we barely noticed saying ends up mattering a lot. It’s not just about the words, it’s about what those words bump into.

An example where I see this often is in my relationship with my parents and with my children.

Parenting is one of the deepest connections we can have and also one of the easiest places to slip into autopilot. There’s so much familiarity that we sometimes forget to pay attention. We fall into roles and rhythms, into a kind of shorthand where love is implied but not necessarily expressed. A sigh or a quick reply or a distracted “not now” when we're in the middle of something we feel is important but the importance of which isn't clear to the other person, it’s easy to think these small moments don’t matter. But sometimes they do. Sometimes they land in the middle of something important that we didn’t know was taking shape inside the other person’s frame.

And I’ve been on the other side too. Surprised at how something one of my children says can stir up more than it should because of what I'm carrying at the time.

That’s why the idea of reframing matters. It’s not about excusing unkindness or walking on eggshells, it’s about making room. It’s a pause. A question:

What might be in their frame right now?

What might be shaping their words, or their silence?

Being able to do that helps, especially in the middle of a tense or confusing interaction. It opens a door to more compassion and patience. Even if the answer's still not right, just the act of wondering softens something.

Each of us is a portrait in progress. Each frame holds more than meets the eye.

And sometimes, the most human thing we can do is to step back for a moment and try to see what the picture looks like from where they’re standing.