Reframing

For many years I carried a profile quote on my e-mail signature block by the author and spiritual teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

At the time, Terry was in the final edit of my book, Stories to Tell My Daughters Before I Die, a memoir of my life and service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I was looking for an overall philosophy of adaptation to the many challenges that I captured in my book, both from a career and personal perspective.

I put that quote into my memoir and was about to recycle it from my signature block when I had cause to talk to my financial manager one gloomy fall morning. She switched topics as our business conversation wound down.

“I want to thank you, by the way,” she segued.

“Oh, for what reason?”

“I had a particularly rough start to my day today, and I was actually a little depressed until I read the quote in your e-mail, ‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’ The whole perspective of my day was reframed through that message. Thanks.”

Reframing, or changing the way you look at things, is not a magic wand that immediately changes the outcome of a challenge. Instead, it is a tool meant to add a different perspective to that challenge, thereby perhaps changing or altering the outcomes you at first foresaw.

Take my case, for example.

Diagnosed with neck cancer in 2001, I had surgery which removed the cancerous nodules and then 32 doses of radiation to ensure that it never came back. Along with the nodules, I also lost a significant neck muscle and my jugular vein.

While I had a supportive workplace and ample “sick” time, I chose to weave my treatment into my workday. I cajoled the receptionist at the Cancer Center to schedule me for the first morning appointment of the day throughout my treatment, and except for post-surgery recovery and a loss of my voice post-radiation treatment, I was at work every day.

Efficient and effective? Likely not, but that new strategy for my recovery added a degree of normality to an abnormal situation. Establishing a routine that I had control over lessened the anxiety I would have felt by spending “dead time” at home.

I retired from the RCMP in 2005 after 32 years of service, and spent the next 20 years as a law enforcement consultant to agencies and departments in Canada, Nigeria, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, and Guatemala. Terry and I lived for several of those years in Vietnam and Laos, making new friends and enjoying the work and culture that we easily blended into.

In 2015, I caught an undiagnosed virus that invaded the barrier to my nervous system, paralyzed me from the waist down, and put me in the hospital and rehabilitation for 2 ½ months, healing on my own, learning step by step to walk again.

Five months later, Terry and I were back on a short-term contract in Laos.

And then in 2022, an effect of my radiation treatment in 2001 emerged, damaging nerves in my right shoulder and progressively “freezing” my vocal cords. I switched to playing Pickleball left-handed and worked long and hard to find a “cure” for my deteriorating voice and breathing.

The result of that futile search: an emergency tracheotomy in September of 2026. Both of my vocal cords finally gave out, and I was in grave danger of a breathing or swallowing blockage. Inexplicably, I kept my voice, and the plastic breathing tube in my throat isn’t as distressing as I imagined it would be.

Recently, in a quiet moment, Terry and I talked and ‘changed the way we looked’ at our current situation, which seemed full of maladies and age-related challenges.

‘And the things we looked at changed’ our perceptions; we felt blessed and lucky.

Lucky that the long-term radiation effects were delayed enough for me to finish my career, establish our consulting company, and be continually employed, travelling and living in truly interesting cultures for another 20 years.

Lucky that the effects of my illnesses did not prevent us from working and maintaining income to support our lifestyle.

Blessed that I was able to adapt to the physical changes to my body that enabled me to stay active in golf, pickleball, and biking.

The Pandemic of 2020 ground my consultancies to a halt. The summer of 2025 was my last part-time contract. Receiving no calls for service, Terry and I dissolved our Canadian corporation and, for the first time in fifty years, I was unemployed.

Earlier this month, Terry and I walked through the corridors of the Ottawa hospital, and in that corridor of humanity walking toward us, I saw few people that I would consider changing places with, and more than a few that were living with challenges far worse than mine.

As a believer in fate and circumstance, I’m resigned to the circumstances that have affected my life, but am thankful that my fate was held in check to do the least amount of damage at the least disruptive moments.

PS: My Government of Canada Secret Security doesn’t expire until 2028. Call me!