This is gonna be a bit lengthy.

TL;DR: Frame is the container, the glass holding your emotions, keeping it away from the external world.

I've been a lurker for about a year now and TRP has done wonders for me when it comes to seeing the world differently. One thing I've had a lot of trouble grasping was Frame; I just couldn't seem to understand what frame is. Its mentioned a lot in TRP and the most of the articles I've found didn't make much sense of it for me either, until recently. This is my version of frame.

Body:

Lets say, inside your conscious/subconscious, you have a glass of water. This glass is your frame. The water is your emotions. The purpose of your "glass" is to keep the water contained and internal to the glass. When the water is contained in the glass, you are holding frame; you are calm, relaxed and able to make logical decisions without emotional interference. If any water spills, that means your emotions are mixing in with your logic. It means you're rationalizing your decision based on how you feel. You can sense when its happening; your body gets tense, you are uneasy, your head races with thoughts, your gut feels heavy.

Now what causes the water to spill? Two things; external factors and internal factors. External factors would be things you see/hear/read/etc that makes you feel someway. Think of external factors as pebbles being thrown at your glass. If your glass is thin (weak frame), it will crack and water will flow out. This would refer to someone losing their cool over something someone said or did to them. External factors always (as far as I know) produce an instant leak (instant emotional response to an insult). However, if you have a thick strong glass, then you can get away with a scratch or two on your glass that you can easily polish off right away ( you may feel a little but you understand that the insult does not define you and brush it off, or polish the glass )

Internal factors are incremental and usually takes much longer for the water to leak. Internal factors would be the negative or useless criticism you have in your mind. For example, you remember last week, John said your jumpshot looks like shit and you suck at basketball.(Imagine a Bunsen burner is placed under your glass) Now you start thinking about your jumpshot and comparing it with John's jumpshot (The bunsen burner is turned on and your water starts to get hot). You start thinking that your jumpshot is probably bad and worse than his, even though it is actually fine (the water has reached the brim of the glass). You play against John the next day and he beats you by 1. You start to convince yourself that he is probably right. You start moping externally (by now the cup is running over). In this situation, the emotional interference is built up over a period of days and though the attack to the frame didn't crack/break it, the effect stayed and was fueled internally. Even though your frame was attacked and you brushed it off, you let it get to you. You rationalized something that should not have been taken seriously. You've wasted energy thinking about something you not only didn't benefit from, but also made you lose your cool. A lose-lose.

So, how do you deal with it? Be aware of yourself. Aware of how you feel, how your body feels and your current level of comfort. If you're tense after something external happened, relax, breathe deeply, and release the tension in your shoulders. (try raising your shoulders when you inhale, and then dropping them when exhaling). Try to relax. How to avoid getting tense? Don't take insults from people seriously. Always think about them logically. Look at the ones you can learn from, and ignore the ones that are useless to you. Shortly think about the ones you can learn from. If you start to "feel", stop and wait until you're meditating to think about it. Think about how it can make you a better person.

For internal factors, you should meditate, thats it. That's what worked for me. Meditate until you have a clear conscious and strive to keep it clear. If it gets cluttered and you find yourself thinking about useless things. meditate. Its a great mental medicine and exercise. You should also keep yourself busy. Find a hobby or something you love doing and do it a lot. Keep your schedule packed so you wont have time to think about how bad your jumpshot is, or what Mikeal said about your shoes yesterday.

Lesson Learned:

Your frame is an element protecting your emotions and beliefs from the external world. If your frame is not strong enough, it can crack and your emotions will be exposed to the external world. If you encourage negative criticism in your mind, your emotions will lose that calmness and eventually escape through the mouth of the glass, becoming exposed to the external world. How to avoid it, keep your "glass" well polished and your mind clear of unnecessary thinking.