The Thought Audit and Reframe
Write down every negative thought for an hour, trace its root, then name what you'd rather believe.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Lemieux's reframing method starts with pure observation: for an hour (or ideally a day), write down every negative thought that enters your head, with no judgement attached. Then work backwards to the root — often the thought originated in childhood or from someone else entirely, which loosens its grip. The reframe itself stays deliberately simple and gentle: 'this is my current thought, but this is what I would like to believe instead.' You then call the thought out in real time as it recurs and log frequency, because the brain needs written evidence that the change is working. She reports clients uncovering, after a single hour, that they had no idea how hard they were being on themselves.
Origin
Grounded in Lemieux's master's work in mental health and wellness with an emphasis in grief and bereavement, and in her own conditioning to escape — 'I want to leave, how do I get out of here' — which she had to reframe into 'I'm here, I'm safe to be here, that was then, this is now.'
Core principles
- 01We have roughly 90,000 thoughts a day; ~80-85% are negative and most are recurring.
- 02Recurring negative thoughts harden into the belief system you live inside.
- 03Observation without judgement is the entry condition — judging your thoughts starts a second loop.
- 04Many thoughts didn't originate with you; tracing the root breaks their authority.
- 05The brain looks for evidence that a change is working, which is why the log matters.
How to run it
- 1
Capture without judgement
For at least an hour, write down each negative thought as it appears using your notes app or a journal. Be an observer only.
Pro tip An hour is enough to surface the pattern; a full day is better.
Watch out Judging the thought ('I'm so dumb for thinking that') starts a second negative loop on top of the first.
- 2
Trace the root
For each recurring thought, go back to the first time you remember hearing, feeling, or thinking it. Ask whether the origin was even you.
Pro tip Realising a belief was inherited, not authored, is often enough to break its authority.
- 3
Write the replacement belief
Keep it simple: 'This is what I believe, but this is what I would like to believe instead.' Write the replacement down.
Pro tip For 'I'm not good enough', Lemieux uses 'I am enough for all of the needs that my life has of me in this moment.'
- 4
Call it out in real time
In the hours after, when the thought returns, name it gently — 'I understand right now I'm believing I'm not good enough, and what I'd like to believe instead is X' — to interrupt the pattern.
- 5
Log the evidence
Keep a written log of how often the thought recurs. The brain looks for evidence that what you're doing works; seeing 10 instead of 20 signals the path is worth continuing.
Pro tip This is why journaling outperforms mental reframing — the evidence has to be visible.
Watch out It takes time. Expect a shift in feeling after roughly two hours of practice, not full rewiring.
In the wild
Clients arrive saying they don't know why they feel this bad or so lost in their roles. Lemieux has them spend an hour writing down every thought going through their head, without judgement.
→ After the hour they report realisations like 'I didn't realise I'm so hard on myself' and 'I didn't realise these are the things I'm consistently telling myself' — the hidden driver becomes visible and reframable.
Lemieux was conditioned to want out — of the feeling, of the place, of the moment. Her replacement belief became 'I'm here right now. I'm safe to be here. That was then, this is now.'
→ 'I am here' became the mantra that stopped the running and later the title of her book.
Common mistakes
Judging the thoughts you capture
The moment you evaluate a thought instead of recording it, you spawn a new negative cycle and the audit stops working.
Reframing without tracing the root
Without finding where the thought came from, you're arguing with a belief whose authority you never examined — and many of these beliefs didn't originate with you.
Not writing anything down
The brain needs visible evidence that the reframe is working. A purely mental reframe gives it nothing to score progress against.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who reaches the end of the day feeling awful without knowing the source.
Not ideal for
Trauma processing — Lemieux explicitly routes trauma to a professional rather than a journaling reframe.
From the transcript
“We have somewhere around 90,000 thoughts a day and out of those thoughts somewhere around 80, 85% are negative and the majority of those negative…”
“Anytime you notice that you have the negative thought come into your head, I just want you to write it down. And I don't want…”
“This is what I believe, but this is what I would like to believe instead. This is my current thought but this is what I…”
“Our brains look for evidence that what we are doing is working. That's why journaling can be so powerful because we need to see something…”
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