Practices

Sourness, shutting down, snapping at everyone: these are as often worry as they are attitude. The person is not giving you a hard time, they are having one.

This matters because of what happens next. Read it as rudeness and the house responds with punishment, which adds to the load that produced the…

When you help someone rethink a frightening thought, go slowly and stay honest. A cheerful line swapped in for a scared one tends to get refused, and fairly so.

The aim is not a brighter thought but a truer one that is also bearable. Something in the shape of "this is going to feel horrible and I can get…

Sometimes there really is evidence for the fear. Say so. The balance comes from the other column being fuller, not from pretending the first column is empty.

Children are being bullied, are laughed at, do get things wrong in front of everyone. If you wave that away, they learn the exercise is fixed and…

Reaching for another person when you are wound up is not a distraction from coping. Contact can turn the alarm down at the source.

This is why a short call, a message to someone who knows you, or sitting in the same room as family is worth doing before you get as far as the…