Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

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1888 practices

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When anger turns up, in you or in front of you, two questions do most of the work: what is the fear underneath this, and what would make that fear bearable without the anger?

The first question slows everything down, because a fear is usually easier to name than to defend. The second stops you at insight: if the fear is of…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 20:46One line of research

Some of what teaches you most arrives rudely, from people you would not have chosen, at a time you did not pick. A provocation is often that kind of lesson.

This is not about being grateful to somebody who treated you badly. It is about what you do with the information afterwards. An ugly encounter can…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 2:155One line of research

Stay a beginner on purpose. If you are still learning, being corrected costs you nothing, because you never claimed to be finished.

Notice how much anger is really the defence of a position: I already know this, you are treating me like a fool. Put the position down and most of…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 12:53One line of research

Treat a flare-up as a reading rather than a failure. It is telling you where something is sore.

Instead of the usual round of apology and self-disgust, get curious. What exactly set it off, what did it seem to put at risk, why that today and not…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 15:97One line of research

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.

Treatment and medication

Making it stick

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Breathing

Screens and attention

Structure and routine

Tolerate distress

Feeling from the inside

Being seen and judged

What worry does

What you are actually defending

Treatment and medication

Growing empathy

Remembering to do it

When you use something to cope

Fondness and admiration

Answering bids

Breaking the worry loop

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Emotions as signals

Self-compassion

Obsessions and compulsions

Question the thought

Knowing your partner

Shame

Facing it a step at a time

Use your strengths

Posture and how you carry yourself

Anger, alcohol and the body

Repair after rupture

Shared spiritual life

Gratitude

When anger turns to harm

When you go numb

Letting it out safely

Meaning after harm

Living with uncertainty

Name what you feel

Notice the pattern and flex

Your worth is not conditional

Rituals of connection

Your window of tolerance

Work with your brain

Listen to the body

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Keep the bond

Hold a boundary

Get it out of your head

Find meaning

Face it gently

Care for yourself in loss

Patience and trust

Listening and understanding

Validate yourself and others

Panic and the body

The cost of avoiding

Fear explains a great deal of anger, but not all of it. Sometimes you are simply blocked from something you wanted and nothing is threatening you at all.

Plain frustration counts. So does anger that has become a habit, or one that keeps going because it gets results. If you go looking for a fear and…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 30:8One line of research

If anger runs on the fear system, then the things that settle fear are worth trying on anger: staying in the room a bit longer, letting your body come down before you speak, going back over the story you told yourself about what was happening.

Most anger advice is about clamping down, and clamping down on something frightened rarely holds for long. Treating it as fear gives you gentler…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 20:68One line of research

Think of the reaction as a small program sitting quietly, waiting for one particular condition. It is not running all the time, and which condition wakes it is a question with an answer.

Keep a short list for a few weeks. Only what was happening in the ten seconds before: a tone of voice, being interrupted, somebody standing over you…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerTrauma informedQur’an 30:8One line of research

Triggers come in different kinds. Some are about life and limb, some are things you learned to dread such as criticism or being shown up, and some are abstractions like unfairness. What helps depends on which kind you are dealing with.

Real danger needs a plan and usually other people, not a breathing exercise. A learned dread tends to ease by going near it more often in small doses…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 20:112One line of research

Some of the fights you take up for other people are your own old fight, unfinished, borrowed onto somebody else's ground.

The signs are recognisable: the heat is out of proportion, you cannot let it go afterwards, and the person you were defending never asked you to.…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 28:10One line of research

Follow the chain. The anger points at a fear, and the fear points at what you believe is at stake. That last thing is what you are actually dealing with.

Once it has passed, ask what you were afraid of in that moment, then ask whether the threat was really there. Being spoken over is not the same as…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 21:87One line of research

Working out where your reaction came from will not switch it off. That is not a failure of your insight, it is simply how the two kinds of memory work.

The story you can tell sits in one system. The flinch sits in another one, older and quicker, and it never learned from explanations. Which means the…

LongerThe fear underneath angerTrauma informedQur’an 13:28One line of research

Every incident you get through without looking at it leaves something behind, a charge that goes off a bit quicker next time. Asking for help early is not making a drama of it, it is cheaper than the version that comes later.

People assume an escalating pattern means they are becoming a worse person. More often it means the same route has been practised a few more times…

LongerThe fear underneath angerTrauma informedQur’an 2:186One line of research

If anger is fear in armour, then what works on fear is what works on anger: go towards the thing in small doses, stay a little longer each time, and let your body collect evidence.

That is a different project from clamping down, and it moves in a different direction. The situations you have quietly organised your life around…

LongerThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 13:28One line of research

There are two kinds of work on anger, and the order matters. Plain skills for the moment come first, and the larger questions about what your life is for can wait.

Going deep too early tends to backfire. If someone still cannot interrupt a flare, an honest conversation about meaning or forgiveness becomes one…

LongerThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 106:4One line of research

Give your spouse a few minutes of your full, undistracted attention today.

Not half-present behind a screen. Turned toward, eyes up, entirely here for a moment.

A minuteAnswering bidsEmotionally focusedQur’an 39:18Seen more than once

Answer one bid for closeness today that you might have let pass.

The come see this, the small touch, the story. Turn toward it, do not scroll past it.

A minuteAnswering bidsEmotionally focusedQur’an 2:263Seen more than once

Send your spouse one reaching message in the middle of the day, for no reason.

Thinking of you. A small signal across the hours that says you are on my mind.

A minuteAnswering bidsEmotionally focusedQur’an 17:53One line of research

In a raw, vulnerable moment, ask your partner directly for comfort and reassurance instead of hiding the need.

When you are hurting, the brave move is to say plainly what you need, hold me, tell me we are okay, rather than testing your partner or going silent.…

A minuteAnswering bidsEmotionally focusedQur’an 28:24One line of research

Answer the small bid today: the passing comment is really a reach for your attention.

Look up, turn toward, respond. The weather remark is not about the weather.

A minuteAnswering bidsGottmanQur’an 4:86Seen more than once

Catch one bid you would normally miss today, a sigh, a pause, a look, and respond to it.

Many reaches are quiet. Tune to the small signals and turn toward one you would have passed.

A minuteAnswering bidsGottmanQur’an 50:16One line of research