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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1158 practices

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Sit still, choose a position, and hold it. Within seconds your body will be asking to move the chin or scratch the neck, and each of those small urges is a free repetition of letting an impulse pass.

You do not need anyone to provoke you for this. Notice the urge, breathe once, let it sit there without obeying it, and carry on. Two or three…

Five minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 2:45One line of research

A cold shower hands you a clean, timed urge to work with. You plan a minute, and four seconds in every part of you wants out: notice it, breathe, let the wave pass, then notice it come back.

The useful discovery is not toughness. It is that urges arrive in waves rather than climbing forever, so waiting one out turns out to be a real…

Five minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 19:65One line of research

Meditation does more as upkeep than as a fire extinguisher. Doing it on the calm days is what lowers the level your threat system sits at.

If you only reach for it when you are already furious, it will seem useless and you will drop it, which is what usually happens. Practise it when…

Five minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 3:200One line of research

Notice how much of the tightness in you is the verdict you are passing. As the judging comes down, the body tends to come down with it.

This is something you can test rather than something to believe. Catch yourself narrating: he always does this, she has no respect, typical. Then…

Five minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 16:127One line of research

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

Practising under provocation

Food, caffeine and fuel

Making it stick

Structure and routine

Cool the body first

What worry does

Screens and attention

What you are actually defending

Treatment and medication

Growing empathy

Breathing

Fondness and admiration

Answering bids

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Being seen and judged

Shame and stigma

Feeling from the inside

Breaking the worry loop

When you use something to cope

Use your strengths

Gratitude

Shared spiritual life

Anger, alcohol and the body

Facing it a step at a time

Question the thought

When anger turns to harm

Posture and how you carry yourself

Notice the pattern and flex

Name what you feel

Rebuilding trust

Your worth is not conditional

Affection and touch

Ride the urge

Rest and pacing

Your window of tolerance

Work with your brain

Patience and trust

Obsessions and compulsions

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

Rituals of connection

When you go numb

The cost of avoiding

Panic and the body

Validate yourself and others

Living with uncertainty

Listening and understanding

Knowing something calmly and feeling it are two separate achievements, and the second takes longer. If you can say the reasonable thing but it does not touch how you feel, you are partway, not failing.

The gap does not close by arguing with yourself harder. It closes by living it: doing the practice in real situations, in your body, while the…

Twenty minutesMaking it stickCoreQur’an 87:8One line of research

Pick the news channel you cannot stand and watch ten minutes of it on purpose. The only job is to notice what rises in you and let it go by.

Real provocation turns up when you are least ready for it. This gives you the feeling with nothing at stake: the indignation, the tightening, the…

Twenty minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 41:35One line of research

It does get better, but not by waiting for time to pass. The improvement comes from the walking, and the walking is small and unremarkable.

Every rep you did today changes almost nothing you can feel, which is the honest and irritating truth of it. Progress here shows up over months and…

LongerMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 92:7One line of research

Skills bring the flare ups down in number and in heat. What they leave standing is the layer underneath: what you believe you are owed, and how you think people ought to behave.

That layer is slower work, closer to rebuilding a view of life than to learning a technique. What counts as fair, what can reasonably be expected of…

LongerMaking it stickCoreQur’an 13:11One line of research

The work you are doing on anger does not stay in the anger box. Learning to hold an unanswered question, or to sit with what you cannot change, turns up in worry and in low patches too.

That is quietly encouraging on the days the anger part feels slow. It also means being careful about crediting every improvement to the anger work,…

LongerMaking it stickCoreQur’an 92:7One line of research

Say the real thing under the protest today: I need to know you are there for me.

Not a demand, a reach. The plainest words of the heart are the ones that land.

A minuteKnowing your partnerEmotionally focusedQur’an 33:70Seen more than once

Be the first to lower your guard today, even a little, and say something true and soft.

Someone has to move first. Let it be you, with one honest, undefended sentence.

A minuteKnowing your partnerEmotionally focusedQur’an 20:44One line of research

Find the longing under your complaint, and voice the longing instead.

Under you are never home is I miss you, I want more of you. Say the wish, not the jab.

A minuteKnowing your partnerEmotionally focusedQur’an 25:74One line of research

When you are low today, ask your spouse for comfort in plain words.

Can you just hold me a minute. Asking directly is braver, and far more likely to work.

A minuteKnowing your partnerEmotionally focusedQur’an 40:60Seen more than once

Ask your spouse what is weighing on them this week, and remember the answer.

Not how was your day. What is heavy right now. Then carry a corner of it in your mind.

A minuteKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 9:71Seen more than once

Notice one way your spouse has changed lately, and let your picture of them catch up.

People keep becoming someone new. Ask about the new thing rather than assuming the old.

A minuteKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 13:28One line of research

Learn the one part of your spouse's day that drains them most, and lighten it if you can.

The commute, the boss, the bedtime hour. Know the pinch point, then ease it by a little.

A minuteKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 9:71Seen more than once

Keep in mind one small thing that matters to your spouse, and act on it unprompted.

The tea they like, the worry they mentioned, the date they dread. Remember, then show it.

A minuteKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 2:152One line of research

Reference something they told you last week, unprompted.

Remembering the small details of their life is quiet proof that they were truly heard.

A minuteKnowing your partnerCoreQur’an 4:19One line of research

Name their three current worries to yourself, then gently check whether you were right.

Knowing what weighs on them today is how care becomes specific instead of general.

Five minutesKnowing your partnerCoreQur’an 4:19Seen more than once

Behaviour is usually the visible end of a skill that has not been built. What you are watching in a classroom is the shape of the difficulty rather than the shape of the child.

It is a single sentence you can say in a meeting, and it tends to move the conversation away from what to do about the behaviour towards what the…

A minuteReading, numbers and learning differencesCoreQur’an 17:84One line of research