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.

What matches

9 practices

Narrow these down

The early rungs do not have to be the real thing. A photograph, a video, or picturing it carefully with your eyes shut is a proper step and not a cheat.

This matters most when the real version is out of reach: the dog you cannot summon, the flight you cannot afford, the classroom that is thirty miles…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 87:8One line of research

Rather than taking on someone else's routine, ask what actually makes you feel ready for a day, or better looked after. The answers tend to be specific and slightly odd, and they hold up better than anything prescribed.

For one person it is a shower before anything else. For another it is having the bag packed the night before, or eating something warm, or ten…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 18:69One line of research

Say out loud, before you start, that there will be bad weeks. Then when one turns up it is a thing you expected rather than proof the whole plan was nonsense.

Setbacks get read catastrophically when nobody warned you: back to the beginning, all that for nothing. Agree in advance what happens instead. You…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 65:7One line of research

Being pushed into something before you are ready does more than frighten you. It teaches you that the pacing you were promised cannot be trusted, and that is the harder thing to repair.

After a step that overwhelmed them, most people go straight back to avoiding, and they also start negotiating every later step defensively, which is…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 28:31

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

Cool the body first

Treatment and medication

Shame and stigma

Breathing

Feeling from the inside

What you are actually defending

Breaking the worry loop

Remembering to do it

What worry does

Being seen and judged

Emotions as signals

Structure and routine

Growing empathy

Tolerate distress

Making it stick

When you use something to cope

Treatment and medication

Facing it a step at a time

Rebuilding trust

Obsessions and compulsions

Staying regulated in conflict

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Knowing your partner

Self-compassion

Shame

Posture and how you carry yourself

Listening and understanding

Question the thought

When you go numb

Shared spiritual life

Living with uncertainty

When anger turns to harm

Rituals of connection

Use your strengths

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Anger, alcohol and the body

Get it out of your head

Affection and touch

Notice the pattern and flex

Face it gently

Letting it out safely

Working with anger

Your window of tolerance

Your worth is not conditional

Help someone grieving

One line of research

Start with the body. Slow breathing, muscles let go one at a time, a piece of music, a familiar object in a pocket. Small levers, and they turn fear from something happening to you into something you are doing something about.

Children in particular notice the body first: the racing heart, the sick stomach, the tight chest. That is the part they are actually frightened of.…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 20:25One line of research

Being shown a breathing technique is not the same as being able to use one. Practise it while nothing is wrong, often enough that it runs without you having to remember the order.

At the height of fear the only skills within reach are the overlearned ones. Something demonstrated once in a quiet room will not turn up in a school…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 73:20One line of research

Solve the problem without leaving the situation. Change where you sit in the canteen, who you sit with, what you bring with you, but stay in the canteen.

Otherwise a good problem solving session quietly becomes a plan for avoiding more skilfully. The test is simple. Does this option keep me in the…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 94:5One line of research

Let the person facing it choose the first step, and let them choose an easy one. A rung somebody picked gets climbed. A rung assigned to them gets argued about.

Ask which one they would be willing to have a go at this week, not which one they ought to be able to manage. The answer usually sits somewhere in…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 29:69One line of research

Before a step, write down what you will do when the fear arrives. Which breathing, what you will say to yourself, who you will speak to. Nobody invents a plan in the moment, they only follow one.

Keep it short and specific enough to be followed while frightened. It also gives you something to go over afterwards: what you used, what you forgot,…

Five minutesFacing it a step at a timeCBTQur’an 20:26One line of research