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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11 practices

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After you lose it, the sentence you say to yourself matters. I have no self control leads somewhere much worse than I have not drilled that one yet.

Shame closes the subject. You stop looking at what happened, and what happened is precisely the material you need. Try a short unglamorous review…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 57:23One line of research

Every one of us is trying to tame ourselves, which no other animal is attempting. Finding it hard is the ordinary result, not a sign that something is wrong with you in particular.

This is meant to take the shame out, not the responsibility. Harm still needs repairing and apologies still need making. But if some part of you…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 3:190One line of research

Losing your grip has a sequence too, running the other way: the hold loosens, thinking thins out, and then you are simply angry. Finding where it loosened is more use than going over how it ended.

Work backwards from the flare. The slip is usually earlier and duller than the shouting: a skipped meal, a second replay of the conversation in the…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 10:24One line of research

Fighting your own anger tends to make it louder. The part of you that flares does better treated as something to work with than something to defeat.

In the moment that can be as small as thinking, there you are, instead of, not this again. Pushing it under works for a while and then it arrives…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 15:88One line of research

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

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Shame

Remembering to do it

Structure and routine

When you use something to cope

When everything feels flat

Exercise, food and other supports

Bringing the future closer

Food, caffeine and fuel

When anger turns to harm

Growing empathy

Letting it out safely

Making it stick

Practising under provocation

Facing it a step at a time

Self-compassion

Feeling from the inside

What you are actually defending

Rest and pacing

Question the thought

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Emotions as signals

Being seen and judged

Anger, alcohol and the body

Use your strengths

Living with uncertainty

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Not all anger is a reaction to something. Sometimes a person goes looking, standing exactly where someone is likely to snap, and it is worth being honest with yourself if that is you.

The signs are small: replying to a comment you could have scrolled past, holding your ground where nothing is at stake, choosing the route where the…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 22:46One line of research

Being steady about something does not mean you approve of it, and it does not mean you have dropped your claim. It means you have stopped fighting the fact that it happened.

People hear acceptance and think they are being asked to say it was alright. Nothing of the sort. You can be perfectly clear that it was wrong and…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveMindfulnessQur’an 57:23One line of research

Sitting practice teaches four useful things about anger: everything passes, the senses are calmer ground than the story, you do not have to attend to every thought, and you are not the words you use about yourself.

Take them one at a time. When something flares, the quickest of the four is usually the second: put your attention on your feet or the sound of the…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveMindfulnessQur’an 18:45One line of research

Nobody has to send kind wishes to the person who hurt them, least of all on somebody else's schedule. If that step is being pushed on you, you can decline it and keep the rest of the practice.

Reaching for warmth toward someone who did real harm can bring shame, or a flood of the original event, or the queasy sense of having been talked…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveMindfulnessQur’an 12:86One line of research

The aim is not to become someone with no force in them. It is to get a harness on the force and point it at something worth doing.

Anger usually knows something true: this was unfair, this matters to me, this cannot carry on. Keep that part and drop the delivery. The energy can…

Twenty minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 12:86One line of research

Nobody arrives with restraint already fitted. If holding your tongue feels like unnatural work, that is what it is for everyone, and it says nothing about what you are underneath.

This matters because the story you tell about a flare decides what you do next. Broken means give up quietly. Unbuilt means pick one situation, the…

LongerEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 53:39One line of research

The old reaction does not get erased. You lay a new one over the top of it, and on a tired or unfamiliar day the old one can still come through.

So a flare after months of doing well is not everything undone. That is what relearning looks like, and it tends to turn up alongside broken sleep,…

LongerEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 3:191One line of research