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

210 practices

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If the same crunch arrives every month, another talk about it will not shift next month. It was never a shortage of information.

For partners this is a hard one, because the frustration is completely fair. But a lecture adds shame to something that already feels unpleasant, and…

Five minutesBringing the future closerADHD skillsQur’an 75:20One line of research

Thursday night goes badly, you swear at yourself, and you mean every word. Next quarter the same thing happens. That is not you failing to learn. It is a lesson that cannot survive the distance.

For the memory of a bad night to change anything in August, it would have to still be vivid in August, and it will not be. So stop waiting for the…

Five minutesBringing the future closerADHD skillsQur’an 17:11One line of research

Anger looks at the person and edits out the room. It is the man who is rude, never the traffic, the deadline or the night he spent awake.

This tilt sits in everybody, not only in you. Assuming bad intent has always been the cheaper error to make, which is why the mind reaches for it…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCBTQur’an 16:125One line of research

If they made you feel this, then only they can undo it. That is the quiet trap inside taking things personally.

You end up waiting on an apology that may never arrive, and while you wait you go over the scene, which keeps it warm. Taking the repair back into…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCBTQur’an 24:22One line of research

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

Making it stick

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Grounding and settling

Use your strengths

Fondness and admiration

Validate yourself and others

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Facing it a step at a time

Breaking the worry loop

Anger, alcohol and the body

Moving your body

Those first three circles were reactions rather than actions. Something old moved your hand, and you learned what it had decided at the same moment everyone else did.

This is why people say, honestly, that they did not decide to say the thing they said. The words were out before anything you would call choosing had…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 4:149One line of research

The relief people describe afterwards has little to do with clever insight. It is the feeling of being back behind the wheel, which is a large change if you have been living as though other people operate you.

She made me. He knows exactly which button to press. Both can be true about the provocation and still leave the response yours. Notice that this is…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 64:14One line of research

If your break turned into disappearing for the night, look at it as fear rather than as a discipline problem. Anger is often a way out of feeling afraid, and so is running.

Shame teaches badly here. Telling yourself you failed at the skill tends to produce more heat, and heat is the thing you were trying to leave behind.…

Five minutesChoosing your responseGottmanQur’an 7:200One line of research

You can tell someone they have hurt you without your voice showing it. The message and the heat come apart, and it is usually the heat that stops the message being heard.

Worth saying, because plenty of people believe the only options are swallowing it or letting it out. There is a third, which is saying the whole hard…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCBTQur’an 17:53One line of research

Under the anger there is usually something you wanted and did not get, or something you are afraid of losing. Say that, and you have handed the other person something they can actually do.

"You never help" gives someone a charge to deny. "I needed you to take the kids for an hour and I was too proud to ask" gives them a job. The second…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCBTQur’an 5:8One line of research

When a fight starts, name the pattern you both fall into, not the fault in them.

We are doing the thing where I push and you go quiet. The cycle is the enemy, not you.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 3:103Seen more than once

Catch the cycle one move earlier today, before it picks up speed.

The first tightening, the first sharp word. Name it there, when it is still small.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 41:36One line of research

Name your own move in the dance today: I chase when I am scared, or I go quiet.

Not their part. Yours. Owning your step in the pattern is what starts to change it.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 7:23Seen more than once

Say it out loud in the next argument: it is us against this pattern, not me against you.

Realign the sides. The two of you on one team, the cycle on the other.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 49:10One line of research

Notice if one of you chases and one retreats, and name that gently.

The more I push, the more you pull back, and round it goes. See the loop, out loud.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 41:34One line of research

If you both go silent and distant, name the freeze rather than waiting it out.

We have both gone quiet and cold. One of us has to reach first. Let it be you.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 4:35One line of research

Notice the moment a fight really began, often a small hurt, and name that, not the surface.

It started when I felt dismissed, not with the dishes. Find the true first domino.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 33:70One line of research

Step out of the spiral by naming it: there is our cycle again, can we start over.

The name is the exit. Calling the pattern out loud loosens its grip on you both.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 49:10One line of research

In the next hard moment, speak from the soft feeling under the sharp one.

Not you never listen. I feel small when I am not heard. The softer truth de-escalates.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 33:70Seen more than once

Name your part in the last tangle without a single word of blame attached.

I got defensive and shut you out. Full stop, no and you. Clean ownership softens things.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 7:23Seen more than once

Before you speak in anger today, ask what you are afraid of underneath it.

Usually it is a version of: I am afraid I do not matter to you. Say that instead.

A minuteStaying regulated in conflictEmotionally focusedQur’an 13:28Seen more than once