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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223 practices

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If you finish and say you managed to calm your mind down first, something has quietly slipped. You are not cleaning the water or blocking the flow, you are only sitting beside it.

This matters because a practice built on making yourself calm works fine on an easy evening and collapses on the night you need it. Let the river be…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 7:154One line of research

If watching your mind feels too open, rest your attention on your breathing instead. Do not deepen it or slow it down. Just feel the breath you are already taking.

Managing the breath turns it into one more thing to get right, and for some people close attention to the body winds them up rather than settling…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 2:45One line of research

Most of us think there are two things to do with anger: hold it in or let it out. There is a third, which is to stop, stay still, and watch it without doing either.

Holding it in has you clamped shut and seething. Letting it out has you saying things you will be repairing for weeks. The third one feels like doing…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 41:34One line of research

Tell yourself the true thing: this feeling is real, and it is temporary. No state lasts. Ride it out.

You do not have to fix it right now. You only have to outlast it. Feelings crest and fall like weather.

A minuteTolerate distressMindfulnessQur’an 93:5One line of research

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

Safety and grounding

Name what you feel

Listening and understanding

Let the wave come

Working with anger

When anger turns to harm

Question the thought

Patience and trust

Meaning after harm

When everything feels flat

The cost of avoiding

Grounding and settling

Feeling from the inside

Emotions as signals

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Ride the urge

Rebuild trust

Shared spiritual life

Validate yourself and others

Shame

Act on your values

Your window of tolerance

Obsessions and compulsions

Bringing the future closer

Medication and how it works

Food, caffeine and fuel

When you use something to cope

Breathing

Listen to the body

Care for yourself in loss

Wise mind is not a calmer version of you. It is the state where what you feel and what you have thought through are both in the room, and neither has thrown the other out.

In practice it means you can feel the heat in your chest and still choose the next sentence. Neither half is the enemy: pure logic talks you out of…

A minuteTolerate distressDBT skillsQur’an 12:18One line of research

Stop fighting what already is. Accepting a hard reality, without approving of it, ends the extra layer of pain.

Saying it is so is not the same as saying it is fine. Dropping the war with what already happened frees you to respond.

Five minutesTolerate distressDBT skillsQur’an 64:11One line of research

Soothe yourself through the senses: a warm drink, a soft cloth, a good scent, a slow walk. Be kind to the body.

When you cannot fix the feeling, comfort the one who is feeling it. Small kindnesses to the body settle the mind.

Five minutesTolerate distressMindfulnessQur’an 93:6One line of research

Open your mouth and put on a big obvious fake yawn. More often than not a real one follows, and the soft palate lets go with it.

Yawns are catching, so if you are sitting with someone else one of you starting will usually set off the other. Let it be a proper one: jaw wide,…

A minuteTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 8:11One line of research

Most of us hold a whole day around the eyes without knowing it. Scrunch them shut, open them wide, then rest your fingertips lightly over them for a few breaths.

After that, try the small points: the spot between your eyebrows, your temples, the soft dip under each eye where the cheekbone begins. Press only as…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 12:96One line of research

Put your right hand flat on your left upper chest, gather the skin gently and draw it downwards, then tilt your head and lift your left ear away from it. Hold there and wait.

You are making a long slow stretch up the front of the neck, not pressing on anything. Wait rather than count: somewhere in the next minute a deeper…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 26:80One line of research

One of the quiet gains from body practice is that you can feel more without having to do something about it straight away. The feeling arrives, you watch it, it passes.

That watching part is worth practising on small things: an itch you do not scratch, cold hands, mild boredom. Building room in ordinary moments means…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 90:17One line of research

Tapping pairs light contact on acupressure points with saying the trouble out loud. The claims made for it run ahead of the evidence, and it is cheap, quick and safe enough to try.

The idea underneath is that you hold the distressing thing in mind while your body receives a steady, harmless signal at the same time. Whether the…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 17:82One line of research

The usual round runs inside eyebrow, outside eye, under eye, under nose, middle of chin, collarbone, under arm, with the top of the head if you want it. About five soft taps at each, naming the thing briefly as you go.

Nothing here should hurt. Fingertips, light, more of a tap than a knock. The practical value of a route like this is that your attention keeps moving…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 5:6One line of research

If tapping feels too jumpy, use the same face points differently. Feel for a tender spot inside the eyebrow, under the eye, or just below the cheekbone towards the nose, then make slow small circles there.

Vary it: lighter, then a little deeper, circling one way and then the other, and see which direction the tissue seems to prefer. Slow steady contact…

Five minutesTouch and bodyworkBody basedQur’an 9:128One line of research

Validate your own feeling first: of course this stung. You do not need permission to feel it.

Do not add self-blame on top of a hard feeling. Let it be real, then decide what to do.

A minuteValidate yourself and othersDBT skillsQur’an 20:25One line of research

When somebody insists angrily that they do not care, they usually care a great deal. The heat is the giveaway.

Indifference does not raise its voice. Answer the words and you get an argument about whether they care. Answer the caring underneath and you often…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 17:11One line of research

What overpowered Darwin at that glass was not the snake. It was his picture of what the snake was about to do, and that is usually what overpowers you too.

Which is oddly hopeful. The thing driving the reaction is a reading of the situation, and readings can be slowed, questioned and sometimes corrected…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 5:8One line of research

There is movement inside the word emotion, which turns out to be a fair description. Something starts moving in you before you have named anything.

The early signs are physical: breath shortening, jaw setting, a leg going, hands doing something they were not doing a minute ago. People who learn…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 70:20One line of research

The nervous system grows in the womb out of the same layer as your skin. Sensing and being touched come from one origin, which is part of why threat is felt on the surface of you.

The biology does not have to be exact for the picture to be useful. Attention paid to the surface, the temperature of your hands, the tightness…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 70:20One line of research

There is a dense network of nerves lining the gut, which is part of why a bad feeling turns up in your stomach before you can say what is wrong.

Take it as information without treating it as a verdict. A tightening gut might mean real danger, or an old pattern recognised, or that you have not…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 91:8One line of research