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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553 practices

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Stepping back does more than settle you. It lets the rest of the room back into view, and the rest of the room is usually where the explanation lives.

Under threat, attention narrows onto the person in front of you and everything else falls away: what happened before you walked in, who else is in…

A minuteChoosing your responseMindfulnessQur’an 23:96One line of research

Knowing you have other options and taking one are different things. Somewhere in there is the moment the choice actually gets made, and that moment is what you want to train.

Plenty of people can list better responses afterwards and still did the old one at the time. The gap sits somewhere other than knowledge: nobody was…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 41:34One line of research

There are two ways to widen the gap between being provoked and responding: get better at noticing, and get better at choosing. They are separate skills, and having both means one can cover for the other.

On a good day you catch the heat rising and that alone gives you room. On a bad day you will catch nothing at all, and what saves you then is a…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 25:63One line of research

Now draw a fourth circle and choose everything about it: how big, where on the page, which way round, where you start. Notice how much heavier that feels.

The weight is the point. Deliberate control has a texture to it, and most people can feel the difference between the first three circles and the…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 33:70One line of research

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

Gratitude

Grounding and settling

Feelings and focus

When everything feels flat

Listening and understanding

Moving your body

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Touch and bodywork

Making it stick

Shared spiritual life

Rituals of connection

Remembering to do it

Exercise, food and other supports

Being seen and judged

Emotions as signals

Screens and attention

What you are actually defending

Rebuilding trust

Tolerate distress

Food, caffeine and fuel

Practising under provocation

Treatment and medication

Breathing

Shame and stigma

What ADHD actually is

When you use something to cope

When anger turns to harm

Shame

Validate yourself and others

Working with anger

Your worth is not conditional

Ride the urge

Patience and trust

Obsessions and compulsions

Notice the pattern and flex

Meaning after harm

Let the wave come

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Hold a boundary

Facing it a step at a time

Calm the body

Feeling from the inside

Anger, alcohol and the body

Face it gently

Help someone grieving

Keep the bond

Listen to the body

Care for yourself in loss

Your window of tolerance

Panic and the body

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Breaking the worry loop

Ask and say no well

Get it out of your head

Act on your values

After you do something deliberately, skip the question of what you did differently. Ask what it felt like from the inside.

A description of the behaviour leaves you nothing to search for later, because in the moment there will be no paper in front of you. A felt sense is…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 7:201One line of research

Choosing something on purpose usually brings a small lift with it: awake, intentional, oddly free. Do not hurry past that feeling, it is doing work.

People describe it as being at the wheel, and it turns out to be a better reason to keep going than any argument anyone could make to you. So give it…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 42:43One line of research

Aim for the cat rather than the dog. The dog goes off the second the door knocks, while the cat waits, watches, and still moves decisively when it decides to move.

Plenty of people hear delay as backing down, and would rather explode than be walked over. Watching an animal that waits without being timid…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 43:89One line of research

The circle was never the point. Any break in a running routine will do, because the break itself is what puts you back in the driving seat for a moment.

That is freeing, since it means you do not need the correct exercise. Take a different route, sit in another chair, brush your teeth with the other…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 29:45One line of research

Autopilots are smooth. When something feels slightly awkward and effortful, that is usually the sign that you are genuinely present for it.

It is why the useful practices feel mildly annoying rather than serene. Friction is what you are buying, because attention costs something and the…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 41:35One line of research

Eat a meal with your other hand. Wear your watch on the wrong wrist for a week. Use a fork where you would normally use a spoon. These are cheap rehearsals of the only skill that matters here.

None of them has anything to do with anger, which is precisely why they work: you get to practise noticing and choosing while nothing is at stake and…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 3:134One line of research

When the watch on the wrong wrist keeps bothering you, the honest answer is: good. The bother is what is doing the work, so there is nothing here to fix.

Most people quietly drop these practices at the exact moment they start working, because the irritation reads as a sign that something has gone…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 42:37One line of research

Treat this as playing a trick on your own mind rather than as another rule to obey. Confusing yourself on purpose is allowed to be funny.

Anger work arrives with a lot of moralising attached, and most people have had their fill of being told what sort of person to be. A lighter framing…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 2:263One line of research

You are free while you are still deciding. The moment the words leave your mouth you are carrying out an order you gave, and stopping mid sentence is much harder than not starting.

This is why everything useful in this work sits early: noticing sooner, waiting before you answer, settling on your line before you knock on the…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 7:200One line of research

Picture a line of dominoes with a gap where one should be. That gap is what a single pause does: it stops a whole run of things, not only the next sentence out of your mouth.

This is why one interruption is worth what it costs you. The angry line you do not say is also the reply you do not get, the evening that does not go…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 41:36One line of research

Whichever response you practise is the one getting stronger. Today's small choice is not a test you pass or fail, it is a deposit.

That takes some of the weight off a single bad moment and puts it on the pattern instead. One shouted sentence does not undo a month of catching…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 28:54One line of research

When somebody's voice climbs, let yours stay where it is. Staying level is not backing down, and in the room it usually reads as the stronger position.

Slow breathing, standing still, looking interested rather than braced: none of that is passive and none of it is agreement. An argument escalates…

A minuteChoosing your responseCBTQur’an 25:63One 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