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Worry and anxiety
Anxiety is not a character flaw and it is not weak faith. It is a body doing what it was built to do, at a moment when it is not needed. The practices here work on the loop itself: what worry promises and never delivers, what avoiding costs you, and how to let the body come down.
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24 practicesTheme · Breaking the worry loop
How long you have
With a child, make it a job rather than a lesson. They are the detective, the worried thought is the claim, and the task is to collect what supports it and what does not before deciding anything.
Two columns on a page, in their handwriting, not yours. Ask what a friend would notice, what happened the last three times, what would have to be…
Do not tell a child their thinking is wrong, and do not hand them the better thought. Ask the questions and let them arrive at it themselves.
A conclusion someone reaches on their own stays with them. One that was given to them falls apart the moment they are frightened, because it was…
Sometimes there really is evidence for the fear. Say so. The balance comes from the other column being fuller, not from pretending the first column is empty.
Children are being bullied, are laughed at, do get things wrong in front of everyone. If you wave that away, they learn the exercise is fixed and…
Short sessions spread over days beat one long night. The settling of what you learned happens after you stop, and a short night undoes a good deal of the day's work.
A perfectionist will not cut their hours to be kinder to themselves, but they will cut them to get a better mark. So argue it on those terms.…