Practices

Working out what someone meant by hurting another person is a conversation for the person who did it. Said to the one who was harmed, they were not really trying to hurt you lands as being talked out of your own experience.

Anyone who has been on the receiving end of violence has usually spent a long time being told it was not what it was. Even a kindly meant explanation…

When somebody's anger is filling the room, the bravest sentence available is usually the plainest one: you are frightening me right now.

It gives them a piece of information they almost never have, which is what they are actually doing to the person in front of them. It also puts…

If someone stands up mid argument, stay where you are. Rising with them turns a conversation into a stand off.

Therapists who sit with couples notice that the person on their feet usually sits back down within a minute or two when nobody gets up to meet them.…

In a hostile exchange, try a slow hmm instead of a reply. It sounds like someone thinking, and it puts a long out breath in the way of whatever you were about to say.

The sound we make when we are unsure is already in everyone's repertoire, and it reads as puzzlement rather than as a threat, so the other person has…

If you notice a hard locked stare, in yourself or in the room, look away. Empty space is the safest thing to look at, because it says nothing back.

Two people staring each other down are feeding one another, and each second of it raises both of them. Breaking that needs no words, which matters,…

You can drop the neuroscience and keep the instruction. Look at the person's face, and at their eyes in particular, and let what you see land on you.

The advice does not need a mechanism to be worth following. Look at the person while they are speaking instead of at your own next sentence. Let…

When someone is telling you something hard, quietly let your body come closer to theirs. Similar posture, similar pace, your voice at their volume rather than your own.

Do it lightly. This is not an impression, and if it looks like one it will land as mockery. A small shift is plenty: leaning in when they lean in,…

You can feel for the child in front of you and still keep the consequence you set. Being moved was never meant to be the thing that decides.

It happens to everybody. You are firm, then you see the crumpled face, something turns over in you, and the consequence quietly disappears. What the…

When you notice you have stopped really being there with someone, change your body before you try to change your effort. Sit forward, unfold your arms, turn to face them properly.

Attention goes late in the day, and trying harder to care rarely brings it back. Moving does. Feet planted, hands open, shoulders squared to them,…

You do not actually know what they are about to say, or why they did it. Swapping the finished sentence in your head for help me understand costs nothing and changes the whole exchange.

Finishing people's sentences, deciding in advance what they meant, hearing the insult before it has been made: all of it feels like insight and most…

Before you practise something exposing with someone, say out loud what is not at risk. I will not think less of you, and nothing between us changes here.

It sounds obvious and it does a great deal of work. If the relationship really is on the line, then the discomfort is not symbolic and no amount of…