Practices

Being cornered is a trigger all by itself. If you want somebody to come down, hand back a little freedom: a clear way out of the room, a choice about where to sit, some say in when this gets talked about.

Watch how fast things escalate the moment a person cannot move, cannot leave, cannot decide anything. It is not stubbornness, it is an old alarm…

Do not only correct the thought, correct the sentence. Rather than do not shout at me, try can you take those off, I want to talk to you.

Telling yourself to stay calm gives you nothing to do, and the ready-made sharp line is still the only thing in your mouth. A plain request gives all…

Before you walk out, say three things: this is getting heated, I need a bit of space, I will be back and we will carry on. The sentence is the skill, not the walking.

An exit with no words is read as punishment, and the other person will usually follow you to finish it, which is how a break turns into the worst…

If you are helping someone set up a practice like this, ask them for ideas before you offer yours. Keep a few in your back pocket for when they run dry.

What people invent for themselves fits their actual life, and they are far more likely to do it. Have suggestions ready anyway, because a brainstorm…

Offer a practice as a question rather than an instruction. What do you think it would be like to wake yourself up once a day? That is a very different sentence from you should.

People argue with instructions, particularly people who were sent rather than came. A question leaves them to make the case, and the case they make…

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…

Open with the difficulty instead of the accusation. "This is hard for me to say" and "I am worried you will not like this" buy you a hearing that "you always" never will.

Two things happen at once when you start this way. The other person stops preparing a defence, because nothing has been thrown at them yet. And you…

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…

Say out breath, not breath. Told to take a signal breath, most people pull air in hard, which stirs them up rather than settling them.

This is a small wording change that decides whether the technique works. Whether you are teaching someone else or reminding yourself, put the phase…

Anger pulls your attention towards whatever provoked it, the way a vacuum cleaner pulls at a curtain. Naming it that way makes it something happening to you rather than something wrong with you.

Rumination is an accurate word and a heavy one, and people who already feel judged tend to close up when it appears. A picture does the same job…

If open awareness sounds like too much, put it plainly: look at the background instead of the thing in front of it. That is the entire instruction.

People who bounce off contemplative language will happily follow a physical direction about where to point their eyes. Say background, say the space…

Open gazing and long unfocused staring do not suit everyone. If things start to feel unreal or far away, stop and look at something you can name.

This caution is usually left out, and it should not be. Practices that are open, unguided and without an anchor are the ones most often followed by…

Time alone can be a good idea or a dangerous one, and the difference is what sits underneath it. If you are already low, already dodging people, or drinking on your own, a plan to see fewer people is the wrong plan.

Ask honestly which one this is. Stepping back from a crowded, quarrelsome week is one thing. Disappearing because you cannot face anybody is another,…

Telling somebody one thing you are quietly embarrassed about will bring you closer than a month of pleasant conversation.

It does not have to be dramatic. The worry you have never said out loud, the mistake you still think about at night, the thing you are no good at.…

If it really is that you feel too much for people, the useful move is not more feeling. It is learning to say no while still meaning them well.

Naming your softness as something that gets used is what makes a limit bearable to set. You are not becoming colder. You are stopping the slow build…

You cannot decide to feel closer to people. You can decide to eat with them, walk with them, sit near them and say one true thing, and the closeness tends to follow.

The chemistry gets talked about a great deal and it is the least useful part. What you can act on is the diary: a standing meal with someone, a hand…

Go long enough without company and almost anyone will do. That is worth knowing about yourself, and worth watching for in someone who lives alone.

Loneliness does not make you a poor judge of character on purpose. It just lowers the bar until whoever turns up seems fine. The steadier answer is…

Four ordinary things take the edge off a hot temper: being touched by someone you trust, eating with people, moving your body hard enough to breathe, and sitting still for a few minutes a day.

None of them are about anger directly, which is the point. Exercise lowers what you are already carrying before the argument starts. A shared meal…

If eating together helps, it is the together that is helping. Being full is not a route to feeling close, and treating it as one goes wrong quickly for some people.

Sit down with somebody once a week and eat whatever you were going to eat anyway. That is the whole practice. If you notice yourself reaching for…

Ask the question twice. What do you see, and what else do you see. What do you think, and what else do you think. The second one does all the work.

The second question takes for granted that another answer exists, so instead of defending the first you go looking. Used on yourself it works just as…