Practices

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…

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.

A calming skill handed over at the wrong moment reads as your anger is not welcome here. For someone taught as a child that their anger was unacceptable, that is the old prohibition arriving again in kinder clothes.

Let the anger be seen first. Say that it makes sense, that there is a reason for it, and only then offer anything that settles the body. The order…

Accepting reality as it is means dropping the fight with what has already happened. It does not mean staying somewhere that is still harming you.

The two get confused often, usually by people who were told to be patient by whoever benefited from their patience. A rough test: acceptance is for…