Practices

When someone tells you they have failed, the most useful thing you can do is nothing clever. Let your face stay soft and keep looking at them.

Shame is braced for disgust, so it reads your face before it hears your words. A quick reassurance can even land as a rush to move on. Slower is…

With someone deep in shame, your steady presence is not the warm up before the useful part. It is the useful part.

That means resisting the urge to fix, to explain the psychology of it, or to hurry them along to a better feeling. Sit at their pace. Keep your tone…