Practices

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,…

Instead of shutting your eyes, let your gaze go soft and wide: the sky, the far wall, the space above someone's shoulder. Keep them open and let the focus loosen.

Closing your eyes in front of someone reads as walking out of the conversation, and it often makes things worse. A soft open gaze breaks the lock…

Being steady about something does not mean you approve of it, and it does not mean you have dropped your claim. It means you have stopped fighting the fact that it happened.

People hear acceptance and think they are being asked to say it was alright. Nothing of the sort. You can be perfectly clear that it was wrong and…

Four steps you can do in ten seconds in the middle of anything: stop, take one breath, look at what is actually happening, then carry on.

It fits inside an argument, a shopping queue, the second before you send a message you will regret. The value is not the breath itself, it is the…

If you held back at four o'clock and then snapped at seven, the holding back still happened. A later slip does not reach backwards and cancel it.

All or nothing scoring is the quickest route from one lapse to giving the whole thing up: I lost it, so none of it was working, so why bother. Count…

There was a moment when the urge came up and you watched it instead of acting. Notice that, mark the date if you can, because that is your proof it is possible.

People chasing this skill often think they have never managed it, when in fact they did it last Thursday in a car park and never counted it. Name the…