Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

Narrowed down

8 practices

Emotions as signals Me Any ordinary day Clear all

How long you have

A minute 1 Five minutes 4 Twenty minutes 3

Who it is written for · Me

A practitioner 13 My husband or wife 13 Me 8 Someone I care about 5

Where you are right now

Coping, mostly 5 Struggling right now 3

On your own, or with someone

On my own 6 Both of us together 2

Theme · Emotions as signals

Medication and how it works 132Your nervous system 85 Systems for daily life 80 Get started 68 Food, caffeine and fuel 53 Your sense of time 52 The moment before you snap 49 Moving your body 48 What anger actually is 48 Bringing the future closer 45 Choosing your response 45 Exercise, food and other supports 41 Equanimity and perspective 36 Screens and attention 35 What ADHD actually is 33 Grounding and settling 33 The fear underneath anger 31 Touch and bodywork 31 Practising under provocation 30 Getting assessed and diagnosed 30 Growing empathy 28 Feelings and focus 28 Treatment and medication 28 When everything feels flat 27 Structure and routine 27 Being seen and judged 24 Cool the body first 23 Breathing 23 Shame and stigma 22 Making it stick 21 Remembering to do it 20 Knowing your partner 20 Treatment and medication 18 What worry does 17 When you use something to cope 17 Shared spiritual life 16 Feeling from the inside 15 Breaking the worry loop 15 Fondness and admiration 14 Facing it a step at a time 13 What you are actually defending 13 Answering bids 12 Staying regulated in conflict 11 Tolerate distress 11 Listening and understanding 10 Obsessions and compulsions 10 Righteous anger and perfectionism 10 Gratitude 9 Posture and how you carry yourself 9 Use your strengths 8 Emotions as signals 8 Self-compassion 8 Rituals of connection 7 Affection and touch 7 Anger, alcohol and the body 6 Question the thought 6 Shame 5 Rebuilding trust 5 Your worth is not conditional 3 Rest and pacing 3 Repair after rupture 3 The cost of avoiding 3 When you go numb 3 Notice the pattern and flex 3 Living with uncertainty 3 Work with your brain 2 Meaning after harm 2 Act on your values 2 Keep the bond 2 Get it out of your head 2 Find meaning 2 Face it gently 2 When anger turns to harm 2 Listen to the body 1 Care for yourself in loss 1 Reading, numbers and learning differences 1 Panic and the body 1 Your window of tolerance 1 Safety and grounding 1

When · Any ordinary day

Any ordinary day 8 After a row 7 Under stress 4 When apart 3

You do not need a long list of feeling words. Half a dozen you can actually reach for under pressure will do more than forty you have to look up.

Angry, sad, afraid, ashamed, surprised, glad is enough to start with, and most hard moments are some mixture of the first four. The aim is not to…

A minuteEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 91:8

You cannot ask for something you cannot feel the want of. Before working out how to say it, spend a minute finding what you actually need.

This is why advice to communicate better so often goes nowhere. The words come out tidy and land as nothing, because there was no felt need inside…

Five minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 26:13

Ask what the feeling is trying to do for you. Anger clears an obstacle, fear gets you out, sadness calls for comfort, shame hides you from being seen.

Once a feeling has a job it stops being a defect you have to apologise for. That matters, because the ones we treat as shameful are precisely the…

Five minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 12:86

Often nothing is buried. The pieces are all there, they have simply never been put next to each other.

This hurts but I do not know why usually means the event, the feeling in the body and the meaning are being held separately. So join them up out…

Five minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 28:10

If all you can say is that you want to get away, that is already information. Nobody moves away from nothing, so somewhere in there is something that felt hard.

You do not need to know what it is yet. Hold the smaller version for a while: something here is difficult, and the pulling back is how I have been…

Five minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 91:8

Emptying the feeling out at somebody does not shift it, and being told what to do instead skips over it. What changes things is feeling it with someone who stays.

You can tell the difference from the inside. Venting has a rehearsed quality, the same phrases coming round again with the heat kept up. Advice…

Twenty minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 21:83

Take one episode from this week and give it five lines: what set it off, how you read it, what happened in your body, what you took it to mean, and what you wanted to do.

Doing this with an actual event, rather than in general, is what makes it useful. Keep the lines short and resist tidying them into something more…

Twenty minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 3:29

You cannot taste food you are eating fast. Feeling works the same way, so slow the pace until there is something to actually notice.

In practice that means one sentence at a time, with a pause after it, and questions like what happened in you just then. Both of you will want to…

Twenty minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 13:28

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.