Practices

Eventually the pen goes down and the finger stays still, and you simply notice what moves through you. That is the whole thing with the scaffolding taken away.

The props are there to teach you what noticing feels like, not to be carried around forever. Once you can tell the difference between being inside a…

There is a kind of mindfulness that means sinking right into a moment, and another that means stepping back from it. When you are angry, you want the second one.

Losing yourself in the taste of a coffee is a lovely practice and it is not this one. Going all the way into a feeling makes it bigger, which is…

Got drowsy doing it? Nothing has gone wrong. Your body has decided there is no threat here, which was rather the point.

People apologise for getting sleepy, as though they failed to concentrate hard enough. The heaviness is your alarm system standing down, and it is a…

You did not calm yourself down. You sat still and watched, and calm turned up. It is worth having that the right way round.

If you credit your own effort for the calm, you will reach for that effort next time you are furious, and it will not be there. Then the failure…

Some signals cannot be acted on. Ringing in the ears, an old ache, a resentment about something long finished: the alarm is real and there is nothing to answer it with.

Fighting a signal you cannot switch off lays a second misery on top of the first. People who live well with long term pain tend to do something else…

Most of us think there are two things to do with anger: hold it in or let it out. There is a third, which is to stop, stay still, and watch it without doing either.

Holding it in has you clamped shut and seething. Letting it out has you saying things you will be repairing for weeks. The third one feels like doing…

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.

Soothe yourself through the senses: a warm drink, a soft cloth, a good scent, a slow walk. Be kind to the body.

When you cannot fix the feeling, comfort the one who is feeling it. Small kindnesses to the body settle the mind.

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…

Watch for the small thing that happens right as a feeling starts: the reach for a tissue, the laugh, the change of subject. Notice it once and say nothing, notice it again, and only then mention it.

One instance is an incident and three is a pattern, and the difference matters when you name it, because a pattern can be looked at together without…

Sometimes the thing that stops your tears is an order somebody gave you decades ago, and you are the one carrying it out now. One woman found her father's words sitting behind a habit of wiping her face dry the moment she cried.

That is worth knowing because it changes who the rule belongs to. It was his voice, in her hands, running long after he had gone. Naming the source…

Before going towards a hard feeling, decide what will hold you while you are inside it: a way of breathing, a way of standing, a sentence, a person you can picture or ring.

Going in with nothing is not brave, it is flooding, and it teaches your system that feelings really are dangerous. Pick two or three supports in…

Whoever is going to do the feeling picks what to work with. The tightness in the chest, the closing throat, the anger, the grief, whichever one they are ready for today.

Choosing keeps the person in charge of the dose, and being in charge is a fair part of what makes this different from whatever happened to them. If…

Whether a feeling is nowhere to be found or far too much, the questions are the same: what breath, what movement, what sentence, what person helps me stay with this?

Numbness and overwhelm look like opposites and they are both a problem of not being able to stay with the material. The same supports work in either…

Anger wants the body to do something, so let it. Breathe deeper and higher into the chest, stand up, press both palms hard into a wall, walk on the spot, push down through your feet.

Pressing against something solid gives the mobilisation an outlet with nothing broken and nobody hurt. Keep going until the charge drops a little,…

Say it out loud before you start: you decide how much of this you feel, and when. Stopping for a bit is part of the plan, not a failure of it.

Being in charge of the dial is most of what separates useful contact with a hard feeling from being flooded by it again. If you are helping someone,…

If light touch makes you squirm but firm deep pressure feels wonderful, that is worth knowing about yourself. It is the same preference behind weighted blankets and a very tight hug.

Once you know it, you can arrange for it: a heavier duvet, a firm rather than gentle massage, sitting with your back against something solid,…

When a treatment is described as approved, ask what it is approved for. Magnetic brain stimulation is licensed for depression, and using it for attention problems is off label.

Off label is not the same as forbidden or useless, and it does change three things: how much evidence stands behind it for your situation, what the…

If several medications have failed, ask whether anyone else in the family had the same experience. A pattern of non response runs in some families.

It is a question that rarely gets asked and can save a year. If a parent or sibling went through the same list without success and then responded to…