Practices

If the language of mindfulness puts you off, drop the language. Call it noticing what your mind is doing, and use it anyway.

Some people hear anything that sounds spiritual and close the door, and then a useful skill goes unused over a word. There is nothing here you have…

The braking part of the brain is not finished until the mid to late twenties. A teenager who cannot hold their tongue is not being defiant, they are working with equipment still under construction.

Expecting adult self-control from a fifteen year old sets everyone up to fail, and then to argue about the failing. What helps more is lowering the…

Some triggers never reach words. A smell, a stuffy room, a noise you cannot place can carry you halfway to angry before anyone has said a thing.

When you keep flaring in the same place at the same time of day, look at the conditions before you look for a culprit. Air, heat, hunger, noise, a…

The part of you that reacts can be trained. The figure usually quoted is around eight weeks of small daily practice, not one weekend of good intentions.

That is oddly encouraging, because it means results were never due by Thursday. Pick something small enough that you will still do it when you are…

Say the difficult sentence out loud, on your feet, in something like the real conditions. Thinking it through in your head is a different skill from getting it out of your mouth when your pulse is up.

Acting it out feels awkward and that awkwardness is part of why it works: the version of you who has to speak is the aroused one, so that is the…