Practices

Holding yourself in is effortful for everybody, every time. When it slips you have not uncovered a permanent fault in yourself.

The story people tell after a lapse usually does more damage than the lapse. One bad evening becomes proof, proof becomes despair, and despair makes…

If you feel yourself rising, sit down. It is the smallest instruction in the whole toolkit and often the one that works.

Standing tall with a raised voice tells your own body that a fight is on, and it tells the other person the same thing, so they brace and match you.…

A sigh opens the chest and drops the guard for a second. That is part of why it feels like relief and part of why the other person softens too.

Anger holds the body braced: shoulders up, chest closed, everything protecting the middle. A sigh undoes some of that, and it is hard to keep the…

In a hostile exchange, try a slow hmm instead of a reply. It sounds like someone thinking, and it puts a long out breath in the way of whatever you were about to say.

The sound we make when we are unsure is already in everyone's repertoire, and it reads as puzzlement rather than as a threat, so the other person has…

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,…

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…

Ask what is happening in the body right now, in the moment it happens, rather than asking afterwards what the feeling was.

A shutdown is quickest to catch while it is switching on. The question that works is small and physical: what is happening in your chest, your…

When you catch yourself dodging, just note it. Telling yourself off adds shame to a moment that already had plenty going on.

There is a difference between seeing what you did and grading it. Seeing keeps it available as a choice next time, while grading makes you want to…

Going silent and hard is not a neutral act. A fixed stare and a set brow land on the other person's body as threat, even though you have not said a word.

People often think they are being restrained when they go cold, and are then surprised by how frightened or defensive the other person becomes. If…

When a task is missed it is usually not sitting somewhere being refused. It has gone off the radar altogether, the way a name goes when somebody asks you for it.

The refusal reading is the expensive one, because it turns a lapse into an insult and starts the argument in the one place where nothing can be…

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…

Anger tells you to say the thing. Fear tells you to leave. You can feel all of it and still not do what it asks, and that gap is the whole skill.

Try naming the urge in your head as it arrives: this is the urge to send the message. Named, it stops being the only available next step and becomes…

Let your hands fall open, palms up, on your lap or at your sides, and breathe there for a minute. It is oddly hard to stay in full fight with open hands.

Anger lives in the grip as much as anywhere. Opening the hands removes one part of what the body is preparing to do, and the rest of the system tends…

Listen for the sentence that says the child could manage all of this perfectly well if they only decided to. However kindly it is meant, that is the belief to take apart.

It sounds like encouragement and it works like a verdict, because it says the ability was always there and only the willingness was missing. In a…

Freezing is not something you decided on. It is what was left once the other options had gone.

A mouse does not try to charm a cat. It runs, and if it is caught it goes limp, and none of that is a considered plan. People ask themselves for…