Relearn to listen to the constant feedback from your body to regain sensitivity to your internal experience, which aids in decision-making and understanding your current state.
Learn to welcome the full spectrum of human experience, recognizing that emotions themselves typically last only 10-20 seconds; resistance to feeling them creates prolonged suffering and “emotional debt.”
Consciously work to shorten the duration you spend in reactive states (e.g., anger, frustration) from days to hours or minutes, enabling more intentional actions aligned with your values.
In challenging situations, especially conflict, focus on returning to a state where you feel grounded, present, and regulated, as productive engagement is difficult outside this “window of tolerance.”
Understand that your emotional responses originate within you, rather than solely blaming external events. This shift in perspective empowers you to explore and process what is truly being triggered.
Avoid repeatedly suppressing emotional responses, as this accumulates “emotional debt” and “allostatic load,” which drains energy and reduces your capacity to handle stress.
Train your “interoceptive palette” by regularly tuning into your Awareness (expansive vs. narrow), Posture, and Emotions/Sensations (e.g., feeling your feet on the floor) to upgrade your internal landscape.
Employ physiological levers like humming (increases nitric oxide), long-hold stretches, or exhale-emphasized breathing (e.g., 4-7-8) to quickly shift your nervous system into a calmer, parasympathetic state.
Use cold showers or plunges as an experiment to observe your body’s natural bracing response to discomfort. Practice relaxing and “letting the cold in” to train non-resistance, a skill applicable to emotions and life situations.
Learn to discharge accumulated stress and intensity from your body through practices like breathwork, somatic surfing, or shaking, allowing the body’s innate intelligence to complete the emotional reflex arc.
See anxiety or triggers as valuable “signposts” or invitations to courageously explore and understand what aspects of your experience you might still be protecting yourself from.
Actively experiment with different practices in your own life to verify their effects on your body and nervous system, rather than just intellectually consuming knowledge.
Actively protect and design periods of rest into your daily, weekly, and monthly schedule to counteract the modern world’s perpetual activation and prevent burnout.
Train your resilience by practicing efficient downshifting from activated states using techniques like Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) or Yoga Nidra, ensuring deep recovery balances periods of high performance.
Begin each day with a 5-minute internal check-in (before checking your phone) to notice your mind, awareness, posture, energy, emotional tone, and any sensations, gradually building internal awareness.
Become aware of your unique early warning signs (e.g., chest tension, stomach knots) that indicate you’re entering a reactive state, allowing you to intervene proactively.
If you notice yourself or your partner becoming reactive or leaving the “window of tolerance,” communicate the need to step away briefly to regulate before resuming the conversation.
When feeling anger, connect to the physical sensations (e.g., heat, tightness) and allow corresponding movements or sounds to express the energy, leading to a sense of relief and completion, rather than just looping on the story.
Challenge the belief that anger is inherently bad. Instead, view “clean anger” as a healthy expression of clarity and determination used to set boundaries from a place of love.
When experiencing grief, allow yourself to be “willing to be obliterated” by its intensity, trusting your body’s innate intelligence to process it. This can deepen your capacity for love and lead to raw aliveness.
Utilize physical activity such as walking, running, or gym workouts to help complete partially unprocessed stress responses, contributing to improved mental and physical well-being.
Consciously shape your physical surroundings (e.g., using noise-canceling headphones, choosing spaces with appropriate ceiling heights) to support desired states like relaxation, creativity, or focus.
Ensure that self-regulation practices (e.g., journaling, CBT, breathwork) are used to create safety and return to your “window of tolerance,” not to avoid or suppress underlying emotions.
Be mindful that caffeine can numb interoceptive sensations and promote a stimulated state that may feel “safe.” Consider reducing intake if it’s used to push through fatigue or avoid deeper rest and emotional processing.
Adopt a mindset of “self-unfoldment,” which involves welcoming and allowing whatever arises in your internal experience (e.g., tiredness, anger, sadness) without judgment or the belief that something needs fixing.