The Practices

The chapter-end work from Healthy Self-Regard, one practice at a time.

The book has a practice at the end of every chapter — small, usable, the kind of thing you can do this Tuesday before bed with a notebook and a pen. This page is the practices archive. You don’t need to own the book to do them. You just need an hour and the willingness to write the truth on a piece of paper nobody else will read.

I’ll add a new practice here each month, in roughly the order they appear in the book. If one of them does something useful for you, the monthly newsletter will let you know when the next one lands.

Practice 01 — The Training Inventory

From Chapter 2: You Were Not Born Easy.

What it is. A writing practice. You sit with a notebook and answer seven questions about how you were trained into convenience — who first taught you that being agreeable was the price of love, what the punishment for being difficult looked like in your house, what you learned about women in the rooms you grew up in.

What it takes. Notebook. Pen that works. A quiet hour. Phone in another room.

Why it matters. You cannot put down a thing whose weight you have not let yourself feel. This practice puts the weight on the page so you can see it.

The seven questions:

  1. Who first taught you that being agreeable was the price of love?
  2. What was the punishment for being difficult in your house?
  3. When did you first learn that your needs would make people leave?
  4. What did “good girl” cost you that you have never named?
  5. Whose approval are you still trying to earn?
  6. What did you learn about women in your house?
  7. What part of this training, if any, are you still passing on?

Answer in order. One sentence each, minimum. Worry about whether the sentence is true, not whether it’s well-written. Close the notebook when you’re done. Come back to the answers in a week. Notice which one you tried to soften. That’s the one to start with.

More practices land here over the coming months. To get them in your inbox as they post, subscribe to the monthly newsletter.

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