The Performance Trap · Book bonus
Reader resources and guided practices
Welcome. These are the tools from Part Two of the book, gathered here so you can return to them when you need them.
Everything here is free. There's no catch. Listen, read, or print without signing up.
Listen
The guided audios
These are me walking you through each one, so you can close your eyes and follow along. If you don't know where to start: the short straw breath if you have three minutes, SENSE if you have sixteen.
Jump to: The straw breath (short) · The straw breath (daily) · The breathing practice · SENSE · STEP · The inner critic · The Ache
Each one can be downloaded, and the players remember where you stopped.
The straw breath, short version. For the middle of a day. Three and a half minutes. Pause, find what's happening in the belly, give it one word, three breaths. Then back to what you were doing.
Download to keep it on your phone.
The straw breath, the daily practice. For the morning, before the day pulls on you. Sixteen minutes. I count you into five in and seven out, then leave you in it.
Download to keep it on your phone.
The breathing practice. The straw breath, and coming back to the body. Twelve minutes.
Download to keep it on your phone.
SENSE, the full practice. For when something is up and you don't know what it is yet. Sixteen minutes. Slowing the breath, entering the body, naming it, staying with it.
Download to keep it on your phone.
STEP, the full practice. For after you went quiet or small around someone. Sixteen minutes. Get still, find the trade you were about to make, and look for the option that isn't say it or swallow it.
Download to keep it on your phone.
The inner critic. For when the critic is loud. Sixteen minutes. What it thinks you have to become to deserve love, what it's protecting, and the part of you that's been taking it.
Download to keep it on your phone.
The Ache. For whatever it is that aches. Twenty minutes. The one the book is named for. I ask first whether today is the day.
Download to keep it on your phone.
Read
The one-pagers
Each Part Two practice on a single page, so you can find it when you need it.
Try it
Bring a moment of your own
The written reflection invites you to explore one moment from your life, one question at a time. It is AI-guided, built around my method. It isn't a conversation with me.
You can try it without an email signup. Read how your information is used before you begin.
The field guide
The appendix from the book as a PDF, in case you'd rather print it.
One ask
If the book helped
Here I am, asking. Would you write an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads? A couple of sentences is plenty. It's the main thing that gets the book to the next person.
Keep them
Want these in your inbox?
I'll send you one email with all of the links, so you don't have to remember this address. You'll also get my newsletter every other week, mostly short stories about the trap, told from inside it.
If it's not for you, no problem at all. Just unsubscribe.
Go further
If you want to go further
The Performance Trap Practice is four weeks of guided practice. Allow about 15–20 minutes most days for a guided sit and a few notes, plus weekly reading and reflection. It includes a practice companion and two private conversations with me: half an hour as early in the first week as you can, and a full hour at the end. You can begin Week 1 while you’re waiting to meet. The founding price is $295.
And if you already know you want to work with me one on one, that's Mind/Body Foundations. Bi-weekly sessions, built around what's alive in you.