Courses
The complete program
Five modules that build on each other, moving from awareness to understanding to genuine choice. Self-paced. Entirely online.
Program Overview
How the program is structured
Each module is self-contained but designed to connect with what came before. You can work through them sequentially, or return to specific modules when a particular aspect feels relevant. The exercises are short, practical, and designed for real-life conditions.
Modules
What each module covers
Mapping Your Stress Landscape
Stress isn't one thing. There's the stress of being overwhelmed, the stress of boredom, the stress of social friction, the stress of physical tiredness. Each type tends to produce different behavioral responses. This module starts by helping you see which types of stress are most present in your life and how each one tends to push toward spending.
The four exercises in this module are observational. You're not trying to change anything yet. You're building a map.
Exercises include:
- The stress type inventory
- The daily pressure log
- Connecting emotion to environment
- Recognizing your early warning signals
The Moment Before
This is the heart of the program. The moment before a purchase decision is made is brief, often invisible, and filled with information. Most people skip over it entirely and find themselves at the checkout without quite knowing how they got there.
These five exercises build the specific capacity to notice that moment. What does the impulse feel like in the body? What thought precedes it? Is there a specific sensation, a pull, a kind of restlessness? The exercises make this visible, then create space around it.
Exercises include:
- The body scan before buying
- Naming the impulse
- The ten-breath pause
- Tracing the thought chain
- Writing the moment in real time
Understanding the Function
Spending under stress serves a function. It might provide a sense of control in a situation that feels uncontrollable. It might offer a brief reward in a day that has felt unrewarding. It might create a small feeling of excitement that temporarily overrides anxiety. The function varies by person and by context.
Understanding the function doesn't make the impulse disappear, but it does make it less mysterious. And something less mysterious is easier to work with.
Exercises include:
- The function interview
- What does this purchase promise?
- Tracking the feeling after
- Identifying the unmet need
Expanding the Menu
When spending is your main available response to stress, every difficult moment becomes a potential purchase. This module works on expanding the range of responses available to you, not by eliminating the spending impulse, but by ensuring it has company.
The six exercises here are the most varied in the program. Some are physical. Some involve writing. Some are about environmental design. The goal is to find at least two or three responses that genuinely work for you and can be used in real conditions.
Exercises include:
- The alternative response audit
- Quick physical interventions
- Environmental friction design
- The thirty-minute rule experiment
- Building a comfort menu
- Response rehearsal
Sustaining the Shift
New awareness and new habits take time to consolidate. This final module focuses on the longer arc: maintaining the capacity to notice over weeks and months, working constructively with setbacks, and recognizing when stress levels are beginning to build before they drive behavior.
It also addresses the common pattern of initial improvement followed by regression, and offers practical approaches to returning to the practices without self-criticism when that happens.
Exercises include:
- The weekly review practice
- Working with setbacks without self-criticism
- Stress level monitoring
Who It's For
Is this program relevant for you?
The program is designed for people who notice a pattern of spending in response to stress, whether that means online shopping after a hard day, buying things as a form of reward or comfort, or finding themselves with items they don't remember consciously choosing.
It doesn't require any background in psychology or mindfulness. It requires only a willingness to pay attention to something that usually goes unnoticed.
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