A calm place to work through a hard moment

If you need help right now

Steady Mind is not for a crisis. If you are in danger, or might act on thoughts of hurting yourself or someone else, please contact a person now. These lines are free and confidential.

What it is, and what it is not

• It is self-reflection and education for adults 18 and over: a guided version of a written coaching exercise.
• It is not therapy, counseling, a diagnosis or medical care, and it is not a substitute for any of them.
• It is not for a crisis, for situations where someone is hurting or threatening you, or for questions about medication. If the tool notices any of these in what you write, it stops the exercise and shows the help lines above.
• It does not tell you what to feel or what to do. It asks questions, offers examples, and leaves every choice to you.
• The examples are written, not real. "Maya", "Dev" and "Jo" are made-up people whose worksheets run through every step to show what each line can look like. Nobody's real worksheet is ever shown to anyone.

Where this comes from

The five lines this tool is built on (circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result) come from the Self Coaching Model, created by life coach Brooke Castillo (now Brooke Hicks), founder of The Life Coach School. The model grew from the thought record used in cognitive behavioral therapy, and the believable "bridge" thoughts, the way of allowing a feeling, and the goal and decision exercises here are all inspired by her teaching.

Every word of guidance in Steady Mind is written fresh. Nothing here is copied from her books, worksheets, courses or recordings, and this tool is not affiliated with or endorsed by Brooke Hicks or The Life Coach School. If this helps you, her work goes much deeper:

• The Self Coaching Model guide from The Life Coach School
• The Life Coach School Podcast

If you represent The Life Coach School and would like anything here changed or credited differently, please email me.

The DBT skills section

The DBT skills paths are based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, developed by Marsha M. Linehan, PhD: skills for getting through a crisis without making it worse, accepting what cannot be changed, understanding and changing emotions, and asking for what you need. They were first built for people whose emotions hit hard and fast, including people living with borderline personality disorder, and they help many others. Every explanation here is our own plain-language summary. For the originals, see her DBT Skills Training Manual and Handouts and Worksheets (Guilford Press, revised 2025).

What the evidence says, honestly. DBT delivered by trained clinicians, including its skills groups, is well studied and reduces self-harm and the severity of difficulties for many people. Practicing skills on your own from an app has been studied far less, and no trial has shown that a self-guided tool can stand in for care. So this section is skills practice and a bridge to care, not DBT treatment. If you can get a DBT program or a clinician, that comes first; these pages can help you practice between sessions.

The safety plan follows the Safety Planning Intervention by Barbara Stanley and Gregory Brown, used in emergency departments around the world. The diary card follows the format Linehan uses: urges and emotions rated 0 to 5 by you, each day, with the skills you used. Nothing on it is scored or interpreted by this site, and there are no streaks.

Not affiliated. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Dr. Linehan, the Linehan Institute, Behavioral Tech, the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification, or Guilford Press, and nobody here is a DBT-certified clinician. If you represent any of them and would like anything changed or credited differently, please email me.

What happens to what you write

• It stays on your device. Worksheets, plans and settings are saved in this browser only. There is no account and no database. This website never receives what you write.
• It is not backed up. Clearing your browser or changing phones loses it. Every finished worksheet has Print (or save as PDF), Copy and Download, and Settings can save a backup file of everything to load on another device, or delete it all.
• AI help is optional, and you are asked first. If you tap "Help me find the words", the parts of your worksheet that step needs are sent through a small relay to Anthropic's Claude AI, which suggests options. Anthropic does not use what is sent to train its models, and deletes it within 30 days. The relay keeps no record of what you send.
• Daily limits use no personal details. To keep the AI free for everyone, the relay counts suggestions per visitor per day using a scrambled code made from your internet address. The address itself is never stored, and the counts delete themselves after two days.
• "Speak to AI about this" is yours to choose. It is on every step. It copies a prompt with your worksheet so far to your clipboard, so you can paste it into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or any AI you already use. Nothing is sent by this site. Once you paste it, that company's privacy rules apply, not ours. (We chose not to build in a free AI service: free tiers typically let the company use what people type to improve its products.)
• Talking uses your browser. If you choose to speak instead of type, your browser turns speech into text. Chrome and Safari may send the audio to Google or Apple to do that. The calm voice you hear is a recording made in advance, so nothing you say is used to make it.

Who made it

I'm Johnathan Carr, LVN. I built Steady Mind as a free project on nursebuilds.com because this method is a simple, practical way to get through a hard moment, and it should be easy to reach for when you need it. Questions or ideas: email me.