Our Practices
Foundational practices for embodying and expressing The Experience of We
Attuning Together
A quick start guide
There's a particular relief that comes when someone truly senses us.
Not when they guess correctly about what we're feeling. Not when they assume or project. When they actually perceive what's there. Something in our nervous system relaxes, because we don't have to explain ourselves into existence. We are simply felt.
This is attunement: the experience of being accurately perceived by each other. It isn't mind-reading. We will never know everything about each other's inner worlds. But we can develop enough sensitivity to perceive the general shape of what each other is experiencing. Enough to respond well. Enough to be with each other where we actually are, rather than where we assume we are.
Attunement isn’t a gift some people have and others lack. It’s a capacity we build together through intentional practice. Whatever our starting point, our ability to sense each other can grow.
One practice to try
Think of a person in your life who’s open to experimentation, and invite them into trying something new with you.
Sensing and Checking
Sit facing each other. Take a few breaths together. Then try this.
Sense into your companion. Not by analyzing. By feeling. What do you pick up from their face, their body, their energy? What's the quality of their presence right now?
Offer what you sense, tentatively. "I'm sensing some tiredness in you." "You seem lighter today." "There's something that feels a little guarded."
Ask them to confirm or correct. "Am I reading that right?"
Receive the answer. If you're right, notice how it feels for both of you. If you're off, let them tell you what's actually there. Adjust without defensiveness.
Switch. Now they sense into you and offer what they perceive. You confirm or correct.
The practice isn't about getting it right. It's about building the circuit between sensing, checking, and adjusting. Over time, that circuit becomes faster, subtler, and more accurate.
The full guide, Attuning Together, has several practices for developing shared attunement: sensing each other's states, offering perceptions tentatively, working with misattunement, building attunement into daily life, and more. It also explores what attunement requires, what blocks it, and why being accurately perceived is one of the deepest forms of relational care.
We don't have to be perfect at sensing each other. We just have to keep trying. That willingness is itself a form of love.
If this resonates, we recommend trying …
Co-Regulating Together
Learning To Recognize Non-Verbal Cues Together
Practicing Love Together
