Our Practices
Foundational practices for embodying and expressing The Experience of We
Co-Regulating Together
A quick start guide
Watch what happens when a distressed child climbs into a parent's lap.
The child's breathing is fast, their body tight, their face contorted. The parent holds them. Speaks softly. Breathes slowly. And gradually, not through explanation or instruction but through contact, the child's body settles. Their breathing slows. Their muscles release. They regulate, not alone, but through the other person.
This isn't something children outgrow. This is how human nervous systems work.
We were built to settle together. Our biology expects it. When we're stressed or overwhelmed, our nervous systems reach for other nervous systems, looking for the steady presence that signals safety, looking for the calm that helps us find our own.
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that regulation is something we're supposed to do alone. Manage your emotions. Self-soothe. Keep it together. But the truth is, our nervous systems were never designed for solo operation. They’re built to be in contact with each other, calming each other, sharing the load.
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.
Breath Together
Choose a moment. Before bed. After a stressful day. During a quiet pause. It takes three minutes.
Get comfortable together. Sitting side by side, facing each other, or back to back. Whatever feels natural.
Let your breath slow and deepen. Don't force it. Just invite the breath to become more deliberate.
Let your breathing sync up. Without trying too hard, let your breaths begin to synchronize. Inhaling together. Exhaling together. This often happens naturally once you bring attention to it.
Extend the exhale. Breathe in for four counts. Breathe out for six or eight. Long exhales activate the calming branch of the nervous system.
Stay with it. A few minutes. Let the synchronized breathing work on both of your systems. There's no rush.
Notice what shifted. How do you feel now compared to when you started? Something usually softens. Shoulders drop. Breathing deepens. The body remembers what it was designed for.
Three minutes of breathing together. That's all. But those three minutes let your nervous systems do what they were built to do: settle in the presence of a safe other.
The full guide, Co-Regulating Together, has nine practices for developing shared nervous system settling: co-regulating through touch, co-regulating through difficulty, building co-regulatory patterns into daily rhythms, repairing when co-regulation attempts go wrong, and more. It also explores the channels through which our nervous systems communicate (breath, voice, face, touch, presence) and how to build a co-regulatory baseline that makes settling faster and more natural over time.
We were never meant to regulate alone as a baseline. If breathing together for three minutes shifted something in your body, there is a whole practice of shared settling waiting for you.
If this resonates, we recommend trying …
Exploring Shared Embodiment Together
Attuning Together
Moving and Resting Together
