Our Practices
Foundational practices for embodying and expressing The Experience of We
Navigating the Catalyst Spiral Together
A quick start guide
Relationships do not grow in the easy moments. They grow in the charged ones.
You know these moments. Something surfaces between you that cannot be smoothed over. A truth that has been building. A pattern that finally breaks through. A conflict that has real stakes. The air changes. Your nervous system knows before your mind catches up: this matters. What happens next will shape things.
Most of us have two speeds for these moments. We either crash through them, reacting on adrenaline, saying things we will regret. Or we avoid them entirely, pulling back, going quiet, letting the charge dissipate without ever meeting it. Both feel like survival. Neither leads to growth.
But there’s a third possibility.
These charged moments have a shape. They follow a recognizable path: sensing what is happening, recognizing the friction, meeting the intensity, pausing before reacting, reconnecting, adjusting, practicing the new thing, and honoring what you have been through. When you can see the shape, you can navigate it. Not perfectly. But consciously. And that changes everything.
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.
Locate yourselves in the spiral
The next time something is happening between you and you are not sure what to do, try this: stop and ask, "Where are we right now?"
Name the stage. Go through the possibilities together. Are we just sensing that something is off? Have we recognized the friction but not engaged it? Are we in the heat of a catalyst moment? Do we need to pause? Are we trying to reconnect? Are we figuring out what to do differently? Are we practicing a change? Are we ready to acknowledge what we have been through?
Let the location guide you. If you are in the heat of a catalyst moment, what you need is a pause, not a plan. If you have reconnected but have not gotten concrete, what you need is specifics, not more processing. If you have been working hard and something has shifted, what you need is acknowledgment, not the next problem.
Say it out loud. "I think we need to pause right now." Or: "I think we have attuned enough. Can we talk about what we want to do differently?" Naming where you are gives both of you orientation. And orientation is half the battle.
You do not need to navigate the whole spiral at once. Just knowing where you are is enough to find the next step.
The full guide, The Catalyst Spiral Together, maps eight stages of relational transformation: awareness, dissonance, catalyst, pause, attunement, calibration, integration, and celebration. It has several practices for navigating the spiral:
Locating yourselves
Giving each stage what it needs
Working with transitions, getting unstuck
Reviewing completed cycles
Building spiral awareness over time
And more
It also explores what to do when you are in different stages, when the intensity feels overwhelming, when integration keeps failing, and when you keep getting stuck at the same place.
Relationships grow through challenge because it concentrates the energy needed for real change. If naming where you are gave you even a moment of clarity in a charged situation, this is a practice worth continuing.
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