Guides and resources
The listening guide below is free for anyone. You can also browse the library for something that fits what you’re working on.
Free guide · for anyone
Listening is more than staying quiet while somebody else talks.
This guide walks through preparing yourself to listen, staying with the feeling, reflecting what you heard, asking useful questions, and responding with empathy. It is meant to be practiced, not simply read once.
Guide library
Most are resources I share with clients when they fit the work we’re doing. One is a more detailed reference written for clinicians. You don’t need to work through the whole library; start with the guide that fits the question in front of you.
How to access them: Public editions, including the clinician reference, are linked to Etsy from their cards. Current clients receive any guide we’ve discussed at no additional cost through the secure client portal.
Learn to recognize criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling—and practice the constructive response paired with each pattern. The guide includes concrete examples, gentle start-up language, taking responsibility, appreciation, and a planned self-soothing break.
A five-step process for returning to one regrettable conflict without starting the fight all over again. Name what happened, understand both experiences, take responsibility, and make a plan for next time.
Five ways to keep knowing one another and notice the small moments when connection is being offered. It brings together Love Maps, open-ended questions, positive qualities, bids for connection, and everyday turning toward.
For moments when you know something is happening inside but have trouble putting it into words. It includes a feeling wheel, a larger phrase library, and clear needs prompts to help you tell your partner what is going on without asking them to read your mind.
For a recurring difference that keeps leaving both of you stuck. The guide helps you hear the values, fears, and hopes beneath each position before trying to compromise.
Learn what flooding does during conflict, how to take a useful break with a clear return, and how to help the body settle through breathing, muscle release, grounding, and calming imagery.
Choose one habit and build a practical system around it. The guide helps you connect the habit to identity, design clearer cues, make the action easier to repeat, plan for lapses, and track what actually helps.
A practical set of tools for noticing the connection between situations, thoughts, emotions, body reactions, and what you do next—then choosing one change that may help.
An introduction to the idea that different parts of us can carry different fears, roles, and ways of protecting us. It explains the basic IFS model and what self-leadership can look like.
A detailed in-session reference for preparation, protector work, in-sight and Direct Access, the Six Fs, permission and exile work, optional healing steps, safe closure, troubleshooting, and quick reference.
Three beginning practices for noticing a part that is active, drawing a simple parts map, and listening to one part without trying to change it. The exercises include clear guidance for slowing down, pausing, and returning to the work when you feel ready.
Three practices for times when parts are pulling in different directions, one protector is difficult to approach, or you want a brief way to stay connected with parts you already know. The guide helps you listen to each concern and understand the protection without forcing a decision or making a part change.
Articles
I write these for the questions that rarely fit into a quick answer. They’re free to read, whether or not you ever become a client.
The subject changes. Somehow, the conversation still ends in the same place. Here’s how to catch the turn before both of you are fully inside it.
Read the article →Sorry matters. What happens after the apology matters more. A closer look at honesty, transparency, repeated questions, and the pressure to decide too soon.
Read the article →You may want every answer and a permanent decision tonight. Start with what will make the next day safer, steadier, and more honest.
Read the article →Your mind keeps returning to dates, messages, and scenes you never saw. What is it trying to settle—and what can make the next hour easier?
Read the article →Use them at your own pace
If either of you is too flooded to listen, pause and return later.
If the same conflict keeps returning, you can read about how online couples therapy works. If a guide connects to an affair or betrayal, see the structured affair-recovery process.
These resources are educational and are not a substitute for therapy, crisis care, or individualized clinical advice. If a guide keeps leading back into the same escalation, that may be useful information about where you need more support.
When a guide is not enough
Choose the couples or individual intake in the secure scheduling portal. You do not need to finish a guide before you begin.
