Who is the conflict with?
Self-help, not therapy. If there is fear in this relationship, see the safety note on the next screen first.
Five steps to get through it
It works better as a team of two
Invite the other person — same steps, same rules, both phones.
Sometimes a conflict needs more than an app
Same Team is made by TEO Counselling Services — virtual therapy across six Canadian provinces, in English, Arabic, Hindi, and Malayalam. If the same conflict keeps coming back, working through it with a therapist can help. The first conversation is a free 15-minute consultation, with no pressure to commit.
Book a free consultationThe five steps are adapted from the couples research of Drs John and Julie Gottman. Cool Down follows their work on physiological flooding and the self-soothing break. Say It Gently is the gentle start-up, their antidote to criticism. Listen to Understand draws on accepting influence. The Repair Deck is built around repair attempts. Find the Workable Middle follows their approach to compromise — separating what each person cannot bend on from what they can. Same Team is a free self-help tool, not therapy, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Gottman Institute. More on the method: the Gottman Method explained.
First — say the two promises
A time-out works best with a return time — say when you'll be back. And if you ever feel unsafe rather than just angry, leaving is the right call; see the safety note on the home screen.
While you're apart
Walk. Breathe. Music. Water on your face. Not: rehearsing the argument, text-fighting from the other room, or building your case. The point is to let your body finish the alarm.
Follow the circle. In as it grows… out slowly as it settles.
Check in with your body
If you're actually calm, go back gently. If not — take more time. That's keeping the promise too.
Arguments end the way they begin. Build the first sentence here, then say it at a calm moment.
Your gentle startup
Rehearse it out loud three times. Your mouth finds rehearsed words faster than clever ones. Then pick your moment — private, unhurried, not mid-battle.
You've said your piece gently. Now it's their turn — and your only job is to get their side right. Not to agree. Not to rebut. To understand.
How it works
They speak in short chunks. A few sentences at a time, about their own feelings and needs.
After each chunk, you reflect it back:
Then ask:
No rebuttals, no corrections, no “but…”. Your turn comes next — and you'll get the same courtesy.
While you listen, hunt for one thing
Under their complaint there's usually a core question — Do I matter to you? Can I count on you? Am I respected here? If you can hear the question under the words and answer that, most of the argument dissolves on its own.
Feeling understood is not the consolation prize — it is the prize. Most stuck conflicts are two people who have never once felt fully heard on the topic.
Tap through until one sounds like you. Then go say it — out loud, imperfectly, now.
Repairs only work if someone catches them. If the other person offers one — take it, even mid-anger. “Okay. Thank you for saying that.”
Most standoffs are two core needs buried under a hundred details. Separate what you can't bend on from everything you can — then build the middle out of the flexible parts.
Your proposal
A good middle leaves both core needs intact and both people slightly flexed. Try it for a week or two, then review it together — real compromises get revisited, not carved in stone.
One more thing, in a day or two when it's cold: Map the Fight — ten minutes of studying what happened is how the same fight stops repeating.
Appreciations first
Each of you shares two or three specific things the other did this week that you appreciated. Small counts. Out loud counts double.
~5 minutes
Rules of the ritual: phones away · one flag each, no pile-ons · if a flag gets hot, use Cool Down and return to it tomorrow.
Pick a finished argument — recent enough to remember, cold enough to handle. You're studying the dance, not reopening the wound.
Your map
Most spirals take two — naming your step gives you a way to change your half.
Written in peacetime, honored in wartime. Check the ones you both adopt — they save on this device.
Everything you've built, kept on this device only. Proposals are meant to be revisited — check back on them after a week or two.
Nothing saved yet. Gentle openers, fight maps, and middle proposals land here automatically when you build them.