Most of us have a sense of what is really important to us. And yet we so often get lost in the noise of daily life, pulled away from it by difficult thoughts, feelings, and habits that seem to have a life of their own. We avoid the conversation we know we need to have. We drift through another week without doing the one thing that would make it feel well spent.
This is not a character flaw. It is what happens when difficult thoughts and feelings get in the way and there is no clear way of seeing the pattern. New Relating exists to help people see the pattern and find a different way of moving through it.
Map what is pulling you away from what matters, what living closer to your values would look like, and one small step to take this week. Takes about ten minutes. Save as a PDF to keep.
Try the flexibility mapPlace yourself on a visual arc from birth to death, then answer four questions about what the time behind you has contained and what you want the time ahead to hold. Save as a PDF to keep.
Try the LifelineThe flexibility map
The map is built on a framework from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a branch of psychology with strong evidence for helping people live more fully in line with what matters to them. The central idea is simple: behaviour tends to move either toward the things we value, or away from difficult thoughts and feelings. When away moves dominate, life tends to feel smaller than it should.
The map makes this pattern visible across four sections. What tends to hook you and pull you off course. What matters most in this situation. What you actually do when you are hooked. And what living closer to what matters would look like in practice.
You work through it one question at a time, starting with the situation you are focusing on. If you are not sure what you value, a card sort is built in. It presents values one at a time and you decide whether each one matters here. You pick your top three or four and they drop into the map. The completed map saves as a PDF to keep.
The Lifeline
The Lifeline works at a different scale. You enter your age and your best estimate of how long you might live. Then you see the arc.
Placing yourself on that arc tends to do something that talking about values does not. Seeing how much has already passed, and how much may remain, cuts through the ordinary fog of daily life and makes certain questions feel more urgent. What has the time behind me actually contained? What do I want the time ahead to hold? What am I doing now that fits that, and what is not fitting?
The tool guides you through four short reflective questions built around those themes. The output is a single document with your arc, your context, and your four answers, saved as a PDF.
Who the tools are for
Both tools are designed for everyone, practitioners and non-practitioners alike. Neither requires any knowledge of psychology. There is no login, no account, and no cost. Nothing is stored. Everything runs in the browser and the only record of what you write is the PDF you choose to save.
If you use either tool, we would love to know what you think. Write to us at newrelating@gmail.com.