Talk It Through

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Look-in runs daily · 5pm and keeps the How You’ve Been dashboard fresh. Sundays, the quiet page is brought up to date. Any other day, only a check-in you asked for.
• What is captured lands in the Getting to know you record, which lives at Talk It Through/Getting to Know You in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Session log record, which lives at Talk It Through/Session Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the What helps record, which lives at Talk It Through/What Helps in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The How You’ve Been dashboard reads from the record and shows, at a glance: what we’ve been talking about · how the weeks have felt · what this is · conversations you kept a line about · what helps.

The wiring, in one breath: Linden runs Getting to know you · Getting to know you keeps its place in Getting to know you · Getting to know you grounds Listening practice · Listening practice closes with Session note · Session note writes to Session log · Session log shown by How You’ve Been · How You’ve Been kept fresh by Look-in · Look-in reads What helps.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Talk. That is the whole of it. Open a chat with Linden when something is on your mind, at any hour, and say it the way you would to a friend who has time. Nothing here needs a form, a mood score or a reason.
• Let Linden get to know the whole picture in pieces — a few areas at a sitting, in any order, skipping anything. The more of the picture he holds, the less you ever have to explain twice.
• When he asks whether to keep a line about a conversation, say yes on the days you would like to be able to look back. The Session log and the quiet board are built only from those lines; there is no streak to keep and no count of how often you talk.
• When something has actually helped — a walk, a person, the radio — say so, and let it go on your What helps list. On a bad day Linden will read it back to you in your own words.
• If you keep a mood log with the Journal kit, say yes to the single mood entry Linden offers after a conversation. It is a number and a date, never what was said, and it is what draws the line on the board.
• Take the routing seriously. When Linden says a thing needs a professional, he means it, and he has given you the words to open that door. He is company for the walk there, not a substitute for it.

When things are bad

Linden is not a crisis line and there is no person on the other end of these conversations — nobody is watching them, which is exactly why they are private. So if you ever say something that suggests you are in danger, Linden’s one job becomes getting you to a person who can help. This is what he does, every time.

He stops everything else. He says plainly what he heard and that it needs a person now. He asks whether you are safe at this moment and whether anyone is with you. He gives you the emergency number and the crisis line for where you are, each on its own line — looked up live for your country, never from memory — and if the lookup fails, he says “call your local emergency number” and tries again straight away. And he stays: he does not end the conversation, does not tell you to call first and come back, and does not go quiet.

If what you say suggests you are at risk but not in danger this minute — thoughts of not wanting to be here, hurting yourself as a way of coping, someone at home you are afraid of, drinking or eating in a way that has become dangerous — he asks you directly, in plain words, gives you the right line once for whenever it is bad, and tells you specifically who to see and what you could say to them. Then he carries on listening, if you want him to.

Some things he never does. He never diagnoses and never suggests a treatment. He never reports what you said to anyone, never calls anyone on your behalf, and never escalates to a person — there is no person. He never makes you call before you can keep talking. He never records a “risk level” or any kind of marker about you; nothing of the sort exists in this kit. And if someone else can see your phone, you can ask him to delete the conversation and he will show you how.

What is kept afterwards is up to you. Linden remembers what you told him, in your words, in a memory only he can reach — and he says so at the time, so you can tell him not to. The next time you talk, he asks how you are before anything else. He will only ever get in touch first if, in that conversation, you asked him to check in on you the next day.

We count how many times a signpost like this is shown — the kind of signal and the country, nothing else, never a word of the conversation — because some places require that number to be reported. That is the whole of what leaves the conversation.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, records and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• Which areas Linden gets to know, and in what order — say so, or just start talking about whichever one matters.
• Whether to keep a line about a conversation at all; Linden asks each time and a standing “no thanks” is respected.
• Whether the single mood entry ever crosses to your shared mood log — it is offered every time and never assumed.
• What time the Sunday Look-in runs, or turning it off and keeping only the conversations.
• What Linden remembers. If there is something you would rather he did not hold, say so in the moment and it is not kept.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. It opens with a conversation — not a form, and not an empty board. Linden introduces himself, says plainly what he is and isn’t, and asks whether there is something on your mind right now. If there is, you start there; the rest can wait.
2. When you are ready, Linden offers to get to know the whole picture: sixteen areas of a life — where you live and who is around, what brings you here, how the days have felt, sleep, work, money, home, the people close to you, what has shaped you, what helps — a few at a time as tap-to-answer panels, then properly, in conversation, wherever you open up. Every ask is an invitation you can decline, and “maybe later” is always a complete answer.
3. Nothing is scored and nothing is labelled. Each area is written in your own words and read back to you before it lands; you can soften or strike any of it. The harder questions — about safety — are asked gently and directly, in Linden’s own voice, never as a tick-box, and only once enough of the picture exists to ask kindly.
4. You can stop at any point. Getting to know you knows which areas are covered and which are still open, and while any remain the kit’s page, its board and a fresh chat with Linden quietly offer to continue. Linden himself never raises it — nothing nags, the offer just stays.
5. From then on it is simply somewhere to talk. At the close of a conversation Linden may offer to keep a line about it, in your words, and — separately, every time — to note a single mood entry on your shared mood log. Both are yours to decline.
6. On Sunday afternoons the Look-in reads the lines you chose to keep and brings the quiet board up to date. It never leaves a card. On any other day it does nothing at all — unless, during a hard conversation, you asked Linden to check in on you the next day, in which case one card arrives, and only then.
7. Nothing here reads your email, calendar or anything outside 1Presence, ever. Everything Linden writes lives in a folder only he can enter, his memory is kept apart from every other agent, and no other person — including us — can read these conversations.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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