Go upstream of the decision you keep circling.
Upstream is a thinking partner for the thing you’ve been putting off. It helps you see what you’re avoiding, holds two truths at once instead of flattening them, and remembers the pattern — so you’re not starting from scratch every time.
Not therapy. Not advice. A way of thinking, with you.
Most decisions don’t stall for lack of information. They stall because there’s something you’d rather not look at — and usually a good reason you’re not looking.
- You’ve made this exact call before, in a different costume.
- You can argue both sides so well that you never pick one.
- Everyone’s advice is right, and none of it moves you.
The framework
Both things are true.
Upstream is built on Dual Accountability, from Demetrius Wright’s LANDMINES: What Happened to Me. Two opposing truths can be true at the same time, at full weight. Not 50/50 — both 100%.
Most stuck decisions are stuck because one of the two got dropped.
Your pain is real and valid
andyou are not powerless in the present
What happened to you explains the pattern
andit doesn’t excuse continuing it
You deserve compassion for how you got here
andyou’re the only one who can change what happens next
It makes complete sense why you did that
andit’s not working for you anymore
Upstream won’t resolve that tension for you. Naming both and letting both stand is the work — and it won’t flatten real harm into false balance to get there.
Read the frameworkHow it works
Say it. Sit with it. Carry it forward.
- Step 01
Start with what’s actually on your mind
No form, no intake questionnaire, no mood slider. Share what you’re wrestling with — a decision, a relationship, a pattern you keep repeating — and Upstream asks about the part you steered around. You set how direct it’s allowed to be, and the default is gentle.
ScreenshotA conversation in progresspublic/shots/chat-midconversation.pngDirectness is yours to set — gentle mostly listens, direct names the avoidance plainly. - Step 02
Move with a clear blueprint
Upstream writes back what you named: the thread you were pulling, a small step or two if there’s one worth taking, and the pattern underneath it. If there honestly isn’t a pattern, it says nothing rather than inventing one.
ScreenshotThe wrap-up note at the end of a conversationpublic/shots/wrapup-card.pngSteps are phrased as invitations, never as assignments. - Step 03
It’s still there next time
What you named comes back on your dashboard, as a question rather than a nag: How did it go? Done. Let it go. Nothing gets held over you, and anything can be let go.
ScreenshotThe dashboard, carrying forward an open steppublic/shots/carry-forward.pngEvery commitment has an exit. That’s a product decision, not an oversight.
What it remembers
It remembers like a friend, not like a file.
What Upstream carries forward is a hypothesis, not a dossier. It doesn’t recite your history back at you, and when it has you wrong — which happens — you say so and it updates. That distinction is written into the prompt itself, not bolted on afterward.
You can see everything it holds, and let go of any of it, whenever you want.
Who it’s for
For anyone standing at a fork.
A call at work you keep re-deciding
Take the job, have the conversation, let the thing go. You know the options. You keep re-running them.
The same fight, in the same relationship
Different night, same script. Upstream is more interested in the script than in who was right.
A pattern you recognise from your own childhood
Where it was first installed, who modelled it, and what it protected you from — if and when you want to go there.
A habit you can explain perfectly and still can’t stop
Understanding a pattern and interrupting it are two different jobs. This is the second one.
Coming home
Release is a hundred decisions a week, most of them watched, most of them consequential. It’s the highest-stakes version of this same work.
Coming home
Where the line is
What Upstream isn’t.
Not therapy
No diagnosis, no treatment, no clinical language, no session notes. If what you need is a therapist, Upstream will not pretend to be one — and it’s a good idea to have both.
Not advice
It won’t tell you what to do, and it gives no medical, legal or financial advice. It asks the question you’ve been steering around, and the decision stays yours.
Not a crisis service
If you say you’re thinking about hurting yourself, Upstream doesn’t counsel you. It stops and hands you real numbers. The model is never allowed to improvise that moment — that’s deliberate.
If you’re in crisis right now, here’s who to call. You don’t need an account to see that page.
Where it comes from
“Your pain is real and valid — and you are not powerless in the present.”
The framework underneath Upstream wasn’t invented for an app. It was written by someone who had to work out how to hold what was done to him and what he did next in the same hand, and who has since spent years putting it into words other people can use.
The story behind itPricing
Start free. Stay free, if that’s enough.
Free
No card, ever, unless you choose to.
- Five conversations a month
- The full framework — nothing is held back
- Wrap-up notes and carry-forward
- Crisis resources
Pro
$12/mo
For when five isn’t enough.
- Unlimited conversations
- Everything in Free
- Cancel from your account, any time
Give a month, get a month
Share your invite link and whoever uses it starts with a month of Pro. When they actually show up and have their first conversation, you get one too.
Start with the thing you’ve been putting off.
One honest conversation. You can stop whenever you want, and nothing you say is used to sell you anything.