About Understanding Us
If you’re seeking a place to start, a way to help, a mission to support — or all three — you’re welcome here.
Rethinking Where Change Begins Together
Understanding Us is a community-led nonprofit rooted in the idea that human behavior, stability, and well-being grow from the way we interact with balance and stability in our bodies and environments. Rather than beginning with clinical labels, diagnosis, or crisis response, we begin with self regulation — steadiness that can be felt physically, emotionally, and relationally.
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By groundedness, we mean the lived experience of stability — the settled steadiness that comes when a nervous system feels safe, a body feels steady, and a person feels connected. Some find this through mindful movement; others through rhythm, shared experience, or the steady repetition of a welcoming practice. We honor that each person discovers their own expression of groundedness, because human behavior emerges from how we regulate stability in our lives.
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Everything here is free, voluntary, and self-paced — people move at their own rhythm, without pressure or expectation. Our guiding principle is simple: Engagement first. Everything else follows. We test what helps people regulate and stabilize in real environments, observe what works, and build programs that are measurable, repeatable, and rooted in lived experience. In this way, a focus on groundedness is not only our practice — it is how we design, evaluate, and grow our work.
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Rooted in Salt Lake City — refined in real community practice for over a decade.
Purpose & Reason
We exist to offer stability before crisis.
Many people navigating trauma, addiction, mental health challenges, or chronic stress are expected to change before they feel safe or grounded. We believe that approach often asks too much, too soon. Our purpose is to create consistent, welcoming spaces where regulation and trust can return first — making meaningful change possible later, at a person’s own pace.
This work responds to a simple but overlooked human need: the need to feel steady, seen, and supported before being asked to take next steps. We don’t see people as broken or deficient — we see people adapting to difficult conditions, and we design spaces that help restore balance within those conditions.
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Who This Is For
This work is for people — wherever they are, however they arrive.
It is for participants seeking grounding, connection, or a reliable place to begin again.
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It is for volunteers and community members who want to contribute with humility and care, without needing to “fix” anyone.
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It is for donors and partners who value thoughtful, ethical work that prioritizes dignity, consistency, and long-term impact.
We don’t privilege one group over another. Everyone involved is part of the same ecosystem — connected by shared responsibility, mutual respect, and a belief that meaningful progress happens in relationship.
Values, Ethos & Approach
We lead with dignity, choice, and consistency — and we keep it low-barrier.
Participation is free, voluntary, and self-paced. Leadership is shared. Trust is built through routine and care, not pressure. We avoid savior language and transactional dynamics because real progress can’t be forced.
What makes this work distinct is simple: we don’t start by trying to change people — we start by changing the conditions. Balance is physical, literal and lived: learning stability in the body (relative to gravity, motion, and bio-feedback) can support stability in mind and in life. And we stay methodical — we test ideas in real environments, observe what works, and refine without drifting from the core.