May 2024 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope you all are well!

My daughter just came home from freshman year (my son comes home later this week). A long time ago we talked about people as circles. People that are supportive can be drawn as larger circles and drawn closer to you as the center circle. People that are harmful, can have their circles shrunk so that they are smaller and they can be drawn further away. This is just a simple way to become aware of the way that other people impact you and to understand that we are in charge of how big and how close all the circles (people) are to us in our lives.

In the pic below, the horizontally lined bigger circles are people that are closer to me. The ones with the tic tac toe designs (both horizontal and vertical) are moderately close to me. The smaller circles with no lines are the people further away that I choose to interact with less frequently.

Separately, I was having another conversation about 7 Cups with a psychologist. He was saying how he provides therapy for his clients, but cannot be their friends. And that often it is hard for people to find new friendships. People struggle to join a bowling club, hiking or running club etc. In short, it is just hard to make inroads and build new relationships.

As he was talking, I shared how we help people by providing emotional support AND we provide a thriving and compassionate community. We are a place where people can go to get mental health support and make friends. That is something beautiful about what we do here.

Thank you all for being big circles in my life! And thanks for being big circles for one another! 

H
May is here, and with it comes one of our most important awareness months on 7 Cups: Mental Health Awareness Month! Throughout May, we'll shine a light on the importance of mental well-being, breaking down barriers, and building bridges by fostering open conversations promoting empathy and understanding.

We'd really love your help! Read about what we're looking for here. You don't need to be in a role; you only need to bring your lovely self and a passion for helping others. Please consider volunteering so we can make this year extra special!

It’s always a special treat when I get to highlight the greatness on our teen side, and in this month's Spotlight I had the pleasure of showcasing the work of teen leader @ReganL! Swing by after this update to give congrats.

We're always looking for the next champion to recognize — you can nominate our next star via this form!

One last thing — are you a newbie learning how to get around the platform and unsure where to go for help? I got you covered in our brand new Q&A thread dedicated to guiding you along your journey! Replies are given within 72 hours by myself or other community members. If you’re ever in doubt, I’m a PM away: @Heather225

Laiba

We have a new teen-exclusive group session series, Mindful Minutes! Mindful Minutes is the new teen side session series replacing Mindful Mondays and Fantastic Fridays. The goal of these sessions is to teach participants valuable emotional regulation skills and help in managing emotions. Thank you to @Kenzolena for helping with the planning, launch and maintenance of this new group series. 

Additionally,  Spark of the week is being maintained where light-hearted and inspiring quotes from teens are featured and everyone can join the reflection, it will be wrapped up in week 6. Lastly, the thought of the week was launched. Thought of the week is more discipline-focused and long-term initiative with the goal to help people reflect on 1-2 quotes every week. 

Obs
A huge shout-out to all of you. Thank you everyone for your presence and compassionate support to uplift each other in the group support chats. Some of the key updates of this month are: 

• Stress Awareness Event: Thank you everyone for participating and supporting in a one-week stress awareness event. It was great to hear and explore our thoughts and struggles related to stress.

• Launched Chatroom Leadership Buddy program: Finally we did it! With the help and suggestions of everyone and special thanks to our chatroom team for working hard to make this suggestion actualize.  

• Also, I appreciate all listeners, and leaders joining us in the Mission listener group chats revival. It was great to see everyone coming together to keep the group chat active to ensure proper support and guidance to all listeners and as well as get to know each other. 

• 35+ group chat is 24/7  now: If you are 35 or 35+, we have an exciting update for you. We have a dedicated and exclusive group chat of 35+ that is now available 24/7. Let’s come together to share, discuss our challenges, and emotions and support each other. 

Upcoming event: Looking ahead, we are excited to host Mental Health Awareness Month in May. It will be a great opportunity for all of us to come together and spread awareness, discuss mental health significance, and combat the stigmas related to mental health and tips & strategies to take care of our well-being. We look forward to seeing you there. 

SoulfullyAButterfly
This month we continued to nurture our latest new group chat for the adult side called “Daily Reflections”. During the month of April, the  monthly theme for this new chat space was “Nurturing Inner Strengths”. We discussed self-compassion, emotional resilience, mindfulness in daily life and the importance of connections and community.

Additionally the daily prompt activity was posted in our forums under the Community Challenges Community. 

If you missed out on the Daily Reflections during April, you can find the prompts listed here.

We look forward to celebrating May, Mental Health Awareness Month across the community with aligned themes for reflection, discussion and support.

Evelyne

The Anonymous Evaluations Team has started a new pilot to help ensure adequate support for listeners emotional wellbeing. 

ST has put out a new discussion thanks to @Auwolf! They also have a new PA that will be starting shortly. 

Care Team has been super busy with continuing to support our fellow Listeners! The number of requests that our team has taken has jumped almost 21% from February to April! @SnowTabby has become Care Team's newest Mentor Leader and we are so lucky to have them supporting the team! We have had so many great events thanks to @SnowTabby and @ChillingRain! Please keep an eye out for more events in the near future 🙂 @MindfulJourney22 is Care Team's newest Guide and we are excited to see all they are going to accomplish! ❤️ We are excited to see all the Listeners we support this month!

CheeryMango
And just like that another month has flown by. May is going to be an action packed month for the communities with one of the highlights being the Mental Health Awareness. Sign up for those who are interested in posting forum posts throughout the month can be done here or contact myself or tommy for more information. We welcomed some new and great leaders to our communities for the month of April. Join us here in congratulating our recently onboarded leaders. 

We are currently looking for new additions to join our Communities Leadership Team as Project Agents. There are currently four focuses available for you to choose from: Events, Engagement, Community Building and Leadership. The application form and full details of what we are looking for can be found here. 

A friendly reminder for all forum supporters, community mentors and community mentor leaders are asked to fill out the Subcommunity Leadership Check-In Form for the month of April so we can keep updated on what’s going on in your team and roles and see how we can offer our assistance. 

Lastly, if you notice or experience any difficulties while using the forums, please help us to track and report any bugs in this thread. A gentle reminder when reporting bugs or issues, please give as much detail like time and location as to where it was experienced and include screenshots or any error codes so we can properly investigate it. Thank you for your continued support and here’s to what the new month brings!