April 2020 Community Update!

Hello Community,

I hope you are all doing okay. It is perfectly normal if you find yourself struggling more than normal. This quarantine has been a sort of stress test for our entire world. It has impacted our individual and collective functioning by about 30%. On a scale of 1-10, if you normally function at a 9, then you might be more consistently functioning at a 6. If you are at a 7, then you might be at a 4 on a regular basis. The uncertainty, the news, the concerns for loved ones near and far, the financial stressors, the need to be continuously adapting – all of these are stressors that tax how we function as individuals, families, states, and countries. We are stressed a lot more than normal.

If you are going through a particularly hard time right now, then I want to take a moment to just speak directly to you. I know it is hard. I know you didnt ask for this and you dont deserve this. I know itd be good to have more space and freedom to walk around. I know the financial concerns can be crushing. I know that this may have upended your life, changed your career path, or impacted your family in painful ways.

I want you to also know that I believe in you.

We believe in you.

We are not giving up on one another and we are not giving up on you. Keep coming back, keep taking that next step. Connect with a listener, jump in a group support session, practice some therapeutic exercises. To some, these might feel like small steps that cannot really help; how can they make an impact when the world feels upside down?

As Churchill said, When you are going through hell, keep going! Or as Jung said, The only way out is through.

Keep walking forward. We are here alongside you and we will champion you and one another along the way.

It can feel overwhelming to look down what feels like a never ending road and wonder – when am I going to get through this? Dont worry about that right now. Instead, just think of taking that one next step in front of you. And then the next. Reach out here and other places to get support. Know that we are here and know that you will be stronger on the other side of this.

Ive been through more challenging times than I want to admit. Going through them is always so difficult. People have believed in me through them. They have lent me their hope, strength, and faith. It has given me the light I needed to see around that next corner and then the next one. Eventually, after what can feel like a long time, I make it to the other side.

You will also make it to the other side. We will make it to the other side through this. We will do it through lending one another our support. Like all past crises we have overcome, we will look back at this and see all the twists and turns, all the pitfalls and challenges, and we will see how each of them gave us a skill, a lesson, or an insight that made us stronger.

If you are going through a tough time right now, just know that you will get there. You will get there and we will collectively get there, but for now, lets focus on helping one another take that next step in front of us.

Im thinking of you all, especially if you are in a vulnerable spot, and Im sending you beams ✨.

Glen

H -

Here is the latest on the translations front, brought to you by our Translations Coordinator, @SoulfullyAButterfly (thank you!!!):

With the Translations Project Revival, we have had lots of volunteer translators who have shown great dedication in helping globalize 7 Cups.

Our most recent bat-call from the community saw us getting an overwhelming amount of support and interest, and we are proud to say that we are currently close to 200 contributors assigned to 44 different languages under which 7 Cups is currently being translated. Together, we are currently at almost 78,000 available translations!

We have had great progress and are very close to finishing several language translations, including but not limited to Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, Malay and Italian!

We have seen great teamwork efforts and are proud to announce that several of these teams have had members step up to be designated leaders to represent their respective language teams and help communicate team needs to help with the coordination of the project. A huge shout-out to @Shirley7Cups (representing both Chinese teams), @wonderousMoon5570 (representing the Hindi team), and @bouncyVoice4149 (representing the Spanish team) for stepping up.

Bringing well-deserved acknowledgment for our Translators, we have recently started announcing Stars of the Week, and have also had the opportunity to celebrate our latest Translation Masters!

We look forward to continuing to enjoy globalizing 7 Cups whilst celebrating our teamwork. Keep an eye out for more celebrations, proofing parties, team meetings, and fun gatherings!

We all have different inspirations, but one main goal: a better world - and we cannot wait for 7 Cups to help many more people!

Obs

Group Support

I am grateful to our Group Support Leadership Team and you all for wonderful teamwork to keep rooms moderated, safe, friendly and supportive for all. You all make a difference by providing your support.

As you might have noticed this post by Heather, we started building a team of discussion leaders to lead Sharing Circles. We are thankful for all the support, positive feedback and teamwork all showed up in the Sharing Circle sessions. If you are interested in co hosting some sessions, please read this post to apply.

We heard you and in an attempt to provide an uninterrupted space to share and support each other, we started 4 new sharing circle sessions. All sessions timing in ET zone are below-

Adults

8.00 - 9.00 AM

12.00 - 1.00 PM

4.00 - 5.00 PM

8.00 - 9.00 PM

Teens

9.00 -10.00 AM

1.00 - 2.00 PM

5.00 - 6.00 PM

9.00 - 10.00 PM

Credit for it goes to @Heather225 and @Hope. We are thankful for their leadership and guidance.

To ensure all the reports and multiple account reports you submitted in the group support rooms after muting/reporting the user get processed swiftly, we brought up "Member-Member/Listener Report Form". Please check this post to have detailed information on it.

Thank you for sharing your inputs for the Rotational Group Support Rooms Survey. We will be bringing necessary changes to the group support rooms to ensure you have supportive and compassionate experiences.

Listener chat room leadership team working to raise the listener chatroom roles monthly requirements and for the same, posted a short survey here. We are making this change to stay up -to-date with the current needs of the community. We will keep you all updated on its progress.

Laiba

14 sub-communities came together to host 7 events in the month of April. These events raised awareness towards Autism, Alcohol abuse and stress along with celebrating some important days. You can see the masterpost of these events here! We are incredibly proud of our sub-community leadership team for their tremendous work and especially thankful to @Tazzie (our sub-community ambassador) for organizing and facilitating these collaborations. The Sub-community Team has also relaunched the welcoming team to further ensure that all sub-community participants feel welcomed. In forum news, the forum Needs Reply Team has been going strong under the leadership of @lucy2. The team has been dedicating their time to ensuring that users who post in forums feel heard and supported. We are grateful for their work.

The teen community has been working together to provide engaging and supportive discussions, events, support sessions and sharing circles. Teens co-hosted a total of 70 discussions/events/sharing circles with community mods. The success of the co-host led to the launch of a sharing circle team and a discussion leaders team where teens can take the lead on the discussions they want to lead, when they want to lead. Since the launch of the sharing circle team, 8 hosts have been onboarded. On the discussion leaders front, 11 discussion leaders joined the group support team. We appreciate our teens for the time they dedicate to support each other. The Teen Self Esteem and Body Image sub-community has been merged with Teen Only Zone to provide teens one space with high quality support, @Mel and @Tazzie helped with the merge and are working with the teens to provide more engaging forum activities.

In internship news, 80 interns successfully completed their internship trial and became active interns since the last update while 125 more listeners joined the internship program and are working towards completing their internship trial. We are very grateful to our internship mentors who consistently support and guide our Interns. @pamharley003 an internship mentor, received the mentor consistency certificate for receiving the highest number of positive reviews from interns. Additionally @Nothingisforevr91 and team are working hard to provide an engaging and supportive space for our interns, in the form of our Internship sub-community. @Magicallykermit58 has been hosting forum ice-breaker sessions for interns to have some light hearted fun.

Thank you again to our amazing members, listeners, and leaders! We are very happy to be working alongside you in growing and strengthening our community!

-Community Team