December 2022 Community Update! (and New Year's Exercise)

Dear Community,

Happy New Year!

2022 is winding down and 2023 is upon us! All of us have an opportunity to start the new year fresh; a new chapter opens in our lives.

On NYE, I have dinner with my family and ask everyone to reflect on challenges and successes in the last year. Life is an up and down process where we optimize the ups and endure the downs. All of the ups and downs have the opportunity to teach us something if we are open and paying attention.
I then like to ask them to imagine the year ahead. To zoom to the end of 2023 - through a time travel machine - and look back on the year, much like they are doing now in 2022, and ask them what kind of things they think they’ll say - what challenges did they overcome in 2023? What accomplishments did they achieve in 2023?

These reflections do not have to be accurate! Life is much too uncertain to accurately predict, but they can be directionally right - meaning that you are imagining and moving in the general right direction even if the specifics are not quite right. And that is okay!

The goal is to begin to tell a story. Where was I at the beginning of 2022, where am I now, and where will I be at the end of 2023? You can do this with 3 words for each phase to start. Then, you want to connect those words with a little more color or context to see the throughline or plot line through.

If you want to try this out below, then jump in and I’ll help you think through things.

I am thankful for each of you. Thank you for being part of our community!

Best,

Glen

Heather (H)

Hello, everybirdy. Wow, a year sure does fly. I hope all and all it’s been a good one for you, and if not, we here are here to help you make 2023 a great one!

Speaking of, do you have any new years goals that you’d like help sticking to? Do you want to start the year off strong building new habits for your self-care? If so, please consider taking the Wellness Accountability Challenge. It’s easy, you can start any time, and it’s a great opportunity to connect with your peers and motivate each other.

We shouted out to our first Accountability Completionist here who successfully passed their first month, and we believe you could do it too! Try it out - there’s only gains to be had!

When you’re done reading this update, be sure to hop over to give congrats to our leaders who were featured this month in our Leadership Spotlight series: wonderfulRainbow817, Chevy81, and Gracey

We’re always looking to recognize great talent, so if you know an exemplary role model for our leadership community, please nominate them.

Laiba (Hope)
I hope the holiday season as been kind to you all! For those of you who celebrate, I hope you were able to spend some quality time with loved ones. Looking forward to welcoming the new year with everyone!

On academy front, we have been working on growth and development. The recent update has been in the Leadership Development Program. This has been under the works for a while, the academy team and I reviewed all the LDP coursework, changed, merged and updated it to better suit the needs of our trainees. You can learn more about the changes made here.

You may have also noticed that we have been focusing more on bringing fun/relaxing content to academy sub-communities, in the form of ice breakers and games to encourage trainees/interns to explore their sub-communities and engage with each other.

Lastly academy programs now have two new electives! Participating in or hosting academy sessions (academy check-in or academy orientation) counts as an elective along with the time management course being added as an elective. You can check which programs have these as electives here.

Obs
Happy Holidays! I wish you and everyone you cherish an easy and comforting holiday. I hope 2023 brings a progressive year where we flourish and thrive together.

As you all know we were working on strengthening our Adult-Teen Listener Program, it went through a series of changes and updates. You can learn more about them here. We hope that these changes will help our adult listeners join ATL Program to bring more support and upliftment for our beloved teen community.

As it is the holiday season, Listener Discussion Team, Group Support and Teen Community had organized various holiday activities. Listener Discussion Team organized Appreciation and Reflection Weeks. Group Support organized and hosted discussions on Holiday Stress and Celebrations. While, Teen Community in collaboration with Community Mod Team organized Express Through Art Event.

On the Leadership front, we onboarded 3 Chatroom Mentors: @Erica, @CompoundingHappiness and @Brightfuture82. Other than that 4 new Adult-Teen Listeners onboarded to support teen community, 4 Verifiers joined to help with Listener Verification Program and 5 Chatroom Moderators to facilitate uplifting and healthy conversations in the Member Group Chats. .

SoulfullyAButterfly
This month, we launched Season 2.5 of Huddles which has an updated structure that allows closed group support to be more flexible yet interactive. With prompts for reflection, listeners to help with deeper exploration, and a space to privately connect with others pursuing similar goals, our Self-Care and Wellness Huddles are going well - you can explore and sign up for Huddles here

The Content Volunteer Team and CDM Academy Program mentors have been working hard to continue to post weekly prompts as part of an ongoing writing series - find the latest prompt and join us in sparking creative expression. Continuing our advocacy mission, Team Lightship continues to ensure mental health awareness and support - you can explore how content and our community at 7 Cups plays a part by joining the mental health advocacy conversation here.

This year has been a great one, with some highlights including Huddles and group support avenues to build closer connections, forum updates for continued discovery and exploration of the topics that mean the most to us all, as well as tools like journaling and wellness assessments, alongside community challenges, to continue to document our personal journeys. Thank you for being part of our collective community journey - warm wishes for more unity and flourishing as we ring in the New Year, together.

EvelyneRose
December has been a busy month! We are expanding the reach of the Anonymous Evaluations project into educational resources. We will be using what we learn to further the educational topics that listeners can learn about.

CheeryMango
It’s always an exciting time to sit and reflect on everything that has happened in the year and make goals for the new year.

The community leaders hosted various holiday events in both the forums and chatrooms. The theme for this year was Frosty Fest. A big thank you to everyone who participated, through attending one of the group support sessions, hosted a discussion or wrote a forum discussion or game. Can’t wait to see what events are in store for 2023!

2022 has been a year of constant change in our subcommunities and I know that it was not easy to adjust to them. For 2023, we will be looking forward to hosting more meetings with the community about the changes so that everyone can stay updated and be well informed.

Thank you all for a great year of community and support! Here’s to what we will accomplish in the new year.