LIFE SUPPORT is a "universal support group" built entirely on the primary therapeutic tool of most support/recovery groups: the practice of "open sharing".
Using simple guidelines maintained by volunteer facilitators, everyone gets at least one turn to speak about their own emotions and experience with complete confidence that, no matter what, they will simply be heard, understood, and accepted (no interruptions, no advice, no judgments, no fear, anger, or moralizing, nothing but "thank you"). Speaking turns go one-by-one around a circle, though anyone can skip their turn if they wish. In a mid-size group, people usually have multiple opportunities to speak, and the circle is completed multiple times. Meetings end either when time runs out, or when two full rounds have completed in which everyone skips their turns. This simple structure creates incredible opportunities to truly "open up" that many of us simply do not have in our daily lives.
It is truly incredible how transformative and healing this practice can be--both the act of sharing, and that of simply listening to others do so--even without any additional focus on a specific subject matter (e.g., grief/depression support) or methodological framework (e.g., 12-step recovery).
LIFE SUPPORT is currently just a single meeting in Lamar, Missouri, but the format isn't trademarked or something. You could just make your own if you like the idea. It is free and open to absolutely anyone who is willing to abide by these guidelines and be respectful toward all other participants.
FULL MEETING GUIDELINES AND FACILITATOR SCRIPTS [WILL GO] HERE [WHEN WE FINISH IRONING THEM OUT]A great deal of modern neuroscientific and psychological research has found that there are very significant limits to the human ability to "self-regulate", and fully process painful emotions alone. Serious isolation or alienation from those around you is well-known to have a concrete, physiological impact that can be more destructive to a person's health and life-expectancy than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades. There is a reason that solitary confinement is used as a method of torture.
Especially when a person is dealing with a lot of painful emotions (such as when processing traumatic events, major losses/grief, long-term hardship of any sort, etc.) and/or if they weren't lucky enough to grow up in a healthy, stable environment in which their caregiver/s demonstrated effective self-regulation from a very early age, they will need to communicate their emotions and experiences to other human beings in order for their nervous system to fully process and "let it go".
However, it is obviously not possible to simply tell anyone anything and expect the result to be healing. Certain basic criteria must be met in order for sharing to be healing at all, and these conditions are rare enough already. However, to really maximize the therapeutic effect of sharing, even more specific conditions must be met--conditions which many of us in the modern world might go decades without ever encountering in our daily lives.
It is called "being vulnerable" for a reason.
If you try to open up to another human being about your own pain, and they respond to you with judgment, anger, and/or dismissal/indifference, it will make things significantly worse. If you fear a response like this before you begin, you will be unlikely to fully open up in the first place, but that hesitance is just reasonable self-preservation.
Moreover, ideally, we need more than just "not a negative response"--people need to feel they were genuinely heard, understood, and accepted, regardless of what they shared. Even responses of well-meaning advice or apologetic confusion can make your choice to "open up" feel like a bad one that only increased the distance between you and whoever you opened up to.
So you must feel safe and confident that you will be heard, understood, and accepted regardless what you share. You know you will not be interrupted, mocked, insulted, chided, feared, hated, etc. You know the person/people listening can understand the emotions and experiences you're describing, they can relate to what you're sharing, no matter how dark, terrifying, shameful, "crazy" it is.
Opportunities to share in this way can be extremely difficult to find for most of us, even when speaking to friends and family.
Moreover, the opportunities which do exist for this kind of work are generally wrapped in additional specifications and/or ideological frameworks that may, in one way or another, exclude many more people which could otherwise gain a great deal from the practice. But when those criteria are met, all that modern research I mentioned earlier has shown that just this one simple practice of opening up to other human beings in a safe environment is often THE most profoundly healing thing a human being can possibly do
.There is a concrete reason why nearly every method of healing and growth which humans have ever devised--from ancient practices of various religious/contemplative traditions, to modern recovery meetings, support groups, and one-on-one talk therapy--includes this act in some way.
A meeting like this may sound a little bizarre, awkward, or overly-simple, but it really does work. While the idea to make a new group called "Life Support" here in Lamar was my own, absolutely nothing else about it is an original creation or experiment of my own--I've done this with groups of people many times before in multiple settings.
You can come just to listen. You can come feeling intensely anxious and hating the idea of talking about what you're feeling. In my experience, even people who skip their first or second opportunity to share invariably find themselves wanting to open up after spending some time hearing several others do so; but you can absolutely skip every turn if you want to. Just listening is therapeutic in its own right.
Suffering is universal, and basically everyone is more fucked up than they let on. You aren't alone in that regard.
My name is Michael Wells. Thanks so much for reading to this point.
My parents met in a mental hospital, it was a bit rough from the start. I have struggled in various ways my entire life, from the aforementioned severe mental illness of my parents to my own terrible codependent relationships in my teens/early twenties, to periodic homelessness and brushes with violence on the streets in more recent years, and a range of drug addictions all throughout. I survived being stabbed very nearly to death last year, and I definitely wouldn't say that was the worst day of my life. I am NOT a mental health professional, I will NOT occupy any particular role of authority in the group beyond volunteer facilitation roles that others will also be free to fill. If you are interested in meditation and/or Buddhism, ask me about it!
Comments, suggestions, questions can either be left here on this page (scroll back up a bit, it may have taken a second to load), or you can reach me directly at 682-847-4239.
This is what my face currently looks like. It is only provided so that, if you come to a meeting, you don't have to try to figure out which person is the one who made the weird posters and shit:
