Tips for Choosing Your Support Group
Tips for Choosing Your Support Group
Support groups come in all sizes and flavors, in person and
online. Whether you're looking for a divorce support group, a
cancer support group, depression, grief, or weight loss support
group, the elements for providing you with substantive and
positive emotional, mental, physical or spiritual support are
still the same. There are two kinds of support groups: positive
and negative.
Positive: A pro-active positive support group is one that
promotes learning about new medicines, new procedures, new
clinical trials, new books, CD's et al about your disorder. This
group promotes going forward, and helps facilitate your research
and personal empowerment as a blessing.
When you are introduced to the group they do not spend endless
hours recounting the disease story about why you are here. It's
a fact that does not need to be addressed again and again that
you have a disorder story. YOU live it, so why keep going over
it and over it and over it, to activate all that negative
energy? That's WHY you joined that particular group.
The positive group leader is not intimidated by your
unanswerable questions, but is inspired to become more educated
about your topic. Your leader encourages you to ask current
unanswerable questions and challenges each member to think
beyond disease limiting conditions and current horizons. They
promote all of the members to participate by delegating various
positive assignments for everyone.
If this is a local group, you take "glad to be alive, share
life" field trips that have absolutely NOTHING to do with the
disorder, and EVERYTHING about feeling good about yourself,
seeing the world, laughing and having a balanced life.
This group supports taking care of your appearance, sharing new
ideas, resources and adventures about makeup, hair, wardrobe,
personal hygiene and physical rehabilitation and exercise. This
group wants you to care about your personal appearance, so when
you look in the mirror and are seen by friends, you look alive,
and as healthy and refined as possible for your condition. They
discourage maintaining a "sick" image.
Negative: It should be a great concern to be in a group that
does nothing but recount what was and all that is unhealthy and
unhappily going on in the life of it's participants. Inevitably
this will negatively impact participant's minds and spirits.
This is often seen in online Internet groups. Research tends to
support that recounting your horror story and reading the
countless venting of others, does not support a positive
attitude that promotes physical healing and healthy emotional
and mental responses.
This group meets only to go over and over and over your tale of
diagnosis and personal devastation, from your introduction
"story" to your tale of weekly woes. This is a disorder "victim"
group. It is commiseration of negative energy at the highest
level of disguise.
No matter how much you think that this group is helping you,
they are not. They exist to talk about and share negative
experiences creating a "stuck" atmosphere. It's bonding by
perpetual "downers."
You do not receive points on the other side for being a victim
of your diagnosis, disease, or plight. You are in fact,
contributing to your own demise. Acceptance is one thing, denial
another. Being a victim assists your problem in draining your
own life force energy. Having a problem and addressing it with
the "pity poor me" approach is futile. It may elicit help for a
while, but the keyword here is for a while. Give up the pity
party. Fight! Instead, use that time researching how to restore
and regenerate your life.
Do not use the fact that you are having a terrible reaction to
something in your treatment as making you special or as your
identity. I have seen many cancer clients who wanted attention,
and used the negative occurrences in their illness as a banner
to set them apart. This is not productive. It frustrates your
healthcare provider. They are aware of the psychological reasons
you are using your negative reaction for attention.
Understanding that this is a confusing and complicated time in
your life, try to take your identity from your positive approach
to life. Therefore, when you healthcare provider does not
emphasize or respond to your negative identity crisis, it's a
good sign. Their job is to assist your health, not enable you.
Grieving is an area that takes a little more time. HOWEVER,
positive attitudes are essential here also. Although you have
lost a loved one, living with a dead memory can kill off your
life force energy day to day and breath by breath. I personally
understand this as my fiance was killed in a sudden auto crash.
I never had the chance to say ANYTHING! However, it's better to
celebrate their life and remember all the good. Then you keep
all the "positive" alive which is contributory to your healing.
By celebrating their life, you never have to bury their
memories. You can take them out at any time, like a special gift
and savor all the wonderful thoughts and feelings.
Weight loss is just that. It takes times. However, while
waiting, you can focus on the light at the end of the scale,
instead of the chocolate bars and emotional traumas creating
your health issue. You CAN tell a health story that presents
your "learning opportunity" as a learning opportunity to help
heal the others in your group, rather than a commiseration band
aid.
If your group is not continually teaching you new and
progressive things, and supporting your positive emotional,
mental, spiritual and physical and appearance growth, leave. If
your group doesn't embrace having an open mind and awareness
without censorship other than that of your personal intuition,
leave!
UNTIL you take your knowledge gained from any group and turn it
into a positive learning opportunity that you do something
about! you are not going forward. Unless you choose to grow
forward, you will remain in the same condition that brought you
into the group in the first place.
Research continues to affirm that being a part of a positive
support can add quality and quantity to your life. Although the
intent of most support groups is to be contributory in helping
it's members, a negative group can ultimately do more harm than
good.
CONTACT INFORMATION: Brent Atwater
Atlanta, GA 1.404.242.9022 USA
NC Office: 1.910.692.5206 USA
email: Brent@BrentAtwater.com
Web site: http://www.brentatwater.com