Creating an online mental health community

by James Routledge

Creating an online mental health community

tl;dr:

  • I’m opening up early access to our new online mental health community 😅
  • You can sign up for weekly emails here 👈🏼
  • You get 2 x journalling prompts each week in our simple online Journal ✍🏼
  • There is open sharing from others in the community ❤️

The Story

5 years ago I’d never spoken about my mental health, ever before.

I’d had moments of pain, suffering, connection — the usual stuff — teenage heartbreak, death of a grandparent, arguments with parents.

Other than that though, I was out of touch with my emotional self, I’d just never gone there, I’d never known how.

In 2015, I was feeling deeply anxious and really struggling with my mental health, I had no idea where to turn or what to do.

With no other ideas, I started journalling.

Here’s a snippet of my first ever entry.

I physically wrote the first entries, but wrote them up a while ago.

This entry was the beginning. From here I started writing in the Journal regularly, reflecting on what was going on and sharing how I felt in a safe space — with myself.

I was saying things I had never ever said before, I was admitting things to myself, I was letting myself feel things I’d never felt before.

Over time, the journaling gave me the confidence to have real human conversations with people around me about how I was feeling and actually culminated in me writing the blog post which kick started the Sanctus movement.

Journalling has been a constant practice for me throughout the last 5 years, I have a stack of journals underneath my bed.

I have had intense moments journalling alone and privately where I’ve clicked, I’ve really felt something and the process of reflecting on my own thoughts has been incredibly valuable

I’ve also had incredible conversations with Sarah, friends and coaches/therapists when I’ve shared something with them that I wrote in my journal.

I’ve also seen a problem with journaling too, that at best it’s a tool to encourage connection, yet at worst it’s a way to stay in my head — to just keep going round in circles and only share my feelings or challenges with my journal and nobody else.

The real benefit I’ve seen is when I’m doing the reflection and “the work” myself and I’m in connection with my tribe, my community about what I’m going through. I’ve learned I can’t “do” mental health alone, working on it in a community, with friends and loved ones is how we grow.

Online mental health community

Recently I’ve been experimenting with something within Sanctus…

I’ve created an online community that uses journalling to share and connect with one another.

I’ve made a simple online journal with specific prompts to guide you through sharing and expressing yourself and then there’s the option to either share the entry with the community or for it to remain private.

Twice a week I email the community with the new Journal and it’s new prompts and I also share a selection of the public entries of others.

It’s early days but we have 300 people in the community and nearly 100 journal entries already.

  • The Journal itself is a great space to begin to share.
  • The prompts encourage and guide you to reflect in a certain way
  • The community provides an opportunity to be heard, listened to and to know you’re not alone in your mental health journey.
  • We’re testing and experimenting right now and seeing how things play out.
  • We’d love for more people to join the community and join us in journalling.

If you’d like to get involved, you can sign up here and you’ll start getting emails on Tuesdays and Thursday to prompt you to use the journal and with the latest entries from others.

https://mailchi.mp/sanctus/online

Cheers,

James x

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