“I have a lot to offer in the right circumstances, to the right people. Heart Support is just like a waiting room full of people.”
Everyone needs a boost sometimes in life. That can take the form of being encouraged by someone who really gets you — and it can also take the form of being the one doing the encouraging.
Support Calls perfectly pairs the two.
Through this one year program, HeartSupport trains Supporters to provide a listening ear to a Peer through weekly calls. This community-led mental health support system is totally free. Supporters, in turn, are part of a community of other Supporters who they can turn to for connection and conversation.
The result isn’t intended to replace therapy, but it can be an essential complement to other kinds of care, and it’s also available to people for whom professional help might feel out of reach. It has evidence behind it too: participants are proven to have an increased ability to regulate their own emotions and make decisions grounded in a sense of self.
All of that is only possible because people like Brianne step up.
“It felt very serendipitous for me because I was looking for something that I could do with the talents that I have, and Heart Support really presented that,” Brianne shares. “When someone around me expresses that they aren't feeling very good about themselves, my natural response is to try to encourage, support, and lift them up.”
That’s what led Brianne to apply to be a volunteer Supporter through the program.
“It is one of the best ways for me to come out of a slump: to be able to offer something to somebody else, just a word of kindness or a moment of connection, just to be able to share in that deeply human element,” she says.
Brianne has learned this about herself through her own personal struggles and the process of being open about them. Support Calls have been the latest way she’s able to witness that openness truly help someone else.
“I was a very anxious and depressed teenager going into young adulthood, dealing with a lot of strange things I couldn't wrap my head around, like panic attacks every night for a year or two,” Brienne explains. “I met a girl in high school who had been dealing with mental health issues since she was eight or nine. It was old hat for her, so she talked about it like it was nothing. That was the first time anybody I knew had ever mentioned these things as if they were normal. That was so formative for me, because I immediately thought, ‘Okay, I'm going to talk about it too. I'm going to talk about it to everyone.’ You never know when somebody else is dealing with something.”
The content of Support Calls is kept strictly confidential, but Brianne can and does share about the real progress she saw in the Peer she was matched with and spent a year getting to know.
“It is always just really nice to watch somebody become more fully themselves. That is what I'm always watching for, just to see somebody take up the space they inhabit and start to align with who they really are,” she says.
The safety and structure that Support Calls provide were designed to do exactly that.
Right now, Support Calls needs more volunteers to step in and show the world what they have to offer — just like Brienne did. In a world where so many people are hurting, there is so much to be gained through simply showing up for each other.
Brianne says it with clarity and beauty after having lived it:
“Human connection is everything; it is what we do everything for. You don't have to know the person to connect with them, and you don't have to show up any specific way. Genuine human connection is beautiful, it's worth it, and you should reach for it.”
If you want to volunteer as a Supporter, get started by hitting the button below!
