Small Group Conversations for Connection & Support (Virtual)

IMPORTANT: You have to sign up at this link to register for the event.

Somewhere along the way, “working on yourself” turned into a full-time job.

We’re told to glow up, heal faster, optimize our mornings, journal our feelings, track our habits, fix our attachment style, and still be chill about it. Growth is supposed to feel empowering, but instead it often feels like anxiety with a prettier font.

This session is for anyone who wants to grow and is tired of feeling like a personal project. For anyone whose self-care has turned into self-monitoring. For anyone who’s watched one too many “5 habits of successful people” videos and immediately felt behind.

Together, we’ll unpack how self-improvement culture, productivity guilt, and wellness trends sneak into our inner world and how ambition quietly turns into pressure, comparison, and never feeling “done.”

We’ll explore questions like:

• When does “be better” actually mean “not enough yet”?
• Why does rest feel like procrastination?
• Who decided what “your best” looks like anyway?
• How does anxiety cosplay as motivation?

This space isn’t anti-growth. It’s anti-burning-yourself-out-in-the-name-of-growth.

We’ll practice separating curiosity from self-criticism, ambition from urgency, and progress from perfection. We’ll make room for growth that doesn’t require constant optimization (and maybe even laugh a little at how ridiculous the pressure can be).

Come as you are: mid-spiral, mid-glow-up, mid-nap, or mid-existential crisis. You don’t have to fix yourself to be here. You’re already allowed in.

Who Am I?
Hi, I’m Jesse, a communications and advocacy professional passionate about building a safer, more just world. Originally from Austin and now living in Italy, I believe life is measured by the quality of our connections, and I’m excited to use this space to help people build community through openness and shared stories.

How Does it Work?
This is an open, guided discussion led by your Keeper, Jesse. Each participant will have the opportunity to listen to and share experiences on anxiety, well-being, emotions, and whatever else comes up during the session.

When and How Do We Meet?
We meet digitally every couple of weeks to make participation easy for those with demanding schedules. Cameras are optional, and you’re welcome to join from wherever you are, even between shifts. We only ask that you find a private place to join or use headphones to help maintain the security of everyone present.

IMPORTANT: You have to sign up at this link to register for the event.

It’s possible to be surrounded by people and still feel deeply alone.
This session is for those moments when you’re technically included — in relationships, communities, families, or groups — but something still feels missing. When you’re showing up, participating, doing your part, and yet not feeling fully seen, met, or connected.

We’ll explore the subtle forms of loneliness that can exist inside belonging: emotional mismatch, unspoken needs, surface-level connection, or the quiet ways we learn to edit ourselves to fit. We’ll reflect on how past experiences, expectations, and relational patterns shape our sense of closeness, and how connection can feel present but not nourishing.

Rather than searching for someone to blame (yourself or others), this session invites curiosity about what kind of connection you’re actually longing for, and what might be getting in the way of receiving it.

This session is for you if:

• You’re part of communities or relationships but still feel lonely.
• You often feel “with” people but not fully known.
• You find yourself performing, caretaking, or holding back parts of yourself.
• You wonder whether your expectations for connection are too much or not being voiced.
• You want relationships that feel emotionally alive and reciprocal.

You don’t need to leave the people you care about to belong here. You don’t need to have answers. This is a space to name the in-between and to understand loneliness without shame, and to explore what deeper belonging might look like for you now.

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m here… so why do I still feel alone?” — this space is for you.

Who Am I?
Hi, I’m Jesse, a communications and advocacy professional passionate about building a safer, more just world. Originally from Austin and now living in Italy, I believe life is measured by the quality of our connections, and I’m excited to use this space to help people build community through openness and shared stories.

How Does it Work?
This is an open, guided discussion led by your Keeper, Jesse. Each participant will have the opportunity to listen to and share experiences on belonging, identity, community, and whatever else comes up during the session.

When and How Do We Meet?
We meet digitally every two weeks to make participation easy for those with demanding schedules. Cameras are optional, and you’re welcome to join from wherever you are, even between shifts. We only ask that you find a private place to join or use headphones to help maintain the security of everyone present.

IMPORTANT: You have to sign up at this link to register for the event.

Obsessive thoughts can be loud, convincing, and exhausting — especially when they latch onto the things you care about most. This session is a space to talk openly about what it’s like to live with OCD, intrusive thoughts, mental loops, and the urge to seek certainty or reassurance.
Rather than focusing on diagnoses or “fixing” symptoms, we’ll explore the emotional experience of OCD: the fear beneath the thoughts, the pressure to neutralize discomfort, and the ways compulsions — mental or physical — become attempts to feel safe.

Together, we’ll reflect on how OCD shows up in everyday life, relationships, decision-making, and self-trust. We’ll talk about the shame that often accompanies intrusive thoughts, the exhaustion of constantly monitoring your mind, and the difference between responsibility and fear.

This session is for you if:

• You struggle with intrusive or distressing thoughts that don’t reflect your values.
• You feel stuck in mental checking, reassurance-seeking, or “what if” loops.
• You crave certainty and feel deeply unsettled when you can’t find it.
• You’ve felt misunderstood or isolated in your experience of OCD.
• You want a space to feel less alone with your mind.

You don’t need a formal diagnosis to belong here. You don’t need to share details you’re not ready to share. This is a space for honesty, relief, and recognition, a place to name what’s happening inside without judgment, and to connect with others who understand what it’s like when your mind refuses to let things rest.

How Does it Work?
This is an open, guided discussion led by your Keeper, Jesse. Each participant will have the opportunity to listen to and share experiences on anxiety, well-being, emotions, and whatever else comes up during the session.

When and How Do We Meet?
We meet digitally every couple of weeks to make participation easy for those with demanding schedules. Cameras are optional, and you’re welcome to join from wherever you are, even between shifts. We only ask that you find a private place to join or use headphones to help maintain the security of everyone present.

Who Am I?
Hi, I’m Jesse, a communications and advocacy professional passionate about building a safer, more just world. Originally from Austin and now living in Italy, I believe life is measured by the quality of our connections, and I’m excited to use this space to help people build community through openness and shared stories.

RSVPing on Meetup doesn’t reserve your spot for this session!
To join, please sign up through our site.

All sessions are free, and signing up on the site helps us create a smoother experience for everyone.

Feel free to message me with any questions or concerns!

About this Session
We don’t experience public violence, harmful policy, or systemic injustice only through the news or statistics — we experience them in our bodies.
This session explores how living in a world shaped by public violence, political decisions, and systemic harm affects our nervous systems, sense of safety, and daily lives. From mass shootings and state violence to restrictive policies and chronic exposure to threat, many of us live in a constant state of alert, even when nothing “bad” is happening in the moment.

Together, we’ll reflect on how fear, grief, anger, and hypervigilance show up in ordinary places: at the grocery store, in public transit, in relationships, and in our ability to rest or feel present. We’ll talk about how systems designed without care for human well-being ask our bodies to carry far more than they should.

This session is not about debating politics or prescribing solutions. It’s about naming what it costs to live under ongoing threat and creating space to process the emotional and physiological impact of a world that often feels unsafe by design.

This session is for you if:

• You feel tense, alert, or overwhelmed in public spaces.
• News about violence or policy changes lingers in your body long after you stop reading.
• You struggle to feel safe, even in moments of calm.
• You feel grief, anger, or exhaustion tied to systemic injustice.
• You want language for how the world is affecting you internally.

You don’t need to be an activist, policy expert, or trauma survivor to belong here. If public harm, political decisions, or systemic injustice have shaped how you move through the world, this space is for you.
This is a space to name what we’re carrying, to understand how collective conditions shape personal experience, and to remember that our nervous systems are responding to real contexts.

Who Am I?
Hi, I’m Jesse, a communications and advocacy professional passionate about building a safer, more just world. Originally from Austin and now living in Italy, I believe life is measured by the quality of our connections, and I’m excited to use this space to help people build community through openness and shared stories.

How Does it Work?
This is an open, guided discussion led by your Keeper, Jesse. Each participant will have the opportunity to listen to and share experiences on anxiety, well-being, emotions, and whatever else comes up during the session.

When and How Do We Meet?
We meet digitally every couple of weeks to make participation easy for those with demanding schedules. Cameras are optional, and you’re welcome to join from wherever you are, even between shifts. We only ask that you find a private place to join or use headphones to help maintain the security of everyone present.