Texters Anonymous

Part of my training in nursing school required me to attend several different types of support groups.  I attended AA meetings, grief support groups, diet support groups, and even groups designed to help those with profound psychiatric illness function in daily society.  Needless to say, any one of these groups were filled with colorful, interesting characters.  The main goal of a support group is to bring together individuals with common problem, and allow them to problem-solve with guidance, essentially making them better, stronger people.

I am part of a support group, and I love it.  It's my Paleo Buddies Texting Thread.  This was not a pre-planned thread, or a group that we created.  It evolved, and it includes eight people: four of us from the gym and four friends from football, but all are connected and know each other well.  We are also all at different places in our Paleo Evolution (sneaky how I stuck that in there, huh).  It's really pretty simple.  We text our thoughts/concerns/problems or just general smartassery during the day, and everyone chimes in with their thoughts, solutions, or when words fail, the chance to make fun of the person. It doesn't follow the therapeutic guidelines of a traditional support group, but it provides more support than a high impact sports bra.

The posts include everything from "Another hard core energy crash at 3 pm today" to "Cauliflower and olives mid day snack" to "Drink more water" followed by "pretend it's vodka."  Sometimes the thread takes a left turn and the posts get dicey,depending on how busy everyone is at their work day.  The bottom line is you know a brother or a sister has your back, in the moment you might be struggling.

Get your closest cave friends together, and start a thread.  It's your own support group, without the annoying lady that talks way too much about all of her cats named after presidents.  You will get dinner ideas, plan paleo pot-lucks, and have others to bring you out of your temper tantrum bitching state when can't get out of your own way.