Aware FAQ

You are the world-leading expert on YOU. We encourage you to listen to yourself at every step of the process. You get to decide how much you want to share at any given moment. This is not a competition, rather train yourself in self-compassion and follow your needs. We also want to encourage you to share to a point where you challenge yourself somewhat – gently pushing the borders of your comfort zone while still staying safe and being gentle with yourself.

We encourage you to listen to yourself. Here are some quick tips for when you feel overwhelmed in a session:

• If you want to stay in a session, but need some space, say something like “This feels a bit too intense for me right now. I choose to stay here and just listen for a while.”
• You decide your pace at all times. So if a session gets too intense, feel free to temporarily distract yourself or think of something else for a while as a way to self-regulate.
• You can always leave the session, and you don’t need to explain why.
• Try one of the meditations in the Safety Toolkit (link).
• Reach out to somebody you trust and ask for support.

Creating a respectful and nurturing session can be challenging at times. If you join open sessions, the host is responsible for creating a safe and trusting environment, but it is also the participants responsibility to contribute to that safety and trust. If you want to raise a concern with the host, email hello@29k.org. You can also write a comment in the feedback note right after a session should you feel like it.

In sessions with people you know, see if you can find the right moment to voice your concerns and speak openly about them. A constructive way to do this is by starting with ’I’. For example, “I am not feeling fully comfortable right now… It might have something to do with … and I wonder if someone else can relate to this?”

Suicidal thoughts are common, even though we seldom talk about it. The most important advice is to talk to someone about it, outside of this app. Tell someone you can trust, call a helpline or seek professional help. You can find a list of crisis helplines here.

• Seek help from primary healthcare if you have recurring suicidal thoughts or experience difficulties managing day-to-day life. Your primary healthcare provider will be able to advise you on the available treatment and further support.
• Most countries have crisis helplines, follow this link for phone numbers to helplines in some of our most-used countries.
• Seek help immediately at a psychiatric emergency unit or call an emergency number (e.g. 112 in Europe, 911 in US) if you feel your situation is unbearable or you have serious thoughts or plans about ending your life.
• There might be people around you who want to be of help. Tell a friend how you feel and be specific that you need help. For instance, you can ask someone to be with you, when seeking professional help or meeting a mental health professional.

Feeling low and depressed is common and happens to everyone sometimes. Doing inner work can evoke a lot of emotions and feeling low might be one of them. When you slow down your pace in life or actively work on overcoming past hurts, unfulfilled dreams and expectations are likely to resurface. This is a normal part of the healing process. However if you feel low over a longer period of time, it could be a sign of depression and you could benefit from getting professional help. The majority of people having a depression get better after a few weeks of treatment.

Feeling low, worrying or experiencing anxiety are natural reactions to difficult circumstances in life. For example if you’ve lost your job, experienced financial hardship, lost someone you love or struggled in one or more of your key relationships, it is natural to be affected for a period of time. Grief, anger and feeling low are a part of life and are neither dangerous nor an illness. While these emotions can feel challenging, they usually pass over time, maybe with support from those who are close to you.

The definition of depression includes feeling persistently low, not enjoying usual activities and lacking in energy for most of the time for more than 2 weeks. This may be difficult to spot at first as the line between feeling low and depressed is not always clear cut.

Symptoms of depression include:

• Feeling unhappy and hopeless
• Loss of interest in things you normally enjoy
• Trouble concentrating and making decisions
• Insomnia or oversleeping
• Fatigue
• Overeating or loss of appetite
• Irritability

Depression is an illness and we cannot simply talk ourselves out of it. In general, a single episode of depression passes over time, usually in around six months. These months can be very hard, and it might help to know that most people fully recover from such an episode. Support and treatment can make a depression easier to tackle and shorten the recovery period.

If you have experienced the symptoms above for most of the time for more than two weeks, you might consider seeking professional help. Getting in touch with your primary healthcare provider is a good first step, even if you have been depressed before.

Always seek help from your health provider if you have suicidal thoughts that keep recurring over time, or experience difficulties managing day to day life.

Powerful emotions make us anxious, scared and uncomfortable. It’s natural for us to want to flee them. But our emotions can’t harm us. Even the most intense emotions come and go in wav es. If you’re up for it you can try the Accepting thoughts and feelings (link) meditation: You can also find additional support and in the Safety Toolkit (link).

Working with ourselves can evoke a lot of emotions and feeling anxious or worried might be one of them. Anxiety is a strong worry or fear, usually with a number of physical symptoms. These include fast or irregular heartbeat, dizziness, dry mouth, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, feeling sick and sleeping difficulties. It can be uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous.

Here are some quick tips for when you feel anxious or overwhelmed in a session:

• If you want to stay in a session, but need some space, say something like “This feels a bit too intense for me right now. I choose to stay here and just listen for a while.”
• You decide your pace at all times. So if a session gets too intense, feel free to temporarily distract yourself or think of something else for a while as a way to self-regulate.
• Take a pause and come back later. You decide.
• You can always leave the session, and you don’t need to explain why.
• Try one of the meditations in the Safety Toolkit (link).
• Reach out to somebody you trust and ask for support.

If anxiety starts to impact your life and make you avoid things you actually want to do, consider seeking professional help. Contact your primary healthcare provider to find out about available treatments and support.