PLN is a mutual support network, collectively run, for women and men who wish to pursue emotional healing in cooperation with others. All of our discussions and forums take place on our Slack space. It’s important to watch the short video What Is the Peak Living Network? before joining the PLN Slack; people who come in with misconceptions about what our organization is can end up feeling frustrated.

Please read all of the information on this page carefully before joining the PLN Slack space.

WHAT CAN YOU FIND ON THE PLN SLACK SPACE?

*   The Slack space is where to find people to split time with, including partners for co-counseling. Post a notice in the channel called “co-counseling-find-partners” specifying what kind of partner you’re looking for (co-counseling? goal work? doing the exercises from The Joyous Recovery?) and any preferences you have about the person’s background.

*   Support group openings are announced on the Slack on the channel called “support-groups.” A full list of all current groups can be found there, with contact information for the group leader. If the group you are interested in is full, send a message to the group leader asking to be added to the waiting list.

*   This channel is also the place to put a notice if you are starting your own group or already have one going and wish to recruit group members.

*   Announcement about upcoming PLN events

*   Supportive discussions on a wide variety of subjects related to emotional healing

*   Discussions about ways to build and improve our network

Please read the instructions below carefully before registering for the Slack space. PLN has no paid staff — we are an all-volunteer organization — so it’s super helpful to us when people follow the instructions below carefully.

1)  Before registering for the site, please read the PLN Principles and Agreements[LINK to that section on home page]. You are agreeing to follow those principles anytime you use the Slack space or attend a PLN gathering, whether online or in person.

2)  You need to use your real first name on the site. You’re welcome to not share a last name or a photograph, but be aware that security on our Slack site is low. Our posts are not public — they can only be read by people who have registered for the site — but we have no way to vet the people who register for the site. If you’re in current danger, be careful about how you use the PLN Slack.

3)  You can participate in the discussion on any of the “channels” on the Slack space. The channels represent discussion topics. You do not have to “join” a channel in order to read and post on that channel (see the next item below).

4)  “Joining” a channel means that you’ll receive a notification each time someone puts a new post on that channel; that’s all that “joining” a channel does. Don’t join a channel unless you want to receive those notifications.

5)  Some people join a bunch of channels, then get frustrated at how many notifications they’re receiving and end up turning notifications “off”. If you turn off your notifications, you will lose an important benefit of being on the Slack, because you’ll no longer be notified when announcements go out to the whole group. Instead, don’t “join” so many channels; you can still be a full participant in the discussions on each channel. .

6)  To learn what support groups are currently going, and which ones have openings, read the channel called “support-groups”. Contact the listed group leader to request a spot or to be added to the waiting list for that group.

7)  Any “direct message” that you send to someone else on the Slack space will be private between you and the person you’re writing to.

8)  Everybody who joins the Slack space automatically gets a notification anytime anyone posts to the “PLN-Announcements” or the “General-Discussions” channels. Consider using a different channel unless your post is something that everyone needs to see. (And be aware that there are over 200 people on the PLN Slack.)

9)  It helps tremendously if you respond to posts by using the “Reply in Thread” feature. This helps to keep each channel readable, and helps to keep people from getting flooded with notifications. Keep asking yourself, “Does everyone who uses this channel need to see what I’m writing right away?” Unless the answer is yes, use the “Reply in a Thread” feature. (Everyone can still see your response — it’s not the same as a “direct message,” which is private — but they won’t receive a notification, and your response will be separate so it doesn’t clog up the channel.)

10)  Slack won’t show you the full list of discussion channels; you’ll see only selected ones. To see the full list, click on “Add Channels” at the bottom of the list of channels (I know, you’re not trying to add a channel), and then click on “Browse Channels” and you’ll see them all.

11)  You can create a private channel where only members that you invite will be able to see what you write. This allows people to have private conversations, such as you might like to have among members of a particular class or support group, or among people that you develop connections to in the network. To create a new channel, hover over the word “Channels” at the top of the list, then click on the “+” sign that appears, then choose the “private channel” option. No one except the people you invite will even know the private channel exists; it won’t appear on other people’s.

You can create as many “private” channels as you like, but please don’t create any new “public” channels without first discussing it with us at [email protected]; we need to keep the total number of public channels low.

12)  If you run into difficulties not addressed by the information above, feel free to ask for help by writing to [email protected].

13)  We love to have men join PLN, but our organization is not appropriate for men who have histories of abusing women even if they consider themselves to be in a process of change. Although we’re not an organization related to domestic abuse — PLN is completely unrelated to Lundy’s professional work — we do have a high percentage of survivors in the organization, and we need to do everything we can to make PLN a safe atmosphere for them.

14)  You can learn more about PLN by:

  * watching the videos What is the Peak Living Network? and Peak Living Network Orientation

  * reading the PLN Principles and Agreements

  * attending a live PLN Orientation session — you can be informed of upcoming orientations by signing up for the PLN Newsletter

  *  reading Lundy’s book The Joyous Recovery, which is the basis for the Peak Living Network

15)  To register for the PLN Slack (after you’ve read all of the above information), send a request to [email protected] with your full name (we won’t share your last name), and we’ll send you the link to register.