loading...
Skip to content

Join Project Thrive

Project Thrive IS BACK!

After hosting our first 12 Project Thrive Zoom sessions from February to August in 2021, the Chicago Wolves and the #SameHere Global Mental Health Movement are back with six new one-hour sessions for 2022!

All sessions take place on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Chicago time (see dates below). Each session is led by an expert in integrative health, which is a holistic, patient-focused approach to health care and wellness. The purpose of these sessions remains the same: to discuss mental health, awareness and wellness in a judgement-free forum designed for easy learning – where we all come away with a better understanding how to manage our mental well-being.

Topics (and dates) for these six sessions are:

  1. Breathwork & Meditation with Dr. Samuel Lee (Feb. 3)
  2. Grief: How It Affects Us And How To Process It with Dr. Timothy Hayes (Feb. 17)
  3. Loneliness, Connection and Belonging with Erica Cuni, The Burnout Professor (March 24)
  4. How To Reacquaint With The Best Version Of Yourself with Dr. Michael Gruttadauria (April 21)
  5. The Addicted Brain with Dr. Barry Reiman (May 19)
  6. Fear and Safety: Why It’s Not All In Your Head with Dr. Nesrin Abu Ata (June 9)

In the days to come, we will add descriptions for each session as well as links and instructions to sign up.

What is Project Thrive?

The Chicago Wolves always strive to be the best community partner to our neighbors and fans. Together with #SameHere Global Mental Health Movement founder Eric Kussin and the #SameHere Alliance of athletes and practitioners, the Wolves created Project Thrive last year to change the conversation about mental well-being in the greater Chicago area.

While surveys claim 1 in 5 people deal with “mental health issues” at any given time, we believe life’s journey and its inevitable challenges make mental health a “5-in-5” concept that exists on a continuum for everyone. We use Project Thrive to emphasize that everyone should be supported and encouraged to discuss mental wellness freely.

Project Thrive is meant to open dialogue, not diagnose. Neither the Chicago Wolves nor their affiliates provide clinical or medical care of any kind via their relationship with the #SameHere Global Mental Health Movement. At no time should a visitor/follower have an expectation of care or professional services being available or rendered.

What is THE #SameHere GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT?

The #SameHere movement was founded by 15-year professional sports executive Eric Kussin, who initially started the “We’re All A Little ‘Crazy'” foundation. The movement brings together athletes, celebrities and expert practitioners to help remove the stigma surrounding mental health.

The #SameHere global mental health movement is determined to spread this message: EVERYONE in the world is affected by life’s inevitable traumas and stresses. We can’t escape them, as they are part of the human experience, and they impact us on many levels. Mental health exists on a continuum (see above) for each person, though some experience more severe declines than others over varying periods of time in their lives (and some people are more genetically predisposed to such declines).

Because of this, the movement’s view is that we should all be open and accepting of those who need help — because we’re one community in this “crazy” world, all fighting our own unique, but often similar, battles. For more information about Eric and the #SameHere Global Mental Health Movement, visit www.samehereglobal.org.

The members of the movement — many of whom are professional athletes and celebrities — are determined to use their individual brands, but collective platforms, and their consistent #SameHere message about mental health on a continuum, to open up the world to this concept and make it socially acceptable among friends, family, and co-workers to talk freely about our mental health concerns and battles, and to applaud those who share those concerns and ask for help. #SameHere shares its message with schools and colleges, first responders, military and veteran organizations and businesses around the world.

Join us in the 5-in-5 #SameHere Social Media Challenge

We need your help to spread the word, raise awareness, make a difference and thrive. By participating you’ll be showing others mental health and wellness is “Same Here!” and 5-in-5. Please consider printing out the downloadable 5-in-5 #SameHere Challenge sign in this section. You can type in the boxes before you print the sign, or write in the boxes after you print the sign, but be sure to fill out what your current Challenge is as it relates to your mental health and then fill out how you Thrive in a way that helps your mental health. For examples, please refer to the video posted above.

Once your sign is completed/printed, take a picture of yourself holding it and post the photo to your social media channel(s). Tag three people in your post asking them to participate. Send us your picture using the form below to be added to our #SameHere Social Media virtual wall.

Use the hashtags #WolvesProjectThrive #SameHereChallenge and tag @samehere_global in your post.

Download the 5-in-5 #SameHere Challenge sign: PDF | Word Doc

5in5 #SameHere Challenge Submission

  • Accepted file types: jpg, jpeg, Max. file size: 5 MB.
    Please upload your photo as a .jpg file with a max file size of 5MB.

PREVIOUS PROJECT THRIVE ZOOM SESSION #SAMEHERE MOVEMENT EXPERTS

Eric Kussin
Founder, We Are All A Little Crazy and the #SameHere Movement

Eric is a 19-year professional sports executive who got his start at the NBA League office. After five years with the League, he went the team business route and rose in the ranks with the WNBA’s expansion Chicago Sky & the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. He then switched to the NHL and led large staffs with the New Jersey Devils & Florida Panthers. However, a debilitating mental health crisis stopped Kussin’s career and life in its tracks for over two-and-a-half years. After many failed treatment modalities, he was lucky enough to learn healing practices that enabled him to dig out of his abyss, and ultimately thrive. He found a higher calling in “We’re All a Little Crazy” and #SameHere, the Global Mental Health Alliance. The Alliance is comprised of athletes and celebrities, along with media members, expert practitioners, advocates, and everyday heroes who’ve come together to make talking about mental health a common topic for “5 out of 5” of us. In less than three years, the Alliance’s #SameHere Movement and its customized programs have swept across American college campuses from Cornell to USC, corporate offices from CNBC to JP Morgan Chase, professional sports teams from the Los Angeles Clippers to the New York Mets, front line workers from the Department of Defense to the NYPD and have helped K-12 students across the country as well.
View Profile
  • WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE DON’T KNOW – Chukky Okobi – View Profile
  • BREATHING: WHY WE MAY BE DOING IT WRONG – Dr. Sarah Schmidhofer – View Profile
  • CAUSE & EFFECTS: STRESS, YOUR BRAIN & YOUR BODY – Judith E. Pentz, MD – View Profile
  • PERFORMANCE, PRODUCTIVITY, AND MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE – Dr. Carolyn Coker-Ross,MD, MPH, CEDS – View Profile
  • WHAT IS SECONDARY & VICARIOUS TRAUMA AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT US? – Nesrin Abu Ata, MD – View Profile
  • NAVIGATING THE YOUNG MIND – Matt Dewar, Ed.D. – View Profile

*Project Thrive Zoom sessions require pre-registration as space is limited. In order to participate, if you do not already have a Zoom account, you will need to download the free app. Links for the specific sessions will be sent out prior to each session.

PARTICIPATING PARTNERS

Download the Maryville #SameHere Challenge sign: PDF

For more information on the 5in5 #SameHere Challenge or Project Thrive please use the form below.

Project Thrive Information Request Form

Project Thrive Book Club

Our Project Thrive Zooms cover a lot of ground on mental wellness, but sometimes we just want to learn more in a different fashion. Our solution? We’re creating the PT Book Club!

Unlike other book clubs where everyone must read the same book at the same time, we want to encourage everyone to explore and discover the topics that intrigue them most. When you join the PT Book Club, simply select a book off the downloadable list of recommended reads from #SameHere Psych and Celebrity Alliance members, Wolves staff and fellow Thrivers, and give it a read. Then fill out the brief registration form to participate in a monthly Zoom conversation about the books Thrivers have read that month. We’ll reach out to you once we receive your submission.

Our recommended reads list is a work in progress – continually growing- and we want PT Book Club participants to feel free to share their favorites, too. If you’d like to recommend any non-fiction books about mental health – awareness and wellness, mindfulness, gratitude, self-awareness or any other topic we’ve covered or will be covering – be sure to add it in the Suggested Reads section of the registration form.

Want to organize a PT Book Club? Reach out to Leslie at [email protected]

PT Book Club Recommended Reads List

Project Thrive Book Club Registration