In a country where roughly 1 in 2 people report feeling lonely, any social connection can be a lifeline. For those recovering from trauma or substance use, that contact can make a huge difference in healing. In Asheville, North Carolina, one nonprofit is proving that not everyone needs a medical license to change a life. It just takes a willingness to listen.

Leveraging social connection as medicine, SeekHealing teaches skills for communication and healthy relationships, and provides mutual support to anyone looking for healing.

“It’s about learning what it feels like to be in a conversation of two equals,” said Jenesis Nicolaisen, SeekHealing’s cofounder and executive director. “You’re not my doctor or my therapist — you’re just someone in the community who cares about me.”

How a friendship paved the way for two-way healing

Nicolaisen’s journey to founding SeekHealing began with a personal transformation rooted in recovery, which led to a realization: For them, healing didn’t come from a diagnosis, but from real human connection. A former statistician in the energy industry, Nicolaisen was a high-functioning person struggling with substance use. Their life changed when they became deeply involved in supporting a close friend battling heroin addiction.

Through their journey, Nicolaisen and their friend discovered a critical gap: While treatment options such as rehabilitation centers can be effective for initial recovery, there is often no long-term supportive community for individuals after they return to everyday life — often coming back to the same environment where their struggles began. This inspired the creation of SeekHealing in 2017, built on the belief that connection is essential for healing and that healing can be mutual.

“Through that relationship, I learned that I needed healing, too,” Nicolaisen said. “I thought I was the one offering support. Turns out, she helped save me.”

What happens when anyone can help heal?

Nicolaisen didn’t create SeekHealing to replace therapy but to complement it. Clinicians, case workers, or re-entry programs often refer participants to SeekHealing as a next step for practicing what they’ve learned in traditional settings.

“Therapists tell us, ‘I’ve worked through so much with this client, but they have nowhere to practice it,’” Nicolaisen said. “That’s where we come in.”

SeekHealing focuses on peer-to-peer connection and active listening at no cost to participants. Participants — called “seekers” — engage in conversations as equals. There are no licensed therapists, just the power of authentic relationships, human connection, and trained facilitators and participants who are willing to hold space for each other.

While SeekHealing includes aspects that are similar to 12-step programs, such as peer relationships, there are key differences. For starters, it’s not based on abstinence. “We want people to be able to talk honestly about what they’re going through,” Nicolaisen said.

The nonprofit also balances out power dynamics that can sometimes undermine traditional mental health care. “It’s a democratization of healing,” Nicolaisen said. “We’re not saying therapy isn’t important. But community care has its own power.”

The first rule of listening that changes everything

A critical difference in the SeekHealing experience is the invitation to listen rather than fix. “We ask people to only give advice or encouragement if they’ve received consent first,” Nicolaisen explained. “So often, we jump in with solutions. But what people actually need is just to be heard.”

Listening is not passive at SeekHealing. It’s a practice. The nonprofit runs training programs that teach the art of presence — what Nicolaisen called “a yoga class for conversation.” Facilitators aren’t there to lead or fix, but to create a safe space for people to connect.

That includes one-on-one pairings through a program called “seeker pairs,” where participants commit to weekly conversations with someone they likely wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Nicolaisen recalled one such pair: A woman in her 60s grieving the death of her brother from an opioid overdose, and a younger man who was previously incarcerated with a history of substance use.

Their pairing lasted more than three years.

For the woman, it became a space to process years of pain and guilt. “She was able to humanize addiction in a way she hadn’t before,” said Nicolaisen. “She realized how many judgments she had held about her brother’s choices, and through (the man), she was able to let go of some of that.”

For him, the relationship was more than healing — it was lifesaving. During a relapse, he used fentanyl. But because he had been given Narcan through SeekHealing and had open and honest communication with the woman, he survived.

For many seekers, the organization has helped them to feel seen and heard. In a 2023 report on the Asheville, Waynesville, and online SeekHealing communities, 97% of respondents said they felt seen, heard, and understood by one or more people, and 94% felt more connected by the end of the meeting than when they arrived.

For seeker Astral, SeekHealing immediately felt different from a traditional 12-step or rehab program. “The traditional models didn’t feel like a path to recovery for me, like they weren’t getting to the meat of the matter,” he explained. After attending a Connection Practice meeting, Astral felt that he was finally understanding the root cause of his substance use. 

“I think a huge part of addiction comes from not wanting to feel our shame,” Astral said. “Once I started talking about my feelings with other people in a healthy way, rather than hiding them out of shame, drugs became less appealing.” 

The science behind why listening works

Therapists are some of SeekHealing’s biggest champions, and SeekHealing even trains clinicians in its listening practices.

The turning point, Nicolaisen believes, came during the pandemic.

“After 2020, everyone had a sense of what we’d been trying to say,” they said. “People suddenly understood how important social connections are for our mental health. This isn’t just about folks struggling with fentanyl. It’s all of us.”

The SeekHealing model is also backed by science and research. The organization’s cofounder, neuroscientist Dr. Rachel Wurzman, is helping to lead a research study exploring how these deep listening practices activate parts of the brain responsible for resilience and post-traumatic growth.

Everyone has the capacity to heal

For other nonprofit leaders who see relationships as vital to serving their customers, SeekHealing poses an interesting question: How do you scale something as intimate as trust?

The answer? Thoughtful and intentional expansion.

In 2024, SeekHealing launched affinity groups focused on eight key impact areas (substance use and mental health recovery, young adults, LGBTQIA+, rural, older adults, BIPOC and Latine, unhoused, and justice system involved) to deepen its impact and better serve the needs of the community. And the organization strengthened its ability to respond to crises, such as activating support systems through its network of trained facilitators in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Whatever the context or need, participants are always both giving and receiving. And each interaction, whether one-on-one or in a group, is shaped by the belief that healing flows both ways.

“That’s the magic,” Nicolaisen said. “We don’t pretend to have all the answers. But we believe in each other’s capacity to heal.”

Could the cure be sitting next to us?

SeekHealing’s model is a part of a broader shift — a move away from the idea that mental health is too complex, too clinical, too big for communities to handle.

Instead, it offers an example of what’s possible when people are empowered to activate the capacity we all have within us to both heal and be healed.

“People don’t just need treatment,” said Nicolaisen. “They need belonging. They need each other.”

SeekHealing is supported by Stand Together Foundation, which empowers individuals to reach their full potential through community-driven change.

Learn more about Stand Together's efforts to build strong and safe communities and explore ways you can partner with us.