Circling as practice for “just be yourself”

Posted on Dec 16, 2024 in English Essays, English Posts | 0 comments

I mentioned on Twitter that to a significant extent, Circling taught me what “just be yourself” means to such an extent that I have a consistently good time on dates because I don’t feel like I need to perform. Somebody asked me to elaborate, so here’s what I wrote in response:

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For those who don’t know, Circling is… a practice that’s infamously hard to try to describe or define. That’s because it’s structurally anti-structure and anti-expectation, which is what allows for “being yourself”.

(At least, that’s my experience. There are different schools of it; my experience is from the Circling Europe style and may not apply to others.)

Many activities have rules: “soccer is played by two teams that…”. Circling mostly does not have rules, though it does have principles.

It’s done by people coming together and sharing their experience of what’s happening.

One description is “sharing what it’s like to be you, while finding out what it’s like for others to be themselves”. In any social event, a person will be thinking and feeling many things, and only sharing some of them. Circling is an invitation to share more of one’s experience. For example, if I was at a party, I might have thoughts like

“Oh I’m glad that he said that”
“I’m a little bored by this conversation”
“I think she was annoyed by that comment”
“I have this funny anecdote but I have to wait to say it, I hope the moment doesn’t pass by”

Normally I would keep all of those to myself. But Circling is an invitation to share my experience, so I might say some of them. And it’s also an invitation for me to ask about someone else’s experience, if I e.g. say something and then wonder what they felt about it.

Important caveat: there’s no obligation to share more than what you’re comfortable with. There’s a common misunderstanding of Circling as obligatory openness. But “I don’t want to answer that” is also a sharing of your experience.

No rules = no rule saying that you have to answer.

In fact, if someone says that they are curious about my reaction to something, it’s totally fine for me to just say “okay” and then change the topic to something else that feels more interesting to me.

That said, it is also okay for the other to get annoyed by that and say it, which they might or might not. I once heard someone say that if you’ve Circled once and think that you now know what Circling is like, that’s like having seen a single movie and thinking that you now know what all movies are like.

This is because things may go completely differently in different groups.

In one group, I ignore a question and the conversation moves on.

In another, I ignore a question and someone shares that they appreciate me following my interest.

In another, someone gets annoyed at me.

Just as explicit games have rules, normal conversation has all kinds of implicit expectations.

• If someone asks me a question, I should answer.
• If it’s quiet, someone should speak up.
• If someone says they’re upset about what someone else said, someone should apologize.

Richard Ngo wrote:

Circling is a group conversation about your current experiences where you all adopt the convention that no statement is ever an implicit bid. E.g. if I say “I feel angry at you”, that usually implies all sorts of bids, like “You should apologize” and “Others should take my side”. In circling everyone agrees to interpret it merely as “I am contributing to the conversation by reporting my current experience”.

This is what makes Circling both freeing and difficult. You don’t need to say anything you don’t want to. But if there are no social conventions dictating what you _should_ say and it’s your own choice, what will you say?

This can be excruciating. A form of Circling that takes the freedom to an extreme is called Surrendered Leadership, where the facilitator imposes minimal control.

If some people want to break off from the rest of the circle and go do their own thing? They can do that.

In one SL event I was at, everyone just arrived and sat down. For several minutes, nobody said anything; there was no intro, no preamble, no nothing.

I forget what someone’s first words were, but they might have been something like “I’m feeling impatient for something to happen”

Someone may have shared their gratitude for having another express the same thing they were feeling, and things went on from there.

I tend to be sensitive to social expectations and things like turn-taking in conversation. With no rules for that, I could speak as much as I wanted, if I was okay with taking the space from others… but I also couldn’t use those rules for guidance on how much to speak, nor could I rely on those rules to make sure that others would give me the space I wanted.

That got excruciating. One part of me wanted to take up space and another wanted to regulate it, but didn’t know how.

But, it also got magical. There’s really no other word to describe it.

Something very peculiar can happen if a brain realizes that none of its normal expectations apply and it has no idea of what to expect. The mind can drop into a state of just not knowing, and simply being open to anything that arises.

With no expectation of being judged by others, there is no fear.

With no expectation of needing to say the right thing, there is no self-judgment.

With no expectation that the next moment will be dull, there is no boredom.

With no expectation that the next moment will be predictable, there is curiosity of what it will be.

It feels like an altered state. I like to imagine it as a throwback to a young child’s state of mind, where experience hasn’t yet calcified perception and everything is novel.

It’s hard to maintain. Any expectation, including “I’m going to be without expectation” will bring in structure that the mind coalesces around. Trying to explicitly maintain it brings in the expectation that it needs to be maintained.

Even in Circling, I’ve experienced it rarely.

But having experienced it, my bodymind carries a memory of the vibe involved. An echo of what it’s like to drop any self-imposed expectations and demands, to drop into a state where I can just report on my experience and share and say what feels natural.

Since then, whenever I’ve been on a date with a stranger, I’ve been able to drop back into that. With no need for the date to lead somewhere in particular. No need to present myself in a particular way. Simply relaxing into a sense of just being and enjoying their company. (And I daresay that they’ve enjoyed those dates, too.)

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At this point, for anyone who thinks that Circling sounds really scary: I’ve focused on describing the most extremely free version of it. I wouldn’t suggest starting out with that. There’s “birthday Circling” with some more structure, that’s easier to begin with.

A good Circling group will also start out with warm-up exercises that help you get into it, so you don’t need to dive into the full thing right away with no idea of what to do or how to be.

(The term “Circling” also got recently trademarked so if you want to try it, it’s also being done under other names like “relatefulness” and “transformational connection” these days.)