What draws me to Circle?

It has been a few weeks since I last attended Circle, and already I feel something is missing from my life.

. What is it that is missing when I’m not in Circle tells me a lot about how our society works today. I have a sense of having to put on a show, to look on the bright side, to paint a positive optimistic view of my life.

But life isn’t always positive. Right now, if I look on the news I see horror and war. If I dig any deeper then the stories that aren’t being told but I know are there, are about the fear of climate catastrophe and societal collapse. I look around me at my young adult children and other young people and I see fear for the future they are inheriting. I see friends with cancer, caring for elderly parents, and worrying over young people.

And in Circle I don’t have to ‘smarten myself up’, put on a brave face. I can speak to the grief and rage that I feel, and know that I will be heard. And in doing that I feel a huge relief. Why? Because I no longer have to pretend. And if others share the darkness they feel then I know I am not alone, but also if they share the lightness then I see hope rather than despair.

The Circle allows it all to be present. It allows me to have ‘all the feels’ and to see that we all experience all the range of human emotions all the time. Life really is like a wave - sometimes we are high, sometimes in the depths. Sometimes the waves are gentle and other times it is like a storm raging that feels endless.

But most of all, in Circle I am held, even when I hold the Circle, there is a sense that all of us hold it for each other. We sink into the support that is there when there is no pretence, no attempt to fix each other. And this is how relief feels.

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