Thank you to Annamária Erdei for sharing her reflections on the mental benefits of regular meaningful conversations in circle.
The mental benefits of regular meaningful conversations in circle
Since 2010 I have been co-hosting with various friends a circle conversation with no pre-defined agenda on Thursday mornings. This regular conversation has provided me with so many gifts over the years – I would like to share some of them here and to make some “propaganda” to regular meaningful conversations in circle. I don’t want to spend time right now with the methodology – it is described extensively in the book of Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin – I would like to concentrate on sharing some of the benefits of such regular conversations.
These circle conversations are mindful, slow conversations, working with emergence – which is to say that the conversation creates itself from participants’ answer to the check-in question: “How are you arriving to the circle conversation this morning?”.
Participating in this conversation regularly develops a sort of meta-position: we will be able to watch ourselves as we are doing things: talking, thinking, creating, behaving and we will be able to do this in parallel: doing something and watching (observing) ourselves while we are doing it. We also develop a capacity to observe our internal processes, thoughts and emotions. What is happening in meditation, it is very similar to this: for this I consider these conversations a sort of meditative practice. With these conversations we get to meta-position – to use a metaphor, it is like getting over the fog or the clouds (of all the noise around and inside us) to the place of the ever-shining sun (= meta-position); a position from where we can observe ourselves as we live our lives. The regular practice of these conversations is an awareness- raising practice. It is like awakening from a dream, or like suddenly getting back our eyesight after having been blind: with regular, long-term practice we start to see what is driving us in life, what is important in life.
The conversations provide a forum of exchange of thoughts and inspirations. By their mere existence (presence) and listening, participants provide each other a kind of mirror. When we are being deeply listened to, thoughts and emotions are being manifested in our mouth, through words. They then connect us to our very essence, to our internal wisdom.
Some participants prepare themselves mentally for the weekly conversation: they are checking in with themselves regularly and they also check what they choose to share out of the many things that happen in one’s life and mind. Like this the conversations give a rhythm to one’s life; there is a before, a during and an after; after the conversations, they are often vibrating long in one’s mind (providing to some of us the seed of a creative process) and before the conversations the preparative process takes place, as described above.
These conversations contribute to participants’ mental health by providing a safe place where they and their life can be witnessed; where they can be acknowledged as a person, in their integrity and wholeness including all kinds of emotions and spirituality; in full and deep respect, slowness, in security and trust. This invites authenticity, openness, vulnerability and care. These conversations are a kind of refuge in the rushed craze of everyday modern life. Participants hold them as a cherished gem. They provide the experience of radical, unconditional acceptance, which has a healing effect.
Annamária Erdei is an idealist; a surfer, space-holder and creator of possibilities; midwife of the soul who believes that the world can be changed for the better by meaningful conversations that connect ourselves to our own personal and collective internal wisdom and to each other. She completes her call to host those conversations by sharing her thoughts and poems regarding hosting and life practices and about connection to wholeness in oneself, in everything and in everyone in her blog.
She has been a practitioner of The Circle Way and other participative forms of getting together over the past 12 years. She hosts regular weekly circles and Pro Action Cafés online and on-site in Brussels, besides hosting meaningful conversations in different formats inside the European Commission. Her lineages include the Art of Hosting, The Circle Way and she is also a trained personal development coach. Wholeness, respect, listening, emergence, gratitude and depth with simplicity, lightness and playfulness are keywords in her work. Her holistic way of existence makes her interested in combining different approaches in order to cross-fertilize and complete each other. She believes that the secret of sustainable change for the better lies in the power of regular practice in slowness, simplicity and silence. In her view we are all disguised magicians.