Sanity Circle

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"

This is a communal practice aimed at enhancing our lives and keeping us sane and well. By sane I mean sharp, by well I mean healthy.

Most of us live ordinary lives in sometimes non-ordinary circumstances. We each have our stories, traits, boons and burdens. We experience ourselves and the world. Sickness, loss, risk of war - personal and external. It may, it will feel too much, chaotic.

When it gets too much, we become less sharp. Closed. Once we withdraw and heal, our connections to the world get severed. And the interconnection within.

The aim of Sanity Circle is to put it back together. Restoring, maintaining and knowing our integrity. Tender acuteness.

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What is needed then?

• It is said, that we maintain our sanity together. Many minds working in tandem.
• Most of us - the sensitive people we are - are able to process easier when there is less input upon us. That may mean less expression in our vicinity, directed at us.
• We may need connection, comfort, kindness, even feedback. Ethical, passionate and compassionate, careful peers. Loving witnessing, listening. Help in helping ourselves.
• Radical and safe, authentic expression.
• Knowing ourselves.
• Belonging and acceptance.
• Ease and rest.

Thus

• We meet in a manner similar to holo-tropic sharing circles. We listen to each other, someone moderates the circle. There is a time limit for sharing or there is none, depending on the size of the group. We do not interrupt each other. When we want to publicly reflect on, question or add something to someone else's sharing, then we ask for permission! No is a no. Only after strictly consulting ourselves: is it for the benefit of us, or the one who shared. In the latter case we may speak, in the former case we consult in ourselves.
• The groups may be virtual or physical.
• Whoever speaks, may speak what has heart and meaning for them. Or use the time however feels best, and safe. Best to engage in expression. Bountiful silence also works.
• We feel grateful for what we have.
• Whatever we hear we accept as something temporal. Each sharing is temporal. This too shall pass. Each person is new.
• We listen with appreciation for sharing and expression.
• Whatever said or displayed in the circle is confidential.

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In a nutshell: we express, we witness, we keep clean limits.

We belong to something greater.

We share the experience of life.