“A circle of women may be the most powerful force known to humanity.
If you have one, embrace it. If you need one, seek it. If you find one, for the love of all that is good and holy, dive in. Hold on. Love it up. Get naked. Let them see you. Let them hold you. Let your reluctant tears fall. Let yourself rise fierce and love gentle.
You will be changed. The very fabric of your being will be altered.”
– Jeanette LeBlanc
To hold space for our sisters in the ancient way of circle is an honor and blessing. A women’s circle is a powerful ritual that allows us to go within and reclaim our essence, power, and purpose. Hosting a circle creates opportunities for transformation and nourishes the natural yearning for deep and authentic connection.
In the current version of this blog post I’m focusing on women’s circles, however the Guide can serve as a reference for other types of circles – men’s circles and mixed human circles – as they are all needed in the world moving forward.
If you would like to know more about the history and benefits of circles, you can read my previous blog post here.
This blog post covers the following:
Intention for these “How to Circle” Guidelines
My intention with creating this blog post is to support you in running your own circle. Many people have been approaching me with little experience or background in facilitating circle space so I sought to offer a few guidelines, tips, structure and tools, for creating your own circle with confidence. This blog is specifically for in-person circles. I will separately create a blog post on how to run your own virtual circle.
I have learned about circles from both hosting and attending many in a myriad of different places and different ways. In addition to my own experience, this post pulls on a variety of sources including Global Sisterhood, Gather the Women, The Millionth Circle and Honouring Heart. What I offer below are only suggestions. Please trust your intuition on what resonates for you and leave the rest out.
Preparing Yourself to Facilitate
It would be useful for you to consider the following when preparing yourself to facilitate and hold the space for your circle:
Role as facilitator:
The word facilitator comes from the latin word “facil” which means easy. This indicates that facilitating should tend more towards ease rather than forcing or pushing anything.
As I wrote in a previous blog on history of women’s circles, facilitation is a different form of leadership from what many are used to. Instead of giving instructions, a facilitator holds space, coordinates, and inspires others to bring out the best in themselves. Facilitation helps foster sharing, deep conversation and connection. This in turn enables participants to go through their own personal processes of learning, healing, creative emergence, and finding their own answers.
Think of other facilitators you admired in the past. What qualities did you appreciate about them? Keep these traits in mind as you also reflect on the unique style that you want to bring as facilitator.
What is your intention as a facilitator?.
Trust:
One of the most important aspects of facilitating is trust: trusting yourself, trusting your intuition, trusting your power, and trusting the inspiration that led you to this moment. As a circle facilitator, you are also open to trusting that the circle experience will unfold exactly as it is meant to with the women who are meant to be there to to learn from each other. This also means allowing for space and flexibility for in the moment magic to happen.
Visualize:
Visualization can be a powerful tool for preparing yourself mentally and emotionally before any event. You can visualize yourself facilitating the circle, feeling confident, going with the flow, and trusting whatever happens. Visualize whatever else you need to get yourself feeling comfortable and confident before facilitating.
Gather your materials:
Prepare with time everything you will need to bring to the circle (e.g. think about cushions, incense, pens, paper, tissue, items for altar, etc).
Co-Facilitation:
You may want to ask someone else to co-facilitate the circle with you. For instance this person can help you set up, welcome attendees as they arrive, keep track of time, and assist any participant that may need to step out of circle after an emotionally charged moment.
Preparing Your Circle
A few things to consider as you prepare the circle are:
Venue:
The venue for the circle can be someone’s home, outdoors in a park or garden, community space, local charity, etc. Get creative! If there are costs involved with the space, you can ask participants to contribute to the cost through a set amount or donation-based.
Intention Setting:
Think of your intention for circle. While you do this, try to keep at the fore-front the highest good for all.
Creating Sacred Space:
When women arrive into the space you have prepared for circle, you want them to immediately feel and know in their bodies they have entered a sacred space. We can enable this through a variety of ways.
Clearing the energy:
First, it is important to clear the energy of the space. I like to use different types of incense and walk around the room, visualizing that the smoke is clearing away any negative energy. You can also ask the smoke to create a layer of energetic protection and sacredness around the space.
Candles:
If inside, it is nice to dim the lights and set up some candles. Even outside it is also nice to have candles.
Altar:
Creating an altar for the center of the circle is a central (pun intended) component of setting up the space. Altars created thoughtfully can enhance the sacredness and power of the circle. It can also help ground intention for the circle and serve as a way for women to come back to the present moment, should they become distracted at any point. The beauty of the altar is that it is completely open to your creativity in how you set it up! I like to use natural elements such as flowers, stones, feathers, water and leaves, often to represent the elements and to call in the directions. Attendees can also be invited to add their own sacred objects to the altar.
Seating:
Set up cushions on the floor so everyone can see each other. Have some chairs ready in case anyone uncomfortable sitting on floor
Your Circle’s Backbone: Agreements
One of the most important components of a circle is co-creating a space that feels safe so that women can truly drop into themselves and their feelings. We do this through clear agreements and guidelines that support an open, connected, and positive environment. I offer some examples of agreements and guidelines below. Feel free to make these your own but remember to always include a mention of confidentiality.
Essential Agreements
- Confidentiality:
Anything that is shared in circle, remains in the circle. If you want to connect with a sister regarding something that was shared after the circle is over, please check in with her to make sure that is ok. - Sharing:
Please share succinctly, being conscious of time and other women who may want to share. No advice, commenting or replying after another woman shares. [It can be powerful for each woman to raise their hand to acknowledge and agree to these agreements for all to see.] - Listening:
Practice listening deeply to others with respect and curiosity rather than thinking about what you are going to say. Be curious about your own sharing and let your words arise from the present moment. - Additional co-created agreements:
Any time the circle comes together the previous agreements can be reviewed and also agreed by new members. And, is a great opportunity to ask “would anyone propose an additional agreement?”. This could be anything any circle attendee feels is needed. This is a wonderful opportunity for co-creation.
Other things you might want to use/mention:
- Talking piece:
You may want to use a talking piece. This can be any object (such as a stick or a feather) that signifies that whoever is holding it is the only person to speak at that time. The talking piece can either be passed along in the circle, or it can be picked up “popcorn style”from the center whenever anyone is ready to speak and placed back when they are done speaking.
- Emotions:
All emotions are welcome. It is natural for them to ebb and flow during a circle. Tears are just as sacred and embraced as laughter. Just remember that any uncomfortable feelings are a natural part of any transformation process. - Acknowledging:
We sometimes want to show support to a sister who is sharing or let her know that something she is saying resonates with us. In order to do this without interrupting her or the group, we can use hand gestures. For instance, we can sparkle our fingers to signal “yay” or “I agree.” We can hold our hand over our heart to acknowledge pain or to signal “I have experienced that too.”
After each share, other women can be invited to acknowledge what was shared by saying thank you or by signalling a thankyou/acknowledgement through a hand gesture such as prayer/lotus hands position in front of your chest.
Sample Circle Format
The circle has a simple format that allows it to flow.
The basic format is as follows:
- Welcome attendees into space
- Open the circle and check-ins
- Share guidelines and agreements
- Introduce intention/theme/question for this circle
- Sharing circle / activity
- Check-out and closing the circle
Let’s explore each of these in more detail:
Welcoming sisters into space:
As women begin to arrive, you can either welcome them yourself or ask your co-facilitator to have them sign in and find a place as you sit calmly, setting the tone for the group. I often invite every woman to be smudged before she sits down (please use sustainable and ideally locally-sourced options for smudging! Palo Santo for instance is endangered and should not be bought).
Opening the circle and check-ins:
The ritual of opening the circle marcates the transition from a social space to a sacred circle space. There are several ways you can open the circle including doing a guided meditating, reading a poem, breathing together, singing together, etc.
Check-ins allow for everyone’s voice to be heard, one at a time, naturally easing people into a sharing circle environment and also allowing for the focus of the group to spread among all attendees instead of only on the facilitator. Some ideas for checking in: saying name and inner weather report (using weather as a way to express how we are feeling inside); saying three things you love about yourself; sharing how felt about poem during the opening, etc.
I personally like to combine opening and check-in through a ritual called “weaving in:” one sister (usually the facilitator) starts by reaching out to hold the hand of the sister next to her (decide if going left or right around the circle), looking in her eyes, stating her name, and saying one thing (emotion or intention) that she is bringing to the circle. Then the next sister weaves in the sister sitting on the other side of her repeating the same process. You go around until you have woven every sister into a complete circle holding hands. I then like to ask everyone to close their eyes and invite them to breathe together through their hands: inhaling and squeezing hands, exhaling and relaxing hands. We repeat this three times and then I invite everyone to let go of their hands and open their eyes.
Guidelines and agreements:
At this point you can share the guidelines and agreements. This deepens the awareness that we are now in circle space, gives new attendees guidance on how to share and listen, and offers a reminder for those who have participated before. Remember to ask everyone to show they agree to these through some kind of hand signal.
Introduce intention/theme/question for this circle:
You can now introduce the intention, theme or question for this circle. I offer some suggestions for these in the next section.
Sharing circle / activity:
This is the point where the circle actually commences. I typically run circles focused on sharing and discussion. Sometimes I give a few minutes for everyone to journal/draw/meditate about their initial reflections and thoughts around the theme/question.
If there are many women in the group, you can ask sisters to get into groups of 3-5 and set a certain amount of time for sharing in these small groups. Otherwise, you can invite sisters to share based on the theme/question, using a talking stick going around the circle or just “popcorn style,” whenever anyone feel like speaking. It is important to remind attendees that sitting together in silence is also perfectly fine and actually beautiful to experience as well.
Other circles can include movement, singing, drumming, drawing, etc. Get creative and trust what feels right for the group you are hosting!
Check-out and closing:
There are several ways to know when a circle comes to a close: a) once a specific time limit is up, b) once everyone has been able to share, or c) when it naturally feels like discussion has come to an end.
Checking-out again allows for every voice to be heard and gives everyone a chance to reflect on what they just experienced. This also allows attendees to integrate and ground their experience as they transition towards leaving the space. Ideas for checking out include: share how you are feeling now; share one thing you are taking away from this circle; share one thing you are grateful for, share something you heard today that resonated for you.
I typically like to check-out and close the circle by “weaving out”: in much the same way that everyone wove in, one sister begins by holding the hand of the sister next to her, repeating her name, and sharing one thing that she is taking away from the circle. This gets repeated until everyone in the circle is connected again through holding hands. I then typically ask everyone to close their eyes, and invite them to send gratitude to themselves for taking the time to be here and gratitude to the other sisters for sharing this experience together.
Other ideas to include in closing include: guided meditation to celebrate, announce it is now over, blow out the candles, ask if anyone wants to share anything, announce your next circle, ask if anyone is interested in co-facilitating in the future, dance to get energies moving and ground back in the body, offer tea and snacks, etc.
Exploring Themes and Types of Circles
There are many ways and reasons to circle. These include:
- Preparing and sharing food
- Dancing
- Singing/chanting
- Drumming
- Sharing stories
- Celebrating rituals and ceremonies (e.g. solstices and other pagan holidays)
- Discussions around life themes such motherhood, death, etc
- Celebrating life moments (e.g giving birth)
- Intention setting such as around the new moon
- Crafting and creating art together
- Gardening
- Breath workshop
You can combine any of these as you like!
Below are some suggested themes you can incorporate into your circles:
- Playing small vs stepping into power
- Our cycles: menstruation and menopause
- Sexuality
- Forgiveness (of self, others, system)
- Dealing with death
- Shadow work
- Self-love
- Shame
- Stewarding for the Earth
- Relationships with partners
- Wounded Feminine
- Divine Feminine
- Toxic/wounded masculine
- Divine masculine
- Ancestral healing
- Inner child healing
- Intention setting for the month, year, etc
- Letting go
Final Words for this Guide
I would like to end this blog post by asking you to remember that self care is important. Becoming a facilitator and offering to hold circle space is a beautiful gift you offer to others. But it can also be energetically draining at times. Make sure you are taking care of yourself and also making space and time for you to participate in someone else’s circle for you to download and recharge yourself.
Circles are already playing a key role in our global shift towards a more compassionate, co-created, abundant future for all. I hope this guide encourages more of us to step into our power and gifts as facilitators to continue to expand this shift.
Is there anything you think would be useful to be added into this “How To Run Your Own Circle” guide?
Please leave a commend bellow or get in touch, I’d love to hear your thoughts and improve this guide based on our collaboration.
With love,
– Naima
@naimaritter