Can Awakening Happen Through Reationship with Guy Sengstock

Can awakening happen through relationship, or only in solitude? In this conversation, Guy Sengstock, founder of the Circling® Institute, makes the case for the former. For almost thirty years he's built a practice around real, unmanaged contact between two people, and he traces what happens when someone stops performing and actually lets themselves be met.

We talk about wonder as the root of his work, what it means to listen to someone's deepest humanity rather than just wait for your turn, and a line that stayed with me after we stopped recording: I find being a self a strange thing to be. Guy also shares the idea that you could sit with another person for a thousand years and still not get to the bottom of who they are. 

Guy shares the main principles of Circling®  and invites you to try it out through his website.

This episode marks three years of Awakening Now, and I want to thank you for being part of that, for listening, sharing, and writing in with what's landed for you.

If you've done real inward work and find yourself wondering whether it holds up under contact with another person, this conversation is for you.

About the Guest
Guy Sengstock is the founder of the Circling® Institute, a relational practice rooted in wonder, authentic presence, and deep listening that has been running for nearly 30 years. He teaches people how to meet each other and themselves with more honesty, curiosity, and genuine contact.

🔗 Self-study courses: https://circlinginstitute.com/self-study-programs/
🔗 Live courses: https://circlinginstitute.com/programs/
📧 Contact Guy directly: guysengstock@gmail.com

Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Transcript

Ilona 0:04

Welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

I feel very welcomed. Welcome to you, my friend.

Ilona 0:10

Sweet. And today I'm talking to Kai Sangstock. And you probably know about circling. In being in a spiritual circles, circling comes up time to time. I hear my clients or people I know, they sometimes talk about these groups that have been really helpful in their experience. So it's such an honor and joy to be meeting with you today, the founder and the creator of this spectacular miraculous practice.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

That's amazing to hear.

Ilona 0:54

Oh, I don't know about Mauritius. I live here, but I I work with people on online. Like the world. Yes. Yeah. And I hear about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it's very good to talk with you too.

Ilona 1:11

Sweet. So to start with, I ask everyone, every guest, this one question, and I'm very curious what you're gonna say. Um, this podcast is uh called Awakening Now, and it's primarily for people who are seekers looking to awaken, already going through some experience. And um what is your definition of awakening?

SPEAKER_04 1:37

Oh, that's a great question. Well, right now it's it's drinking it's drinking coffee. It's it's earlier in the morning on my side of the world. Awakening. You know, it's interesting. I would say it's it's something that isn't a discovery. Like it's a in some senses it's a recovery. It's it's something like it's something like catching sight of it's almost like awakening is is catching sight of what happens before before you do. It's and I would say like the not awakening is is some version of looking for it, right? Not catching that it's like right behind your eyes. I wrote a poem one time which was I think it starts off with something like that. Something like, is that you, God? Is that you God? Is that you God sitting just behind my eyes as I look for you, walking in circles? So there's a sense of awakening, it's more like a a recalling, a remembering, or realizing, if you will. Um it's closer, it's closer, it's it's like it's coming in contact with the thing that's closer to you than yourself.

Ilona 3:25

Oh, thank you. That's quite original.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Oh, wow. Not bad for like not even through my first cup of coffee.

Ilona 3:36

My mind hasn't woken up enough to but but I hear what you're saying, yes. It's recognition, it's yeah, remembering.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Yeah, it's like here it's here. It's here. It's already, it's like there's something good that because that's one of the things about I've I've noticed about insight realization is it's it's never ever a like the thing, it's never like a a a discovery out like beyond the horizon. It's it's it's always this oh yeah, oh yeah. It's like a it's uh there you remember the movie The Sixth Cents with with uh Bruce Willis. You know, he's you know, he's dead the whole movie, but he doesn't know it. Um the whole movie theater doesn't know it. But my my my ex-wife at the time, of course, she she always knows that stuff. She knew it, but everyone else didn't know it. And you know, he's going through the movie and he saw something's kind of strange about the movie. You can't quite put your your finger on it, and then right at the end of the movie, like out of the corner of his eye or something, a penny falls or something like that, and all of a sudden he it it dawns on him, right? He oh he's like, oh my god, he and he starts to get, I'm dead, and then everyone else starts to get he's dead, whoa, and then and then like it's like a minute later, it goes back. The movie goes back to the original opening scene of the movie, and you go scene by scene, fast paced through the whole movie, and it was obvious the whole time. And it's like it's like awakening something is something like that. It's it's it's it's a realization, it's you definitely it's a learning, but it's a learning that you had you had not seen what was closer to you than yourself. And so it's something it's a it's a it's a learning that you already belong to and already have belonged to. And that and then similar to to to the insight portion of awakening, just like in that movie, when that happens, you you actually get a whole new past, right? Like, and because you see, because you know, as you as you run through like as it ran through the that that whole movie, you realize it was obvious the whole time, but like you didn't remember that it that wasn't your past before, right? It was it in some sense you it it transforms your whole realization of what is and what was yeah in that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ilona 6:43

Um maybe you want to share a little bit about how did that happen to you on your experience?

SPEAKER_03 6:52

Yeah.

Ilona 6:54

I mean maybe the best moments.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

I would say well you know, I'd say the th the the thing that opened everything up for me or what kind of got everything started. I I grew up in Chicago. Um I mean both my parents were I had a pretty like rough upbringing. Both my parents were were alcoholics and drug addicts and amazing people, but you know, really suffered from their their addictions and it's really, really crazy. And but I had an amazing grandfather, um, who just kind of took me under his wing, right? Growing up when I was a kid. So he was like the one safe place in the universe, and he was an extraordinary man. He um he had an an intense sense of wonder about him, right? He traveled the world like he was, you know, he was the first person to ever film a tiger fight in the Amazon in the 1930s or something like that. He collected everything. Um, he was very playful, and I'd spent a lot of time over there. And and he's he somehow really transmitted, I think, to me that sense of wonder. Um that you know, I I had all kinds of learning disabilities, um, and uh had a hard time learning how to read in school, so it really struggled. And I, you know, the teachers would send me home with like very strict things to do, and and he would pick me up from school and he would take the you know, the pad of paper with and he just threw it on the floor and he's like, What do you want to do? And he would just like set up what uh wherever my interest went, right? He just would and and and so I think in some sense he really fostered something in me that ended up being essentially the thing that kind of created my whole life, right? For all you know, for all intents of purposes. And it's and and the thing about wonder, which is what I think is sits at the at the bottom of circling, right? Like I think I I think to to circle, right, which is a relational practice, um, I I realize it's kind of like what distinguishes circling from a lot of other things that may look a lot like like circling, like certain type types of psychotherapy and encounter groups and all that kind of stuff, is is really that w one of the primary um like virtues, if you want to call it that, or places that you come from, and what if what what grants circling, what makes it what it is, is is a sense of wonder. And love that yeah, yeah. And that that really got nurtured for me when I was a kid with my with my grandfather. And so if when you think about wonderment, you know, it it's interesting because wonder wonder is is distinct. We can make maybe distinguish wonder as distinct from something like like on one side there's awe, right? Or astonishment, and maybe on the other side is is is curiosity. And and you could say curiosity is um is a little bit more like hunger, right? So when you're when you're curious for something, something strikes your curiosity. We all know this, like you know, doom scrolling on the on the on the on the web. We see some some molecule that's gonna, you know, some vitamin that's gonna like you know knock 10 years off our lives, and we go, what is this thing? And then you know, eight hours later, and you finally kind of once but once just like hunger, right? Once you eat, right, you're no longer hunger, you know, you you get filled. Um and then the on the other side, awe. Awe is really where the world does most of the work, right? It's when the sunset is so incredible, it literally shatters your mind, right? It's like when the world or the event or whatever it is is so amazing, right? That your the cat your current categories of conception, right, cannot hold it and your mind shatters. Wonder, however, is that moment where the thing that's most familiar opens a little door opens up that had been there the whole time to a space where you realize there's more to the eye than you had realized. Right? It's kind of like a oftentimes like it a common experience of wonder people have is like, you know, with with say like a parent, you know, you've you grew up with your mother, you saw your mother every day, she was your mom, like all growing up, right? And um of course you knew she was a human being, obviously, right? And then you go off to college or something like that, and then you come home for summer and you're sitting at the table having the same conversation that you've had with her for you know 20 years or something, and all of a sudden she says something in a certain way, and you're like, Whoa, you're you're a person. You're you're like a a person. You know, in the in that moment, it's kind of like in that moment, you you recognize this this core thing where you that you hadn't recognized, that had been sitting in plain sight, where a little dimension opens up, right? And uh, and and uh uh something gets revealed that's all that that calls to you, calls you to it, right? It's got this dimension of it reveals the inexhaustibility of the world, right? That had been the had been had been there the whole time, right? And I would say that for me, like the awakenings in my life have been those kinds of things, right? It's been those kinds of things, right? And I would say that that in encircling one of the things that we really practice, right, is to really inquire, like what is it that we're looking at in relationship, right? What are we really looking? What are we before when we we're before another, right? Another human being. Like, you know, we've all of us have, you know, we were born out of human beings, we've been with human beings our whole lives, right? Um, in in all their flavors and forms and all the good and bad experiences. But like it, we often take it for granted that you're just there, but we don't want don't ask the question, what what are we before when we were before a person? And the thing about that that I've come to just really savor and realize with people, which I think is often an awakening, can be an awakening over and over again, is that it's it's something like this. It's like you and I can sit here for a thousand years, right? And we could say everything to each other, right? We could say every experience that we ever had, we could say describe every moment that we're having together, we could say all of it for a thousand years, and at the end of that thousand years, we still will will have not gotten to the bottom of each other. Like there is something about a person, right, that um I think Levinas talks about it, the the face is that overflows of itself, right? It's like there's something that hits us about the other's face that is preconceptual, right? That that that we cannot we can't, I can't ever reduce you or summarize you or say something final about you. You're a source of inexhaustibility. And right, and and and when and when you really encounter that and you experience that with other people, you actually get a you get something not just about that person, but you get something about the universe, right? You get you get you catch sight of the the nature of being. And I find that I find that over and over again, that like just that insight is inexhaustible, right? Of seeing that over and over and over again.

Ilona 16:29

And you've been doing that for I read about 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Something like that. I think it's hit, yeah. I think it's heading up 30 years. Yes.

Ilona 16:38

Wow, amazing.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Yeah, it is really amazing. I'm very fortunate.

Ilona 16:44

I just remembered that when I was um in Mexico in 2016, we had a little retreat, and there was this shaman girl, and she was offering something like you sit in a in a circle with people, and somebody shares something, and the other one is supposed to say or say, hearing this, I feel blah blah blah. And the other one comes and says, Hearing this, I feel. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Yeah, that's that sounds like one of the practices. Yeah.

Ilona 17:21

Ah, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

That sounds like one of the practices.

Ilona 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Yeah. So so it's circling, like what we do at the circling institute is is you know, circling itself is really, really open, right? It's it's really, there's not a whole lot of there's guiding principles, but there's not, there's not like a thing to say or a particular thing that to do. However, one of the things that we do to train people, right, and facilitating circling is we we take aspects of of circling and we break it down into smaller practices. And that would be that would be one of them. And and and sometimes what they look like are usually things like, you know, where you sit across from each other, you sit in the group and you have a particular sentence in them that you say over and over and over again. Right. And what in and what and why we do that is is that it's like anything, any skill building exercise, right, always always involves some constraint, right? You know, you you limit the range of of what of what you can do. So it forces you to work a muscle that you may not normally work. So you can't really use your ace in the back pocket that you're good at. You have to, you know, honey on this capacity. Um and so we'll take things like that where we'll just where all you can say is just talk about what you're feeling, right? With the statement statement, I'm feeling, or we'll say something like, being with you, I'm noticing, right? And focusing on like the lane, like like the language of self-disclosure, right? The language of of we call it uh uh speaking sovereignly, right? Which is speaking in language that isn't isn't making claims on what's so, but is just simply revealing what is for for us, which is very rare. It's very, very rare for people to actually um use language that way. Because a lot of times, I think most of the time we're we're using language to try to control, right? Like I'm saying what I'm saying or not saying what I'm not saying in the way that I'm not saying it or the way that I'm saying it so that I can ensure some outcome, right?

Ilona 19:45

Um correct, because there are a lot of programs running that require to read the situation and perform. Yes, for the safety or trying to control what it what various reasons, but it's like meeting a mask and having a conversation with a mask instead of something that is behind it.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

Absolutely, yeah. I and I would say like the the the strongest uh attempt to control you know when we speak, um really has to do with a lot of times we're trying to control others' perceptions of ourselves, right? So I'm I'll like oftentimes will people please, right? So that you can, you know, think fondly of me or need me or think a certain way about me or see me in a certain light, right? Whereas like when you speak authentically, or is like we we like to call it at the Circling Institute, speaking so sharing sovereignly, it's really interesting. It's it's like when you really share the truth of your own experience, you really don't know what's gonna happen next.

SPEAKER_08 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

It's kind of like you think about it, like most people can get it when you say, you know, when you those moments where you say, okay, I'm gonna be really honest here, right? You know, just imagining that, like you're you know, you feel this energy kind of come come up, right? And that that that nervousness or that aliveness that comes, right? Right, right when you're knowingly gonna say the truth, right, about what's so for you, knows something about that, right? Because it knows that when you get done with that sentence, you know you're now in a world that you don't know what's gonna happen next. But what's really cool about that, right, is that because it's true and it's honest, right? Like How w whatever happens next will be based on something real versus when I'm subtly manipulating or I'm subtly trying to control, right? The world I'm in isn't as real.

Ilona 22:19

Yeah, I hear you. It's very interesting to meet you because you have developed this practice that is between people and um spiritual seekers or people who are looking for awakening. Their job is to go in into themselves and it's truly to be done by yourself. Yes, it can be done with a facilitator and um somebody holding the hand and guiding and stuff, but it's really an inner job, it's going in the structure and seeing what's going on and recognizing the illusions of what of the identities and stuff like that. So uh it's very interesting for me because you develop this practice between human to human. My practice that I guide is going in and having these same conversations with the structures like whatever energies come up. Yeah, it can be the most common would be in a child, right? It's not like you can sit with your five-year-old version on you here and have a conversation, but it's going in and having the same exactly the same thing, being honest, being kind, um passionate, and just recognizing what's going on there and yeah, with the wonder and seeing what happens.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yeah, yeah.

Ilona 23:58

It's like the the people to people, human-to-human dimension, and the inner dimension, it works the same, really.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, you get you.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

I just heard you talk about your relationship with yourself, right? I think it's this I do, I think it's the same thing, right? Because it's it is I find being a self is a strange thing to be.

Ilona 24:33

How how are you the self?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Because usually we think about yeah, it's kind of like we usually think about you know, because it's me.

SPEAKER_04 24:42

So I'm just here, right? I'm uh obviously like because you know, if I break the law, I'm the one that goes to jail. I'm responsible for it. I'm the source of myself, right? Somehow. Yeah, if you really look at your experience, it it I am that which I'm undergoing, right? Like I kind of find out who I am moment by moment, right? And it we we know that because it's kind of like we don't make good slaves of ourselves. I can't just tell myself go to the gym three times a week and myself just goes, okay, like okay, master.

Ilona 25:16

I I except, except when there is the it's not like a motivational, but more like punishing yourself because a lot of people have that problem, you know. Don't go there, don't do that right.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Totally, yeah. Yeah, that works.

Ilona 25:31

Yeah, that's a very good slave. Yes, yes, when this becomes the master telling what's wrong with you, yeah, something becomes a slave, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Yeah, totally, totally, yeah, absolutely.

Ilona 25:48

But you can't say go to the gym three times a week.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Yes, yes, but it's that that intimacy that I think that I heard you you you talk about, right? It's like really coming into relationship with yourself, right, is to really encounter what's so, right, in an in a in an intimate way, right? In an allowing way, right? To kind of, for example, to contact, you know, kind of tender feelings that may be there, right? And to relate to, you know, to relate to the inner child, right, with the kind of a tenderness that's appropriate to that, right, is to, you know, is to really be in relationship with what's so, right, in a way that's appropriate and intimate, right, with its suchness. And to me, that's always a relation, right? That's always a mode, a way of coming into contact. And of course, when two things come deeply into relationship with each other, it's it's it's um there's there's an exchange that happens there that ends up kind of creating something that's bigger than the sum of the two parts, right? And and that that's kind that's what I would call wholeness, right? Because you can't really like you know, the whole there's you know, everything, you know, is gathered together, right, to be the thing that it is, right? But what makes it all those parts a whole thing, you can't find the whole in any of the parts, right? The whole is this kind of almost this third thing that that um is greater than the sum of the parts, yeah. And so the way that we relate, right? When you and I come into contact with each other, right? Like oftentimes, you know, things can be revealed, we can be surprised at what what what we discover we can access, right? And our relationship can reveal, you know, knowings and understandings, right? That that neither the neither of us knew on our own.

Ilona 28:12

That's it's nice to have uh another human in front of you during the presence.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, I would say, you know, I have a I have a 23-year-old and I have a I have a a four-year-old. And so I've gone through like raising a human. I'm in my second round, and I was present to this the first time, but I'm really present to to it um with my son Teague, uh, who's four now. And you know, it's interesting because if we ask ourselves, how does a little human infant, right, probably I think the human, I can't think of anything more vulnerable and dependent than a human baby, right? How does a human baby become a person, right? Well, first of all, he comes out of another person. That's strange, right? Like he was literally, you know, was conceived inside another person, right? And then he's like born out of this person. Well, he heague is becoming who he is in and through other people, right? So, you know, he's he's getting there, he's not quite there, but you know, when his his little brain is developed enough where it's able to reflect on himself and he'll be able to say I, right? We could say that the moment he does that, what he actually touches to refer to him as himself will be a complete donation from all the relationships in his life, right, with his mother, with his father. And it's really true. It's kind of like, you know, we think all oftentimes of our of ourselves as like singular, singular, autonomous entities, right? But that's not actually the way it is. It's like we become people in and through other people. Um, and everything from like relationship is so core. It's like from the very beginning, it's like how far the baby's face is from the mother, right? Like how much distance there is, the the sensory motor back and forth of of the speaking, right, as they learn how to speak, right? The responding to him in the way that we respond to him, right? And how he responds back, and then we respond back. And there's so much going on in that and that intersubjective coordinated thing, right? That has everything to do with him at one point. He's gonna say, I'm me. But that's total rel that's totally relationship. That's total relationship, right? All the way down. And you know, and psychology definitely knows that because it's when those things mess up, right? We end up in therapy for 20 years, right? It's the it's the you know, we get we we we become psychologically compromised, we become wounded, right? And oftentimes that all happens in the breakdowns of those relationships, right? And oftentimes when we wake up, right, it's it's we're with teachers and we're we have experiences with people that can enlighten us, right? It's this um, and I think we I think that process of of becoming a person definitely happens in early childhood, but I think it's something that's supposed to be happening through our whole lives, right? And I and I think that circling really hones in on that element of that people-making element, right? Becoming a person, a genuine human being in and through other people, right? In and through our relationships. That's essentially, I think, what we discovered, right, when we discovered circling, right? Was was like because we because cause circling was something that I'll put it like this it's like it had it started in the late 90s, and um no one was like, hey, let's start a thing.

SPEAKER_05 32:37

It was nothing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

It wasn't like that. We just started to have um this consistent experience together. And oftentimes it would oftentimes it would be like working through a conflict or something between two people in our our group of friends. But we started to have these moments, right, where like we would get really real and and oftentimes it would maybe start out of a conflict, but then it would drop to a deeper level, right? A level where we'd start to get really vulnerable and reveal things about ourselves, right? And then a space would open up, our hearts would open up, and then like bigger realizations about who each other were, who I was, like what I have gone through. And then it would open up into things about about existence itself, about being, right? And we'd have these like these these cascades of insights that that would that we would share. And that kept happening. And finally, like me, Jerry and I um in particular started to notice we're like, what is this thing that keeps happening? Right? What is this? And then we started looking at it and we started paying attention to it. And out of that, right, we started to recognize a pattern that what was was being revealed and started to hone in on it and and do it on purpose.

Ilona 34:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

And that's that's what circling is.

Ilona 34:14

She's crying.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Yes. Speaking of relationship, speaking of relationships.

Ilona 34:54

Um, I want to ask you, would you say that one of the things that makes circling work is learning a different attitude towards what's what's presenting itself? Is it about attitude?

SPEAKER_04 35:13

Yeah. I I would put it it's like it's more about come from, right? It's um you you could definitely call it an attitude. There's definitely adopting certain attitudes, but I would say more precisely, it's about coming from a particular intent.

SPEAKER_08 35:33

Right? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

Yeah. So there's in all of our in at the Circle Institute, in the beginning of all our events, we we named like three guiding principles that that we all kind of agreed to. I can kind of go over one of those and kind of give you a sense of this quickly. What the first one the first one basically has to do with something that we're actually doing all the time. We don't necessarily distinguish it or recognize it, but has to do with how we hold people, how we hold them in our hearts, how we hold people in our speech, especially in our in our thoughts, right? And so the the agreement has to do with really um being mindful of that we're always when we're before somebody, right? We always say, you know, we behold you in a certain sense. And that beholding is always happening. There's the way I'm out I behold the person, the clerk, right, at the at the at the bank, right? I there's a way I hold her in my mind, in my speech, in my attitude, right? And we say that the the the principle is that we we um hold each other in respect of their of their of their dignity and their their innate privacy, right? So it has to do with right, on one level it has to do with confidentiality, right? So that that that we don't talk about whatever happens in the circle, we don't reveal the things that people disclose about themselves. So on one level, there's a practical end of that, like so it creates a safe container. But the deeper sense of that is is that there's the principle in which whenever I'm in a relationship with you, there's a way I'm holding you. And and one of the ways that we hold each other is in speech, right?

Ilona 37:30

Like for example, one second again, please. Sorry, the cat wants to come in again and screaming now.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

No problem.

SPEAKER_05 38:14

Yeah, some I'm a cat flap.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

So there's the there's a sense of this beholding someone, right? Is a as a principal. Um it was funny because a good really good example of this. Um there's a there's a movie or there's a series out right now. Uh I think it's see it's in season five called The Chosen. Have you heard of that? It's basically it's it's basically the it it's the story of Jesus. Um it's really well done. Um I I I'm not I'm not Christian or particularly religious. Uh so I I didn't know what to expect in watching it, but it's really gripping. And you know, you know, it's basically like it's it's as if if you were just put up like the intent was just to put a movie camera on following Jesus along at that time, and they do a pretty good job of it. Like you kind of get a sense of like, yeah, this is probably what it was like. This is probably probably what he looked like and the way it looked and all that stuff. And as I was watching it with my wife, I kept going like he star it it keeps feeling like to me, like he's just walking around circling people. Cool. And it is funny because I didn't exactly know what I meant by that because it it, you know, he didn't use circling language, right? Like or anything like that. But I'm like, what it what what's he doing? Like, what is this thing that I keep picking up on? And there was this the the thing I realized is is that I I finally got it because there was a scene there was a scene in the movie where this person just hated him, right? And so he's like basically telling Jesus how much he hates him and wishes that he was dead and all this kind of stuff. And and and Jesus like dealt with the fact that you know he was dealing with the person that hated him, he was not not responsive to this, but he never ever he he you could tell in his in every part of his being that he never stopped relating to him as a person, right? That was like this through this unbreakable through line for him, right? Where he was like, you could tell that like he he saw him, right and and there was the deeds that he was doing, right? But then there was who he was, there was a way that he beheld him, even as this person was being atrocious to towards him. He never lost contact with it that he was with a thou, right? That's it's kind of like that amplifies a certain way we uh we can because we can easily lose sight of that with people, right? If they piss us off, right, if they're they're mean to, you know, whatever we can we can just turn them to as as as Boober would say, they they can become an it. But but he like Jesus in this in this scene exemplified this place from which he was coming from in a mode of relation and a connection where he never stopped being a person to him, right? So that that would be that's a like that's a come from, right? And that's I would say one of the primary come from that we do in circling. And it it was funny. I was like, okay, that's what it was. That's that's what he's doing. He is circling in a certain sense, you know.

Ilona 41:55

Um what are the other two two principles?

SPEAKER_04 41:59

The other two, the other two have to do with the the second one has to do with um the intention that we come from when we relate, right? And it's especially when we share and when we speak, when we communicate, right? So the first thing to get about that is that one is that whenever we talk, it's always a function of an intention, right? So it's like it it's it's hard to imagine me uttering any words without without it presupposing some intent I have to make this utterance, right? And one of the the the the things and we we mentioned this earlier, but the conscious intention, right, as a principle that we're practicing and circling is that when we share, we share coming from the intention to genuinely relate. Right. And and and what that means is is is well what that doesn't mean is is is is coming from the intention to control, like what we were talking about before. So that really like like leads into the world of of sovereignly speaking, you know, and oftentimes people you know will be familiar with this when we use kind of like I statements, right? Where you know, talking about how I feel, what I'm experiencing, what I'm thinking to myself, right, what I'm perceiving. It's this quality of realizing that that that there's very few things that are unarguable in the universe, but one of them, right, is my own experience.

Ilona 43:41

Like but they can argue about that.

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Yeah, totally. I mean, I if I say, yeah, I feel sad, you can't really say no, you don't, you you're happy. I mean, you can, but it's uh it's there's no validity to it. So it's really like you could say speaking sovereignty sovereignly. Is really owning our own experience, which presupposes an in-touchness with ourselves, right? Really, really knowing what's mine, right? Like, like most of my feelings are really based on the way I'm seeing things, right? We can own our perspective, we can own our judgments, we can own our emotions, we can own what we especially what we want, being honest with ourselves about what our wants is, what we care about. And then sharing that as a way of disclosing it. And and you could say that that that sharing that, why we call that with the intention to relate, because what that does is it opens up kind of a field, right? Or a space that implicitly invites you to do the same. That's the second one, right? Like speaking, speaking with the language of self-disclosure, being sovereign. And the third one is is the other side of language, which has to do with listening. Which in my view, this is this is where like the like the awakening part of circling is really is been is been in this principle. Is that we talk about is like when we listen, what we want to do is is is is listen with the intent to listen to the other's deepest humanity. Right. So it's a different kind of it's a different kind of listening. Because it was in no normally when people think about listening, which usually people don't think much about listening, right? But to the extent that we do, um we usually think about it as just staying quiet until the other person's gets done talking so we can say our thing. Right. Um, we usually think about it as just a passive thing. It's like having an empty head and then you fill it with words, and right. And once once you say all your words, right, I'll have listened to you. Um but what's really interesting is oftentimes we actually, when we're listening, we don't notice that we're actually not listening, right? Uh oftentimes what we call listening is is is kind of is kind of um affirming our own categories of what we already know. Right? Like so there's a deeper kind of listening though, where you can kind of listen to another with your whole being, right? Heidegger, Heidegger once said that he I love this line. He's he once said, um, you know, perhaps it's a good idea that we begin to hear something other than what we already think.

SPEAKER_07 46:52

I like that.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

And it's funny because it's like our mind, you know, our minds, the mind loves its categories, right? It loves its categories, right? So it can it can take the most amazing thing and like reduce it to to what I already understand. But to really behold another, right, is to really have a certain kind of humility, right? Because it's not just listening to the other others' words, but it's listening to who's saying it, right? To recognizing that there's there are things that you have seen, there are things that you understand, there are things that you have felt, right, that I will have I I I never will in my entire life. And you can just having that kind of humility when you're listening to another person allows you to actually open up, right? Open up to what is beyond what you already understand, right? To really, really get the other person is to in some sense attune to that source of inexhaustibility in them, right? You can really begin to hear these things. And and we know this because we, you know, in our relationships, you know, you'll have a person that's like kind of talking about how they're sad about this relationship that ended, and we've been hearing about that for six months, right? And you know, the repeated story, and then all of a sudden you realize oh, you're not just sad, you're grieving. Like you can start, you can hear a deeper level. And it's funny because when you hear those things, right, you simultaneously hear this is what's interesting about the experience of genuine listening, is usually it's like in the moment of of hearing you, really hearing you, I also hear that I hadn't been hearing you this whole time, right? There's this recognition that I I wasn't really seeing you, I wasn't really listening to you. So listening is oftentimes this is hearing that I hadn't heard you. And so there's there's that there's something deeply humbling about listening that I have found to be incredibly transforming, right? And and and and disclosing of myself, right? Because oftentimes listening is is you know, listening doesn't start until you get that you don't listen. The moment you get that you hear that you don't listen, you you you start you listen, you listen to your own listening is the moment listening itself opens up for you.

Ilona 49:36

Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Yeah, yeah. And and I've noticed that, like, you know, for me, having that experience over and over again, right, has been really transformative for me. Right. It's really um sensitized me, right, to a generalized sense, there's like a growing sense that there's there's more here that's deeply intelligible, right, that that I could ever know. And then having that knowing, right, is reorients you in the universe, right? It it it affords one to become more quiet, right, inside, and to understand that I'm most likely not hearing what's most important, which when you really know that you're you orient to the world a lot differently, right? You you you peer into it, you become a lot more interested. You come with much more of a sense of wonder. Yeah, that's because you get that you're probably not seeing all of it.

Ilona 50:47

Yeah, that's what it's all about, this wonder being in this state of wonder.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

Yeah, absolutely. Just like, yeah, just what you just said, that's what it's all about. There's something you know, just in that that saying, you named its primacy, its depth, right? Like, and that's that's the thing I want to really if I had if if I hope anyone listening to this, and if you get anything out of this, right, this is the thing that's the most important, I think, about circling, right? And I think that's probably most missing in the world, right, is this real understanding that that the like the that we are an incredible to be alive is to be to exist, right? To be a human being, that that a being that can be aware that it's aware, right? Like inside of a of a inside of whatever this is, right, is a fucking miracle, right? Like we are and it's so deep and it's so infinitely complex and beautiful and surprising and profound that like um there's no end to it. And the to be able to behold that and to deepen one's listening in an appropriate way is itself an awakening to what is.

Ilona 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

That's as you say, that's what it's all about. And that's fundamentally, I think, the real practice of of what you practice when you're circling is this having this profound depth of listening. That was a very nice breath. Thank you for that breath.

Ilona 52:52

And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your presence.

SPEAKER_04 53:02

It's been really nice talking with you.

Ilona 53:05

Thank you. Yes, I can I can see through all these I don't have a word for it now, but I can see through into that and indescribability.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

Is this a good time for me to talk about just a little bit about the circling institute?

Ilona 53:55

Yes, we are about to finish, maybe five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Okay, cool.

Ilona 53:59

Yeah, so I'm just gonna ask you questions. Okay. I'm listening to it. Yes. Um Guy, could you share a little bit about the Circling Institute and how people can benefit from this practice, how they can join where they where they go to find circling?

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_04 54:26

Well, what's kind of what's one of the things about COVID, right? That you know, I think most of us had strange experiences with COVID, myself included. But I had only practiced, you know, at the circling institute, we had only done our work in person in the Bay Area, you know, for you know, all over the world, but like, you know, centered in the Bay Area. Um and I was I was kind of religious about that you couldn't do it online, right? I was kind of a purist. Um however, when COVID happened, it was like it went online. And what the weird part is it still worked online. In some ways, it actually worked an aspect of it became made made a certain aspect of it even more intense in a certain sense. Um, I was really surprised by that. But what was cool about that is it then opened it up for anybody to be able to come and participate, right? So we we we have gone to in person again, but but a most of our trainings are actually online. So anybody in the world can come and participate. Um one of the cool things, one of the cool things is is um is that we've just for the first time we've created um self-study programs, right? So if you wanted to start immediately and learn learn some of the principles and and begin practicing this in your life and learning about it, um, we have three uh down like kind of downloadable self-study courses. So you can you can just click the link and then start right away. And it's it's me and a couple of uh of the other teachers, right? Um, who kind of walk you through some of the principles that we were talking about. And then and then um and then have you engage in practices to to facilitate like these intentions that we were talking about, right? About communication and listening. And so that that that you can do right away. Um and then we have live events. Uh we the the the probably the most excit uh the easiest one is every Thursday night from 6 to 9 p.m. Um West Coast time, California time. Um we have an open, a drop in an open event. We've been doing that every Thursday for the last 16 years. Um uh so anybody can come to that. Um, it's a three-hour event. Uh we do a bunch of practices in the beginning and we do a couple of circles. And so it's a good way to just kind of to jump in and get an experience of it. Um and I think that's like I think it's like 20, 30 bucks. It's it's really it's it's it's pretty accessible. And we also have weekend courses, right? Where you're with the same group of people from 10 a.m. till till 7 p.m. where we just go deep into circling. And we have two two different circles that that cover the first two facets or stages of circling. And we have one of those about every four to six weeks. Um, and I I always I'm I always teach those. Um and those are also pre happen to be prerequisites for if for the people who are get really want to get into it and see this kind of as their path, we have a year-long um facilitating a facilitator training program called the Art of Circling. And that's where you're with the same group of people. And we have one starting in October. We we do one a year. Um, and it's basically a year-long. We meet for eight weekends, you meet with your your your cohort um, you know, two to three times a week and practice circling, and that's where you really learn this as a way of being, right? To be able to facilitate that. And the thing about that is what's what's I find fascinating about doing this is um, you know, I would say it's a small percentage of the course actually who take who take to become facilitators have any interest in actually literally facilitating circles. They're not interested in that, right? What they're interested in is what it takes to facilitate the inner capacities, right? And what the way that you need to grow as a person to be able to facilitate is the thing is is why most people really take it. So it's not like you have to want to do this professionally, although you can. And there's a whole certification process with that. So those are the those are the main ways that you can participate. I'll also give you a link. Um John, my um uh my partner at the circling institute and I did a a webinar that's it's like an hour, an hour long where we really go through the seven stages of circling in pretty deep depth, and that's that's free. And I'll give you a link to that too.

Ilona 59:28

Okay, yes, I can put that in the description for people who want to.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

Absolutely. Yay.

Ilona 59:37

Okay, well, thank you. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to share with you, to listen to you.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

Thank you so much.

Ilona 59:48

And thank you everyone who watched and listened. And um, if you have any questions or want to share what came up for you in this conversation, just drop a comment.

SPEAKER_04 59:59

Yep.

Ilona 1:00:00

Yes, and I will see you next time.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

Yeah, yes, and and if you want if you want to contact me, you can just email me. I'll give you my I'll give you my my um my email.

Ilona 1:00:10

Oh, wonderful. Thank you. All right, bye.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:14

Bye bye.