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Circling Guide

Learn the group conversation practice that will transform all of your relationships and bring you the love, friendship and community that you want

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Circling and Authentic Relating Practice Guide (2nd Edition)

Learn the group conversation practice that will transform all of your relationships and bring you the love, friendship and community that you want

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The Circling and Authentic Relating Practice Guide (2nd Edition) is a short book that will teach you how to Circle effectively. It also contains a Recent history of the Authentic Relating movement, a comprehensive Resources section, and sections covering Precursors (Integral Theory, NVC etc) and Additional Circling Contexts. The latest edition also covers the powerful practice of Circling Masterminds.

You can get my Circling book by entering any donation amount in the “Name a Fair Price” box below (including zero). You can also get my Circling book in Print, Kindle, or Audiobook format.

If you like it, please leave me an Amazon review! (you don’t need to have purchased the book to leave a review).

Update for Asheville NC & Washington DC Areas

Please join the Asheville Authentic Community Meetup. If you live in DC, check out the DC Authentic Singles Meetup

Get the Circling Guide!

Note: As of Dec/2020 I am committed to the gift economy, and relying on donations and program fees to support myself. Please consider a donation as small as $1 to support my work. Other good Circling and A/R print resources are Sara Ness manuals, Bryan Bayer’s book, and Jason Digges book. and the new free course at CircleAnywhere.


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What is Circling?

Circling is a group conversation practice that usually lasts an hour to an hour and a half, and involves 3 to 9 people.  It is possible, however, to have it go on for days and to engage as many as 50 people or more.  Circling happens either in person in many places around the world, or via online web-conferencing technology (see the Resources section).  Both are great.  There are also weekend workshops and advanced training programs, which often run 6 to 9 months.

Marco’s 3- minute introduction to Circling

This is my very brief introduction to Circling.  Presented at a live workshop of Authentic Singles Dating.

Watch the Circling Europe video

Courtesy of Circling Europe

PREFACE TO THE 1st EDITION: MY AGENDA

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt

This book fulfills three deep desires of mine.

My first desire was to write a practice guide to Circling that could be read in one sitting and give the essence of the modality. A guide that might be especially useful to those of us with short attention spans.

My second desire was to share my excitement about the Authentic Relating movement, which has been so fun and so transformational for me in such a short time, in the hope of inspiring others to try it out for themselves.

And my third desire was to put Circling into the context where I think it squarely belongs: as a revolutionary practice aimed at extending the reach of loving kindness in the world. As such there is no sphere of life, public or private, that cannot benefit from the skills described here. You can practice Authentic Relating (A/R) with anyone, whether they are aware of your intentions or not, and if you do it correctly (which is not always easy) it is very likely that you will get phenomenal results with most people.

The Circling and Authentic Relating movement is currently the largest and fastest-growing global movement for teaching relational intelligence, other than NVC. Furthermore, it is an open-source (or non-proprietary) movement, which is quite rare in terms of human developmental modalities. I will expand on this topic (the place of Authentic Relating within the larger “we-space movement”) in Chapter 4.

However, the strength of Circling – that open-source makes it something of an anarchic, or “emergent” phenomenon – is also a weakness. I do not have any certifications from any of the schools of Circling, and despite this I have had considerable success in leadership, both in my personal life and community. As such I have a further agenda here: to encourage any and all “cowboy and cowgirl circlers” – meaning Circlers like me who are not formally trained or credentialed – to hit the streets and lead. Be aware that this is controversial and there is a risk in this, of causing damage. My advice: be humble, process your inevitable reactivity, and you will be fine. Authentic Relating is not “easy”, but it may be the most valuable thing that you can learn.

The focus of my writing and practice is to bring Authentic Relating to real-world problems across the board; but I am most interested in its applications in mental health (see www.seekhealing.org), place-based or land-based communities (see www.manifesting.net) and sexuality (see www.authentic.singles). If you are interested in these topics and want to support me or share resources, or else have any feedback to the book, please write to me at marc@CirclingGuide.com. 

With love,
Marco

February 2021

Continue reading My Story and/or Offers & Events…

Donations – any amount appreciated!

Please support my work by joining my Patreon. You can also give a one-time donation through PayPal below.

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Latest News

  • Community News – June 2022

Upcoming Events

Upcoming events below and on our Google Calendar

Circling Reflections

  • Circling Evangelist hits the streets in Guatemala: successes and humblings

Clickable Communities map

authentic-revolution-communities-map

Authentic Relating Organizations

  • Circling Institute (San Francisco and Global)
  • Circle Anywhere (Global)
  • Circling Europe (Europe and North America)
  • Authentic Revolution (Global)
  • ART International (Global)
  • Connection Institute (Boston)
  • The Connection Movement (New York City)
  • Austin Circling Studio (Austin, TX)
  • Authentic Relating Go (Quebec & Global)
  • Evolutionary Relating (Australia)
  • Circling Cornwall (UK)
  • Let’s Be Authentic (Philadelphia, PA)
  • Realness Project (Prison work)
  • The Awkward Leadership School (Toronto)
  • Integral Centered Leadership (Boulder, CO)

Free Circling Video Course

Signup to the new free Circling course at CircleAnywhere!

Recommended Books

Quotes

  • “There is no place to get to but more here” — Decker Cunov, co-founder of Circling
  • “You will always outlive my concept of you. And I will always have a concept for you to outlive” — Guy Sengstock, founder of Circling
  • “Pain is not a punishment, pleasure is not a reward… good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness” — Pema Chodron
  • “If we were all to sit in a circle and confess our sins, we would laugh at each other for lack of originality” — Kahlil Gibran
  • “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” — Theodore Roosevelt
  • “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply” — Stephen Covey
  • “Trust that people move towards wholeness, and we just have to follow” — Alexis Shepperd, co-founder of the Authentic Woman Experience
  • “Depression is the reward we get for being ‘good’ ” — Marshall Rosenberg
  • When we are angry, killing people is too superficial — Marshall Rosenberg
  • “You don’t need to get what you want if you can express what you want” — Strephon Kaplan-Williams
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Authentic Singles Dating

As Lovers Do: a Manual for Men

RSS Marc "Marco" Beneteau's Author Blog

  • Final days at Hridaya Yoga, Mazunte, Mexico
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RSS The Man/Woman Game Archives – Authentic Singles

  • Online Dating and the Man/Woman Game: My Story
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  • I have a Dream: the social-political context of love and sex

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RSS Healthy Bipolar

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  • My Social Security disability hearing; a visit to the doctor and the dentist; and life in the communist commune in Wyoming
  • When talking to your sub-personalities is more interesting than talking to other people
  • Marco’s 3 Noble Truths

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