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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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Adult Attachment Theory, Circling, and Authentic Relating

Circling can be very powerful in contributing to an already established way of thinking about relationships called Adult Attachment Theory. Adult Attachment Theory is a branch of psychology that says that the early experiences between parent and child create working models of relationships that, without reflection, an adult will carry with them for their entire lives. Marenka Cerny, who is a somatic psychotherapist practicing Circling for a few years with Guy Sengstock, recognized that the substantial benefits of immersion in Circling are in many ways the same as when someone is, what is known as, “securely attached”.

In her article, A New Development in Psychology: Adult Secure Attachment and Circling, Marenka points to the significant distinctions between secure and insecure attachment. She wrote, “adults who are insecurely attached will frequently exhibit recurring negative behaviors in relationship: the tendencies to avoid other people, to be critical, controlling, insensitive, readily show anger and fear, and, to deny one’s own needs. Basically, an adult with insecure attachment will frequently either not clearly recognize their own needs, or the other person’s, or both.” By contrast, “securely attached adults have a greater capacity to trust others, tolerate conflict, and exercise discernment when forming new bonds. They are empathetic, and know how to set and sustain appropriate boundaries as they cultivate meaningful connections with others.”

Marenka has been working to articulate the connection between Circling and Adult Attachment Theory, and she is currently working on her third essay on the topic. She has proposed that “Circling creates the conditions to experience what secure attachment feels like even before attachment wounds are healed,” sometimes even the first time a person circles. For anyone interested in this thesis, Marenka has an important caveat: “Circling by itself does not develop secure attachment, nothing creates secure attachment without a person’s intention to heal their attachment wounds.” But, she also suggests, “since Circling generates the feelings and mindstate of secure attachment with peers — by engendering the emotional and psychological clarity between people that occurs in securely attached relationships — then if one circles regularly, perhaps in conjunction with psychotherapy,” it is possible that “secure attachment can be expedited more efficiently than with psychotherapy alone.”

For more information, Google the article: A New Development in Psychology: Adult Secure Attachment and Circling by Mařenka Cerny.

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Circling Reflections

  • How to be authentic and loving in an emotionally illiterate culture
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Clickable Communities map

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Authentic Relating Organizations

  • Circling Institute (San Francisco and Global)
  • Circle Anywhere (Global)
  • Circling Europe (Europe and North America)
  • ART International (Global)
  • Authentic Relating Go (Global)
  • Connection Institute (Boston & Global)
  • The Connection Movement (New York City)
  • Austin Circling Studio (Austin, TX)
  • 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)

Local communities can be found on Meetup.com and on the Authentic Revolution communities map

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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Marco’s Books and Blogs


Relational Power: Win Friends, Influence Others, and End Loneliness Through the Practice of Authentic Relating

RSS Marc "Marco" Beneteau's Author Blog

  • Relational Power: Call for engagement
  • Quick check-in from “the land of enchanment”
  • Moving to New Mexico; two new books!
  • On the road again; life in the political cult; new book

RSS Manifesting Community Blog

  • Moved to Albuquerque, NM. New book!
  • Winter has arrived at Solidarity Collective! Plus exciting plans
  • New digs, new book, new life
  • New groups forming now; and other news
  • Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (Rutledge, Missouri) — Visitor Program Review
  • On the road, in search of utopia

 


Broke, Single, Crazy and Old: The Redemption of a Sex and Love Addict

RSS Healthy Bipolar

  • Happy all the time with a low-grade CFS — is it possible?
  • Moving to New Mexico! New book!
  • Final days at Hridaya Yoga, Mazunte, Mexico
  • My Social Security disability hearing; a visit to the doctor and the dentist; and life in the communist commune in Wyoming

 


As Lovers Do: a Manual for Men

RSS The Man/Woman Game Archives – Authentic Singles

  • Online Dating and the Man/Woman Game: My Story
  • What Women Want: Towards a New Psychology of Love, Sex and Gender Relations
  • I have a Dream: the social-political context of love and sex

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