Circling

Jessica, the one we had visited in Amsterdam, was also in WG. She happened to be involved in a workshop series at a health and wellness center about creating and fostering more authentic relationships.

Very Boulder.

One of the exercises she learned in this workshop was called circling. It involves pairing up with another person and sitting across from each other for a set amount of time. One person is the designated giver and the other, the designated receiver. The giver can talk or remain silent but her task is to give of herself, her emotions, her vulnerability, etc. The receiver’s job is to listen and experience what the giver is feeling, viscerally and emotionally. The purpose is to better understand the giver’s world, and, in so doing, create a deeper connection between the giver and receiver. Afterwards, the receiver explains what she felt from the giver. 

Jessica wanted to do this at our 2016 retreat. The group agreed. I also agreed but only because everybody else had. I was concerned. I still had this secret. This circling thing encouraged vulnerability and exposure.

Nope to that. Thanks very much. 

I didn’t see a way out. As the time of the retreat approached, I resigned myself to participation and getting it over with. The circling thing was happening and I just wanted it done. We were going to do five sessions total with each person in the group. I was most nervous about my time with Sarah, my ex-therapist! What was I going to say or do with her? I was not going to just stare into her eyes for six minutes (that’s how long we had decided each of us would do it). Hell, I’d probably fall in love with her if I did that. What was I going to talk about? Would I broach the thing that must not be named? This thing I hadn’t spoken of since I was in therapy with her? 

I wanted to do circling without getting all deep and emotional. I decided I could be authentic but not vulnerable. I woke up that morning nervous as all get-out. I forced my breakfast down, all the while trying to ignore my ever-increasing sense of foreboding. At last, we dove in and I managed through several of the sessions without being vulnerable or even very authentic.

Until Jessica.

In her role as the giver and mine as the receiver, we stared at each other in silence for six minutes. At least the other sessions had involved talking. Ugh. She started crying, letting the tears fall down her face, not wiping them away or breaking eye contact with me. Just staring at me. Remaining silent. NOT talking. Why wasn’t she saying anything? She was just openly weeping in front of me. The unabashed vulnerability. The rawness. Man, talk about intense. I was fighting to remain detached. But the staring. My eyes into her eyes. Her eyes into my eyes. It was impossible to remain immune to her hurt when I was looking deep into those eyes swarming with pain and openness. When it ended I was frazzled and shaken. I told her how I felt sad and hurt, how she had communicated that to me through the silence. (The statistic about communication being 93% non-verbal has never felt truer.) She said she was in a lot of physical pain. And that she had decided during her six minutes, that she was not going to hide or ignore it, but rather recognize the pain and sit with it. Pretty impressive for an Enneagram Type Seven, if you ask me. 

Then it was my turn. I was the giver. She was the receiver. And here we were again staring. She was staring at me. Like right-into-my-soul staring, unblinking, unrelenting and penetrating. I was already feeling exposed and vulnerable as a receiver. But now, as the giver, this was unbearable. She wouldn’t stop with the staring. It was like lasers were beaming out of her eyes straight into mine, willing me, forcing me to speak.

I knew it…she had superpowers.

I did NOT want to give away my secret. But it was the only thing I could think about. And she was staring into me. She could read my thoughts. She saw it. My secret. The darkness that covered my heart. I was giving it to her involuntarily. The harder I tried not to think about it, the more she saw. Her eyes were pulling it out of me, exposing me. I don’t know if it was 15 seconds or three minutes before I blurted it out — how I liked women, how I had a long-distance relationship with a woman a long time ago, but there was Justin, and maybe I wasn’t gay but I have same-sex attractions, blah, blah, blah — until I was empty, spent and relieved, the spell having been broken. And her eyes, after the lasers retracted and I could see her pupils…well…they registered a recognition. They softened. I saw no contempt, no revulsion, no judgement in them.

But wonder of wonders, I saw only relief. 

Afterwards, she told me that she knew I had been holding something back from the group but she didn’t know what it was and that scared her. And she had channeled that fear into anger. My truth-telling had pacified her suspicions; it had soothed her fear and her anger. Little did I know, she had been harboring these negative feelings toward me. Little did I know, I was hurting her by keeping my secret, by keeping up the walls. My secret had been easier to keep in isolation but now that I was forming relationships, authentic friendships, my secret was damaging, not only to me, but to others. Unbeknownst to me, I was preventing my friendships from advancing beyond a certain point because of my emotional withholding. I was never going to lead a more fulfilling or meaningful life by keeping everyone at bay. When was I going to get it?  

The circling session I had been most concerned about, the one with Sarah, I don’t even remember. In fact, the details of that entire retreat are hazy. Truthfully, I was just so relieved when the circling was done and the weekend was over.