This month’s story comes from Nam Pham, who hosts online meditation circles, workshops, and conversation gatherings for participants around the world.

Exploring how a Meditation Circle Develops Authentic Self-Expression

 “What is this energy I am feeling? It is not unusual for someone who sits in the circle to suddenly feel the intensity of what is going on. In these not so unusual moments, participants are accessing what Alan Fogel coins “embodied self-awareness”. In our work of hosting online meditation circles for over a year, we have witnessed our fellow members, regardless of where they are coming from, come in feeling chaotic and end up feeling a nurturing sense of peace and deep grounding through developing more intimate connections with their embodied senses. This post is our attempt to dissect and analyze the the intersection of The Circle Way process, meditation practice and embodied self-awareness that occurs in our Meditation Circles.

Combining The Circle Way and Silent Meditation

 Every time we gather online, no matter where we are situated, we follow a simple procedure that combines a check-in, 15 to 20 minutes of silent meditation and a check-out. In our work, the circle serves as a magical container for meditative experiences: We have a round of check-in where we speak about what is going on inside ourselves, providing our members with opportunities to sense into their inner experiences, for example:  

What’s the weather in you right now?

How is your mind, your body and your heart?

What is real for you right now? 

The silent meditation usually follows an integrative path where we collectively sense emerging experiences from the check-in and further explore them during the meditation. Following the meditation is a round of check-out where we reconstruct our meditative experiences and share  them with others. During the check-out, insight and deepening happen as people notice the different sensations, thoughts and feelings during the meditation and share what feels true to them at the moment.

Building Authentic Self-Expression in a Meditation Circle

Hosting a few participants who attend the Meditation Circle with us regularly over a year, we noticed how people became more aware and expressive of what feels true to them, as well as commenting on the strong sense of safety and trust built up from the circle. A participant once shared with us how she gradually discovered her authenticity:

“I felt connected to this beautiful art of self-expression. I usually have lots of unclear thoughts in mind. But emotions are always authentic to me and cannot be faked. I’ve learnt to let go of who I am supposed to be, let go all expectations to embrace who I am, embrace my imperfection. The healing energy it brings in is beautiful to me.” 

With the dual practice of silent meditation and The Circle Way, our members have experienced the benefits of both intrapersonal mindfulness (sensing their bodily sensations; experiencing their feelings; witnessing their thoughts) and interpersonal mindfulness (expressing what they feel; listening with compassion; holding space for others). Overtime, our members notice they have become more skillful in noticing their inner experiences and in expressing their truths. 

This discovery made us wonder about the underlying science behind how we develop our capacity to be authentic with ourselves and with others, leading us to look more into neuroscience and embodiment for some insights.

Two useful concepts we will discuss briefly here are “conceptual self-awareness” and “embodied self-awareness”, beginning with their definitions as explained by Amada Blake in her book Your body is your brain (p.55-58): 

Conceptual self-awareness: The personal history we use to construct our sense of identity through processing thoughts, language and speech. This encompasses learning from the past, creating coherence in our worldview and contemplating the future.

Embodied self-awareness: The conscious awareness of the biophysical processes that are happening in our body at the moment. These include sensations, emotions and movements. The ability to pay attention to these improves our ability to pause, see a range of possibilities and make choices.

Accessing Embodied Self-Awareness with a Meditation Circle practice

While conceptual self-awareness resides in the area of thoughts and logics, embodied self-awareness takes us into the area of body sensations, feelings and emotions. The dual practice of silent meditation and The Circle Way balance our access to both conceptual awareness and embodied awareness as we notice our body in the present state while making sense of ourselves. Another of our member’s insights illustrates this process:     

“In today’s morning meditation Circle, I just practiced being with silence. I sensed the connection between me and my hands. They are holding each other physically and gently. I felt its warmth and connection. It reminded me about the connection with my body. Most of the time I do not pay attention to it, and just take it for granted. Now I am set free with silence. The tendency to control arose, but I acknowledged and let it go. I started embracing whatever arose but feeling rooted in presence and connection with myself.”

A lot of research in neuroscience has explained the benefits of meditation on embodied self-awareness, yet the intersection of embodied self-awareness with The Circle Way practice is still blurry. In an attempt to clarify how being in a circle also contributes to accessing one’s embodied self-awareness, we put side by side Alan Fogel’s framework (in his book Body Sense) to develop embodied self-awareness with The Circle Way elements.  

The table below presents side by side: (A) the framework Alan constructs to develop his clients’ embodied self-awareness and (B) the elements embedded in The Circle Way that serve as pointers for those same constructs: 

(A)  Basic conditions to develop ES

(B) The Circle Way elements & components

Resources:

Described as “constant and reliable presence in the body, mental imagery or surroundings that feel safe, stable and supportive” (p.23)

Presence of others:

Compared to sitting alone, meditating in a circle, knowing that there are people who are here with us and who are willing to witness and listen to us creates a strong container of safety. The presence of well-intentioned host and guardian serves as a safety baseline, as well as practicing the principle of “tending to the well-being of the whole” serves as a well of resources for circle participants. 

Slowing down:

Described as “shifting from thinking to feeling by starting with what the person can already feel in their bodies and develop a sense of competence to experience these” (p.23)

The talking piece and Circle agreement:

Circle’s powerful element is in its capacity to slow down responses and allow occasional conscious pause to help participants reflect. The use of a talking piece and the agreement to pause from time to time contribute to this impact. This process of slowing down helps participants have enough stillness to feel into their body sensations and feelings, thus opening the portal into their embodied self-awareness.

Coregulation:

Described as “shifting intensity, speeding up or slowing down, helping the person to come back to resources when needed” (p.23)

Hosts and Guardians:

The hosts and guardians play a vital role in tending to the dynamics of a circle. By sensing into what is going on in the group, the host and the guardian work hand in hand to shift the energy of the group as well as offer words of support when needed. The ability of the guardian to keep watch of the energy, offer a pause when needed, and the leadership of participants in “every chair” to “ask for what they need and offer what they can” creates a cycle of co-regulation that also helps the participants access and act from their embodied self-awareness   

Verbalization:

Described as “helping the person find words to describe their experiences, encouraging communication about experience without losing contact with embodied self-awareness” (p.23)

Evocative language:

Described as word choices that “are expressive about the felt experiences” and that “can evoke, sustain, and amplify embodied self-awareness” (p.32)

Hosts and others’ sharing:

Hosting meditation in the container of the circle process adds a layer of self-expression not often offered in traditional meditation settings. Through reflecting on what they notice in their meditation and sharing with others, participants both learn and practice putting their inner experiences into words. Receiving acknowledgement helps to validate what a person is sensing in their body. Furthermore, the language we use to describe our inner experiences also serve as a sounding board for other participants to empathize and relate to their own experiences.

The above table helps us appreciate how The Circle Way structure brings out the less conscious part of ourselves. It gives a glimpse into why we can access our collective intelligence when we sit in a circle and embody its presence, as well as why combining the practice of silent meditation and The Circle Way brings an intensified impact on participants’ self-awareness, as well as their capacity to express authentically.     

Becoming Whole in a Meditation Circle

Seeing our Meditation Circle experiences through both the subjective and the objective lens, we understand that authentic self-expression exists in the intersection between intrapersonal mindfulness and interpersonal mindfulness, as well as between conceptual self-awareness and embodied self-awareness. Aligning our embodied sense with how we view ourselves and what actions we take, according to Donald Winnicott (referenced by Alan Forgel in his book Body Sense), helps us drop our social conditionings of the “False Self” and embody our “True Self”. Similarly, different names are given to the same phenomenon of alignment, like Buddhism’s “Big Mind” or “Big Heart” or martial arts’ “Unified” or “Centered” Self.      

This analysis helps us weave The Circle Way process, embodiment and neuroscience as potential pointers for deepening mindfulness practice and building authentic communication. Through this attempt, as practitioners of The Circle Way, we deepen our appreciation of how the circle serves as a strong container and a loose structure that can creatively complement other practices in returning ourselves to the wholeness of ourselves and of the world.

Wrapping this up with a personal learning from one of our members: 

“In this circle, we find a place where we bring our own stories and are able to relish the potluck of life. A place of trust, respect, new learnings and simply being yourself.”

Nam Pham hosts intercultural dialogues and dances in intercultural spaces. For 4 years, he lived and worked as a facilitator, learning designer and trainer for an educational institution in Japan. It is during this period that he started to experiment with the Circle Way as a container for interaction among his trainees from diverse cultural backgrounds. Being a meditator and a Zen Buddhist student himself, Nam has been exploring the intersection between body awareness and the ability to hold space in Circle. This intersection has led Nam to co-found Mindful-Nest, an online meditation community geared towards young people wanting to connect with themselves through contemplative and conversational practices