Trang Nguyen, Phuong Bui and Nam Pham join Sarah MacDougall to share their connection with circle and their journey of growing a community of circle practitioners across Vietnam.
Video transcript:
Sarah:
All right.
Nam:
So we ring the bells and let have some time to settle in this space together.
Sarah:
Welcome, Nam and Trang. We are going to have the most lovely time now, just talking about, Circle. And you both are working to bring Circle in a big way to Vietnam. And we have gratitude for that and great joy. So we are now in circle and going to have just a conversation about, Circle and your experience with it, your journey with it. And let's first of all, each do a brief introduction, so we can introduce ourselves to the people that are going to see this video. And then just tell stories. And deep gratitude for each of you being in here. And I'll just start. My name is Sarah MacDougall, and I'm a long time Circle Way practitioner and supporter of The Circle Way. And my passion is that, circle is the way that we, as humans are going to survive, because it's going to be a way that we can actually collaborate and cooperate and build together. So piece back.
Nam:
I pick up the piece. So my name is Nam. I'm from Vietnam, currently based in, Ho Chi Minh City. I'm also a Circle practitioner. Also a believer in the magic of gathering in Circle, the magic of being present. And even simply, without words, just being present in circles is a tremendous gift. And I'm currently working here in Vietnam as a facilitator using, The Circle Way, as a main process. And hoping to help people, communities, and organizations here in Vietnam to together in a more beautiful way. So with that, I pass the talking piece.
Trang:
I pick up the piece. Apologize, I'm sitting outside. So you may hear children on the background and neighbors doing something. That is life. My name is Trang, I'm from Vietnam. I'm also a Circle Way practitioner. I've been doing several different things for a living in my life, including being an engineer, working for marketing agency, and eventually it on circle me back into supporting people to have meaningful conversation. People, including myself to have meaningful conversation that will take us somewhere, that we own hope for having something better for the future. And in any field that I work in, that things always emerge as something that I value the most. So now I end up working also as a facilitator, mostly in the context of dialogues in our factories. I put the piece back in the center.
Sarah:
All right. Thank you. So very, very happy and interested to hear your story, of how you got involved in Circle and your journey with it. And some of the things that excite you about circle, some of the learnings that you have made. So just going to open up and have a joyous time of sharing story.
Nam:
I think I will just pick up the piece, because it is the story that always inspires me a lot. I think I remember the first time... I think first time I came into contact with the Circle, was when I read Christina Baldwin's book, Storycatcher. And at first, when I was reading that book, I was already working as a facilitator, but my approach is pretty much about trying to move people, to ask questions, to actively engage them in the process, until I read the book and I realize, oh, that sounds like something different, from my facilitation practice. And when I finished reading the book, I was curious, what else does she have to offer here? And then I was looking at the list of the books that she offers, and I found the next book that immediately caught my attention, The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair.
And with my background in organization studies, I read a lot about leadership development, but I never think, or have known of this concept of participatory leadership before. For me, always looking at leadership, or leader as an influential charismatic leader figure who influences people, but I never seeing the other mental model of the people influencing each other, people together, creating something that has an equal voice, and an equal part in the process. And so, reading the book means that, I also got introduced to, The Art of Hosting, and the overarching methodologies, that has the circle has the base in there. And so I remember after I finished reading the book, I just try it out, just having the knowledge in my mind without having any actual experience. I just try it with my friends. Just gather my friends together, and from the video that I have seen, and from the tech that I've read, I just try it out and see how it's like.
And then after several attempts, I finally got the opportunity to attend an online training, with Tenneson and Amanda. And that's when I officially experience the spirit of the Circle for the first time, with people who are experienced and nuanced in the practice. And my first impression, my first thought when I finished the first call was that, this feeling is the feeling of belonging. And I have never experienced something... Some things of energetics that is that intense, and at the same time, very healing and very connecting. And that's when I got curious, how can I sustain this kind of energy? Not only within myself, but with the relationship I have with the people around me. And furthermore, do I see myself using more, or embodying more and more of this? And the really magical thing about that first call is that, right after I finished the call, I still remember the feeling. The sensation of sitting in the circle and that sensation lasts four several days, until it completely calmed itself.
And so I saw myself in the vision of maybe... I don't know how I'm going to go with this practice, but I just know that I see a part of myself and that practice, and I see part of that practice in myself. And so I could see that maybe, that's how things will be like, let's just keep going with this. Let’s experiment with this and see how things will be like in the future. And that's how things happen, and that's how I'm sitting here with you. That's how I got to know Trang, as well. I got to know Trang, in the first Art of Hosting training that I attended in Vietnam.
And Trang has been attending and also having to host, the Art of Hosting trainees in Vietnam, the years before as well. And so I signed to that, The Circle Way, I got to meet with a larger community of practitioner in Vietnam, meeting with, Trang and then knowing, Trang for such a long time and then dreaming of the opportunity for more practitioners in Vietnam, to talk, to meet together, and then dreaming until the seed that I planted in June, when we had our first The Circle Way training. So that's the whole journey. Sorry for taking so much time just to name this long story that I always found so magical. Yeah.
Sarah:
Thank you, Nam. And I just want to reflect back, that this just embodies what our entire hope all along the way with The Circle Way journey, was that people would pick up the book, get the materials and then just go try it. And so, to have the courage and the enthusiasm to do that, really stands out in what you're talking about in your story. So thank you for sharing.
Trang:
Thank you, Sarah. I pick up the piece. It's very interesting now to hear Nam's story, because even though we work together, we actually have never spent time listening to each other's story like this. And I realize that my journey is quite... Somehow it goes in the very different direction, very different patterns. Because I pick up the book (Hello Phuong!). I pick up the book very later on, after I experience Circle times and times again. I had background in software engineering. I used to work as an engineer. So very used to a very mechanistic environment of working, in which we divide the task very strictly. And each of us had certain task and things like that. And I just focused on what I needed to do. And I started working for an NGO. And in that NGO, we decided to cone for a program in collaboration with a school, in Amsterdam called, Knowmads. Knowmads is a combination of the word, knowledge and nomad. It's a very alternative participatory school. And that's how I first learned about facilitation.
And in the first meeting with the person from the school in Amsterdam, he went to Vietnam. And in the first meeting, he asked us to sit down and have a check in, and I resisted at first. Like, I'm busy, I have tasks you do, and I want to be on my laptop, I can take note and so on. Why spending time going around in circle, and talking about how we are feeling and so long? And that person, the Dutch person from Amsterdam, he insisted, "It's really important to me, because I really want to hear from you, and I want you to be here with us too." I went along, although I still resisted. And along the way of organizing the programs, I slowly got convinced, but I still didn't know that it's some sort of methodology.
I thought it felt natural. At some point it started feeling natural that, if we started a meeting without having a check in, or ending a meeting without having a checkout, it didn't feel right. Until a few years later there were a few members coming to join us, and they were Art of Hosting practitioners, so they started sharing about Art of Hosting, that I learned, that there's this whole school of methodologies, that actually we somehow applied, but wasn't aware of. So with a desire to learn more about these things, we started organizing hosting trainings in, Vietnam, 2016, so that, we ourself could be part of the training. However, I kept passing by The Circle Way practice in the training without really having a closer look at how it works, even though I experienced it so many times. I think it wasn't until... I had an experience when I study here in, Sweden. I took a program about strategic leadership toward sustainability, a master program in Sweden in 2017 and 18.
And toward halfway of the program, when we were very busy with some internship work. So we were all over the place, and the whole students group had very little time to connect with each other. One of us who was having a baby, his wife was delivering a baby and there was some difficulties, and they had to go to emergency in the hospital, and the baby couldn't breathe on something. So he had to drop everything, all of the school work, to stay in the hospital with his wife and new baby for nearly a month. And it was in another city, so we couldn't visit him. Someone convened a Circle at the end of every school day. We simply sat in the Circle for silence, for a certain amount of time, to send prayers toward his family. And it doesn't matter which religion you come from, or big deal, even atheistic.
We all sat in Circle and send prayers, and whatever we would like to do. And when the prayer Circle end, we had a few words, if we wish to. And I felt like it was the really first time I really felt the power of gathering in Circle, really sensing it in my body. And the experience of on the previous time sitting in the Circle, came back to me and started making sense. And it was just how beautiful and that we could reconvene there at the end of each busy workday. And somehow the calling to support his family, energetically got us together in the period, of time that was really chaotic for each individual of us. And so then I came back to Vietnam after the study, and I continued to tend to the hosting community of Vietnam, more. We organized a practitioner gathering in Vietnam in 2020.
It was right before COVID time. It was the timing that people made a tough decision, if I come or not. Because COVID started emerging, but nobody knew what it was. People arrived, and toward the end of the gathering, countries started closing borders. And several times during that gathering, we had to quickly reconvene in the Circle, making sense of what is happening, working with all the difficult emotions, like fear, emptiness and anger and so on. And coming up with solutions, so that everybody would feel safe and still maintaining the practice that we were building out there. And that's another time that I really felt the power of being together in Circle. And so during COVID time, we stay at home and really missed that power. And so a few of us, including Nam and myself...
I think actually Nam, convened the first conversation. We started gathering online and talking about, what does it mean to practice Circle? What does it mean to practice Art of Hosting? We, the community in Vietnam also organize some Open Space conversations, to look deep into our practice, when it's so limited. To practice, we all cannot go out and meet friends, and do our facilitation work. And many things started making sense, that I didn't see before, when I was in conversation with other fellow practitioners, really looking deep into this experience that I had before. And that is in a way I was grateful for COVID, to force us to slow down, because I, myself was so fast, so quick into the flow of work and so on, right after I finished my study in Sweden. Yeah. So I will pause. I think I got to where we are now. Piece back.
Sarah:
Thank you, Trang. That's very powerful story. Wow. I'm so excited to hear these. And welcome, welcome, welcome Phuong. And we each have introduced ourselves, and we're recording this interview. So if you would step in and give a little introduction of who you are, and how you're connected to the Circle. And then we're just sharing stories of how you became involved. How did you intersect with the circle and what has it meant to you since that happened?
Phuong:
Hello everyone. I'm Phuong, and I'm the currently co-founder of the Holding Circle network. I don't know how to translate our network into English, but currently, Holding Circle. Well I'm also a facilitator, using mindfulness and some types of app based expression methodology, in the personal development field. And so far I have been experience circle for around three or four years. Actually the first circle I have been experience was with a sangha, in the Plum Village Traditions. Four years ago, I was really new to Circle and I just practice meditation and mindfulness. And I was introduced to a sangha, a group of young people who practiced mindfulness, it's called, Wake up Hanoi. And from that group, I learned a lot about myself. In that safe space, I had the chance to really express my difficult emotions and other health space for me to be really who I am. I was at that moment. And I was so appreciated. I am.
And then Ly, another member of our group, actually from the sangha, we formed a team and we have continued to bring mindfulness and meditation and circling into taking care of a patient, cancer patients. We have a program, eight week program for cancer patient to help them learn about yoga and meditation. And at that moment we figured it out more about circle. We saw the magic of Circle, when we gather around and share about really deep feelings. Especially the cancer patients, had the chance to share about the difficulties they were in... in the process of treatment, cancer treatment. And then after a few months, we met in The Circle Way practitioner group. Actually that group was set up like a year ago, and we were so happy to join that group to meet other Circle Way practitioners and learn from them.
And Nam was really an inspiring person to us. He's kind of a mentor to us, and we just team up and have a lot of conversation around, how to bring more Circle Way to Vietnam. Bring Circle into every corner of Vietnam. And from a community, a strong community to support The Circle Way practitioners. And Nam contacted to Trang, and we brainstormed and formed the... And also, thanks to the support of The Circle Way, we can have the very first Circle Way Essentials Course by Vietnamese. I think that's all the long story.
Sarah:
Thank you so much. This is delightful. And what's rising up in me, as you are telling your stories, is this deep connection. It's natural. One of you said, it just felt natural, that you felt at home. It's exactly the way I felt. And this was many years ago. And the first Circle I sat in, I too, was very resistant, hesitant. Like, "Ooh, what is this?" I didn't trust. And over a period of time in being in the Circle, I realized, I felt so at home and connected. A deep rooted connection. And I feel that same way right now. We are on this square screen, and yet we're in a Circle, and we're energetically connected. And I'm just so grateful for this. It is such... I'm searching for the word. Nourishing, I think is the word that comes to me, at this point. I am so grateful.
I am listening to what's going on. And I'm thinking, this is a beautiful interview, just right now, these stories of sharing, how you came to circle, and what it means to you, and how you are using it. And this is wonderful. We're the first video that we will produce, and put on The Circle Way website, and I see us going in the future, to have others about some of the specifics of what has been working, what you find, how you've adapted it, and those. But this is really lovely. So I suggest that we just do a brief checkout at this point, because we are in Circle to release this energy. And maybe something that just really sparked you, or caught you in the stories that we've just shared, very briefly. So whoever would like to go first, just jump in.
Trang:
I pick up the piece. That was so brief, I didn't notice that we've been sitting for 40 minutes already. What happened? So wonderful... We didn't have a conversation before, about how we share the story, but somehow Nam story, my story and Phuong’s story, really reflect on different aspects of how the community comes together for intellectual fighting, from experience, from a longing space and I have goosebumps. I want to maybe share the story of the past training that just concluded a day ago in Sweden here. But it happened in beautiful nature. It's wonderful. And the participants who step in and hosted, all the check in and check out and all the methodology was beautiful, and they were super creative. Because the nature helped as well, and the participants were so creative, they brought in body movement, music, meditation, and many different ways for grounding together. And we felt like, maybe something was missing.
So when we, as a hosting team hosted the final check out on the last day of the training, we said to each other, we never really, really had a very well hosted Circle, just small group of Circle. And so we put that on the checkout, and when introduce the activity, and I said, "We've been trying so many ways to be together. And there is this one powerful way that is, to just sit down in a Circle, share my story and listen to others. And we can do that now." And I see so many smiles on people's face. And when we sat down in the Circle, each Circle was small, six or seven people. And it was really powerful in that Circle, in that final day of the whole training. And it still stay in me.
And I think I was convinced by the power of Circle thanks to the community, is I thought I knew so many fancy stuff, methodologies and frameworks and theories and stuff, until I joined community cones, and people came and say, I was part of this healing Circle, I was part of this check in. And it was so nice that I could share, and I could pick up the talking piece and other people listen to me. And I was like, "Huh, so they were impressed by such simple things." And I paid attention to those simple things. And I never noticed how in my life, even before I read the books and was introduced to The Circle Way, I were in circles before as well. And that's how those circles led me to where I am, because when I was in those circles, and found the power of the conversations, I knew that I wanted to do something about bringing that forward, even though the whole thing wasn't clear for me.
So a lot of things made sense thanks to being with the community. And even I could weave a red thread about way earlier stories in my life. Which I'm grateful and for, because I've been learning about keep reframing and reframing my own narrative. And I learned a lot from just doing that, and being part of Circle allows me to do it. And so thank you so much. I just really touch. Put the piece back.
Nam:
I pick up the piece. Would like to check out with a sense of, speechlessness. Because I think I was listening to so much, like these gold nuggets of stories and wisdoms and also powers and magic. I think for me have never used that much of the word magic before, until sitting in Circle for so long and meeting with so many people and listening a lot. And it gave me a sense that, it makes sense to use the word magic. For things that we don't know how it happens, but for sure it did happen, it's just there. And whenever it happens and everyone knows that it happens.
And listening to Trang, just now, the first sensation I have is that, I recognize I have missed so much of the conversation I had with Trang, when we was preparing for the Circle. And just talking, sitting down in Circle just to talk about Circle, is a wonderful experience, because I get to listen to how people came to this certain point and how, even though we came from so many different backgrounds, we get to this one shared point in the middle, and just gathering in that one shared point, just gives us a sense of aliveness. And I could sense a lot of those moments of aliveness in this brief circle we had just now.
And just want to check out, with the sense of trust, and the sense of hope, as well from all the stories I have listened to. Trust that, we just need to do simple stuff, and trust that simple practices make sense. Simple practices have to bring people together. Simple practices like listening with attention, and speaking with intention. And taking care of the whole... And I think the last piece of thing I want to check out with, is the more I sit deeply in a Circle, the more I see community in Circle. The more I see how it's never be about only one person or about myself, it's about everyone together, and how everyone together, practicing simple things and already be powerful. And that is such a great learning, unlearning process for me.
So with that, I want to send gratitude to all of you. And it's such a good timing though, to reflect on this, as we are preparing for the next batch of people who are coming in for the Essential, The Circle Way training. So with that, I pass a piece to Phuong.
Phuong:
At this moment, I feel deeply grateful for what I have been through so far. I have learned from a lot of teachers, from…and also the brother, sister from sangha, and many teachers from Healing Circles and current mentors, and many teachers coming to my life to teach me something. And I think I'm a continuation of them, what their teachings and their energy, their spirit. I think it's really... It's a great opportunity for me to continue my teachers, many teachers work and bring it into our community here in Vietnam. And like I already said, we aim to bring Circle so to every corner of Vietnam. So every areas like, every field or in that, healthcare, or school or business, and we think that many people, if they have the chance to experience Circle, they will also find something to bring in to the daily lives and the organization too. And yeah, I really feel grateful, when I say thank you to also The Circle Way, because without you, we will not help this batch, the course continuing on. Yeah. Thank you.
Sarah:
Thank you. Well, I will pick up the piece and say, I'm checking out with great joy. I feel so deeply connected to each one of you. And, it gives me such hope for the future. When we live in a world, filled with chaos and problems, and that we do have a way to deal with them and to be in community together, helping each other, lifting each other up. And thank you so much, for sharing your stories. I hold them in my heart, and I feel privileged to be in this Circle with you today.
Trang Nguyen
Trang is a curious being who loves to listen to people’s stories, to dream of what could become possible when different people come together. She’s a core member of Knowmads Hanoi, a social enterprise in alternative education, since its first day in 2013, and a part of Art of Hosting community in Vietnam since 2016. In 2018, Trang graduated from the Master of Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program in Sweden. Since then, she has spent most of her working time with the factories and organizations that want to cultivate collective intelligence and co-create a collaborative working culture where everyone can show up as their whole self. She serves at the intersection of corporate and community world. She’s also learning to be a tailor and a good human.
Phuong Bui
Phuong Bui is the co-founder of Healing Circles Vietnam Network - a network that fosters creating safe spaces to nurture healthy & inclusive conversations, and to assist organizations' transformation towards more human ways of working. Besides, she loves accompanying individuals in their self-healing and self-actualization journey.
Nam Pham
Nam designs processes that assist change on both a collective and individual level. He facilitates dialogues that embody participatory decision-making and co-creative leadership. His core method is The Circle Way process and his passion is about nurturing a community of dedicated The Circle Way practitioners in Viet Nam. He also coaches individuals who need support with important transitions that require a complex level of emotional growth. Nam is the co-founder of Healing Circles Vietnam Network, a certified Master Practitioner with the Centre for Holding Space and currently partnering as an assistant teacher/facilitator for the Holding Space Foundation Program.