the biggest first shift for me was discovering rationality. being introduced to techniques on how to think more clearly really leveled me up a lot.
The second shift was circling - specifically CE style surrendered leadership. It is *immensely* valuable to me
Conversation
and it's also kinda hard to describe how in
the same way it's hard to describe how rationality is useful on an intuitive or 'grokking' level.
It gave me the ability to become much more aware and ongoingly accepting of myself in connection with others
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which sounds maybe simple or elementary but i've been circling for 2 years and i'm still constantly learning important things about myself every time I do it
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also i am generally extremely allergic to all sort of hippie interpersonal feelings oriented stuff. I don't like authentic relating games, or anything structured, or any of those burn workshops where you feel into your body and pair up or whatever. I friggin hate that. willies.
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but circling *accepts* me hating that. I can loudly, aggressively, express how much I hate it, and I have total freedom to push back against any of it inside the circle. And I often do! It's weirdly the *safest* feeling activity I've done - it accepts all of me
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i feel like i should say, after hating on it, that i actually think circling is really good for the people it's good for, i have seen the positive emotional effects it can have, i just have an allergic reaction to it for reasons i can maybe semi-explain
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yea i also wanna say I don't think circling is for everyone, some ppl just don't jive with it, get it, enjoy it, or learn from it, and that's totally fine - it's vaguely similar to psychedelics imo.
but also interested in hearing the semi explanation
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any structure designed to make me feel free and expressive typically makes me feel un-free and muted -- i understand social freedom to be not "no constraints" but "mutual understanding that constraint violation is fine, but they're still there to riff on and default to"
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alessia once told me, when we were dancing at the luna loft, to "loosen up" -- but my jerky movements were my looseness, goddamn it
seems related, along with my feeling that the nude photo shoot at the castle, while fun, was also kind of hokey
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by "no constraints" i just mean "no normal constraints," i understand that circling has its own constraints, and i do think there are arguments to be made for them
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the impression i get out of this is something like; a deep suspicion that people are lying to themselves; trying to get somewhere; holding an ideal version and judging what's not that without owning it; top-down modification of interaction being flawed cause it's top-down?
like; if circling wanted to do itself in our conversations then it would have been done already; thus circling does not want to do itself, and trying to do what does not want to be done is artifice?
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idk how well this comports with Sasha's experience / feelings but my revulsion to this is mostly based on a gut-level belief that induced intimacy is dangerous
or it's probably just personality and that's my rationalization, which is kinda the same anyway
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