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?
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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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like I don't want to do the thing that circling seems to be for in the first place, and I don't trust most people (including most though not all of my actual friends) with this kind of rawness
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you don't have to be raw; a lot of times i've been in circles where i trust nobody with my vulnerable feelings, and *that's* what i share - I'm like "I don't trust you with my vulnerable feelings, I don't want to disclose what's going on with me"
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I guess I don't really grok what the point of that is? like why you would want to do it? but I accept that it's different viscerally than it is to describe, many such cases after all
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Because I learn things about myself in these situations. When I don't want to be vulnerable and I'm closed up, I sit there listening to ppl talk and react to me and I watch my insides do really interesting things and I learn more about my guard and my boundaries.
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It's also a *really* great place to safely explore more touchy things; as in I've learned a lot about how to communicate anger because I get to feel angry a lot in circles and explore how I want to deal with that, which helps prepare me for it happening irl
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It's like - meditating gets you really familiar with yourself, and that's often quite useful. Circling is meditation on interaction with others; I get to catch and watch a bunch of parts of me that typically are glossed over or happen so briefly i wouldn't have noticed otherwise
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as a note, I've noticed experienced meditators are actually quite bad at circling, which surprised me. I think 'meditating on yourself' and 'meditating on yourself in connection with others' are two skills that don't easily translate