Sacred Men's Circle

Below are the Men's Circle ethos and agreements, please read these before attending your first call.

Men's Circle Ethos

To facilitate the mental/emotional/spiritual growth of men's circle  members and create a container in which deep, profound healing,  connection and growth can occur.

Sacred Men's Circle Agreements

Commitment to Container Integrity

Conversations held within the Sacred Men's Circle are confidential and not to be repeated outside of the container.  Only with the express and explicit permission of all parties involved  should things discussed be shared. This creates a safe arena in which we  can explore the deepest parts of our experiences as individuals without  fearing public judgement.

Commitment to Showing Up

Please recognize that being fully present for as many of the Zoom  calls as possible creates depth in the bonds between us and breeds  vulnerability. A lack of showing up to calls can create negative  emotions or feelings that someone is only showing up when they need  something, and not showing up equally for their fellow community members

Commitment to Mutual Growth

This is a container for our mutual  mental/spiritual/emotional/physical growth. As such, the impetus is on  each of us the show up as best we can not only for ourselves, but also  for the others in the group. This materializes as being fully present,  doing the inner work in between calls, being loving but firm with fellow  members, and committing ourselves to honest vulnerable communication.

Container Guidelines & Structure

Presence & Timeliness

To maintain the relative flow of these conversations the Zoom calls  will be locked after the first 15 minutes from the planned start time.  It’s expected that members will try to commit at least 1 full hour where they are able to be fully present for these conversations.

Meeting Structure

Each meeting will be scheduled for roughly 1.5 hours in length. The  first 30 mins - 1 hour of the call will be “check-ins” during which we  will go around to each member and give them a chance to express how they  are doing in the moment and share any difficulties they are  encountering. The second half of the call we will circle back to a few  of the men who are currently struggling the most and dive deeper on what  is going on for them.

Types of Shares & Feedback Guidelines

The goal of this container is to provide a safe arena for expression  of vulnerability, and an opportunity to feel seen/felt/heard. During the  second half of the call, when a participant is sharing more deeply,  they should specifically designate which of the types of feedback  (listed below) they would like to receive.

1) Open Space - The sharer speaks until they feel  complete in their expression without any feedback or exchange from other  members. The goal of this style of speaking is simply to be seen/heard  without judgement. When the speaker is done talking they will say “I’m  complete” to indicate that they have finished.

2) Reflections - The sharer receives reflections  from the other men such as “when you said _____ , I felt _____” or “when  you said ____ , I noticed ____”.

3) Questions - The sharer speaks their piece and  then opens the floor to questions to help him dive deeper into his felt  experience. This is not an opportunity to hijack the focus or to give  advice, but rather an opportunity to shine light on the speaker and help  them to illuminate any blindspots.

4) Advice - Ideally the least used style of  communication, advice should be given only when asked for. Advice is  best delivered in the format of personal, relatable experience “When I  experienced that same thing, here is what got me through the negative  feelings…” rather than impersonal prescriptive advice such as “check out  this podcast” or “you should do XYZ”. There will still be moments where  prescriptive advice makes sense, but I invite us all as men to do our  best to not default to advice

5) Requests - An ask of the group. For example "What I could use would be someone checking in on me about my objective over the next week."