Articles
What to Expect at Your First Speaking Circle®
Speaking Circles are the result of my lifelong journey from severe stage fright to absolute ease and joy whenever I stand before a group. A Speaking Circle consists of up to 10 people, often ranging from newcomers with some performance anxiety – or a lot – to...
Relational Stillness: Somatic Way in to Relational Presence
When you are right in the heart of your still center, you are a person around whom real magic can happen. ~Richard Rudd I'd never been able to sit still. I was the squirmy kid in class, at the dinner table, in the office. I was diagnosed as hyperactive decades before...
The Power of Essence Listening
Developmental psychologists point out that the range of expression available to a child depends on the nature of the listening in their immediate environment. If the listening is receptive and respectfully curious, it evokes the full range of curiosity and wonder in...
The Nature of Essence Appreciation
After a person’s second turn up front (five minutes in most Speaking Circles) listeners have the opportunity to give brief positive feedback in the form of what we call “essence appreciation.” Newcomers are asked to just listen and abstain from chiming in because what...
Relational Presence Basic Tools
Relational Presence or RP is the state of listening with another beyond agenda, words, personality, effort. It is not itself engagement or making a connection, but rather a state of neutral availability for connection with no demand for it. Connection tends to arise...
Public Speaking: The Dance of Attunement
In the article The Gaze of Attunement last year here, I made the connection between brain science and the potency of Relational Presence practice for public speaking. I wrote that if our mom or dad didn't gaze back with loving availability when we started locking into...
Relational Stillness Partner Guidelines
Ideally, Stillness Partners are introduced to the modality by another pair of Stillness Partners who are skilled in the practice. If you are starting the practice without such assistance, our recommendation is for one partner to take responsibility for overseeing and...
The Paradox of Time
"There have been countless ingenious technological innovations the past 200 years, in the last 50 years especially, all designed to save us time. Remarkable inventions. Somehow, the result has been that nobody has any time left. Why? What is that all about?" --Dr....
Speaking Circles®
Learn how to move through stage fright rather than trying to mask it by sharing who you really are.