043 Mitle Southey: Planning Your Circle

Hello and welcome! I am Mitlé Southey. I’m an intuitive guide, Circle Holder and founder of Circle School. I’m on a mission to help as many women as possible to experience the transformative power of circles. A big part of that is mentoring women to step into the role of circle holder and also supporting women to really embrace the principles of circle, throughout their lives and businesses. On that bigger vision, I hold a space for where circles can be used throughout our institutions, businesses, in politics, and anywhere else people gather and have to communicate, connect and collaborate. This podcast is part of a series where I talk about the curriculum of Circle School, and more importantly, give you an insight into what we explore, discuss and learn in Circle School. My hope is that by listening to this podcast episode, you’ll find there are many takeaways for you, to support you on your journey with circles.  Whether that is to hold women’s circles as part of your business or within your community.  Whether that is to embrace the principles of circle with your family and friends and how you interact with them. Or whether it is to bring circles to a wider community. EnergeticsFirstly, when we talk about planning, we start off with energetics and we always come back to that place. Really tuning into the circle. In an earlier podcast (You as a Circle Holder) I talked about connecting to the soul, the spirit, the essence of your circle. And reminding yourself that you are in circle with her (the soul of your circle), creating this circle. So you allow yourself to be guided. Part of the energetic preparation is connecting with her. And taking time to visualise your circle in as much detail as you possibly can, and letting that guide you. You may wish to sit down with pen and paper and write or draw, and really heart-storm out how you see your circle. Use your visualisation, your imagination and then take that to your next stage of planning. Your vision is really important. So draw on that vision. Draw on your experience of other circles and other sacred gatherings. Draw on your modalities and what you would like to share in that circle. Draw on your own personal rituals and ceremonies and how you can share those in circle. Get as clear a picture as possible as you start your preparation. Don’t be confined by any notions of how it should be. Allow it to be as it wishes to be. Allow yourself to be guided by whatever is coming through. Topics and ThemesThe second part of planning is looking at topics and themes. I actually get asked quite often for outlines. It’s not something I offer, because I encourage you to tune in so deeply with that spirit of your circle and to be guided by your own vision. There is plenty of scope to build your circle around a particular topic or theme. Women sometimes worry that they’ll run out of ideas. In my experience, you will never run out of ideas. You could probably hold a circle on the same topic, on the same theme, multiple times, and each time it would be different. So just know that you will not run out of ideas for your circles. Or if you do, you can just rerun one you’ve already run, because it will be different every time. Format and OutlineThere is an idea out there that the format or outline for your circle should be different every time. That’s not necessarily true. It may be true for you, and if so I would ask you to examine that.  Look deeper and discover what is driving you to change it every time. I also invite you to remember that when you are holding space for women, we are inviting women to become very intimate with one another, and we are creating a safe space where we will be sharing and exploring themes. Sometimes the themes may be shadowy or taboo. The familiarity of a regular structure can really help us to feel safe. If every time we come to your circle, it’s completely different, there is a level where we may be a little bit ...

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