Creating Time Boundaries in Circle
Facilitating women's groups can be challenging. It is definitely not for the uninitiated or unprepared and if you think you've been initiated and that you're prepared? A women's group will often sweep that right out the door.
I talk a lot about the source wounding for women in Western culture and maybe I'll wander down that path in a minute, or maybe not, but right now I want to focus on dysregulated nervous systems and the drive to over talk. It is a specific category of issues that arise in spaces where women circle.
We all know her, the Overtalker. I'll bet you can picture her in your mind right now, that one woman who will always breathe up all of the air in the room, the one who is so unconscious that she will use up all of the time and space and not leave anything for the rest of the women. Or maybe she’s on a huge ego trip and believes that she is offering a lot of value to the women she’s in circle with. That’s a woman in a power struggle dynamic with the facilitator whether either of them recognize it or not.
Maybe we've been her. I know I have at times. The things that arise could feel like: being activated, triggered, ragged, exhausted, dissociated, nervous, feeling like we have to prove our worth in order to be there or to be included, feeling less than, unsafe, untrusting...these are some of the ways that the particular wound can feel from the inside for the woman who just goes on. And on.
And this is why I use a timer.
The first time (and the second and the third) I was pretty annoyed. I was in circle with Anyaa McAndrew, my teacher and friend. Why on Earth would the facilitator set a timer and only allot a certain, specific amount of time for us to use in our check in? Well, now I get it.
If we are in circle for a day and we have an agenda and X number of things on the agenda, the check in or Talking Circle needs to have a certain amount of space and not much more. If we have 60 minutes and 20 women who will be checking in, each woman gets 3 minutes. If one woman takes 30 minutes? We have a problem.
That's the thing with being in circle and loose facilitation, that one person could talk for 30 minutes about herself and that actually causes harm to every other woman in the circle. Who knows what else is going on? We will never know because one person has taken the bulk of the time and left very little for anyone else. It's possible that several women won't even use up the allotted 3 minutes, but some of them are going to need every second of those 3 minutes because they have some stuff going on that needs sharing. More than that, every single women sitting in a circle is equal. And every one of them deserves an equal amount of space to share or not share.
One of the most potent things I’ve ever done was in a girls circle where I set the timer and if a girl chose not to speak, we simply sat in the silence, holding space for her for that amount of time.
Time matters. Even in spiritual or somewhat spiritual spaces, time matters. Even when we think that time is a construct or that time is layered over itself, time matters in this world. We are living in a 3D realm that runs on a schedule. We get tired and need sleep. We need to move our bodies. We can only *hold so much space for one person*, especially if we aren't being paid to hold that space. It is too much to ask a client, in a circle, to hold the space and to give hers up, so that one unconscious (or selfish) person can breathe in all of the air in the room.
I don't want anyone to suffocate, so I use a timer.
Recently I was in circle with Amina Peterson for an Erotic Breathwork training. She talked about the importance of respecting everyone's time and ending her class on schedule. I have never before heard anyone address this but I have *totally* felt trapped in a class before while receiving that 'value added' extra 30 or more minutes of teaching (which I didn't want or need, which was too much after a full day, which my body and nervous system could not absorb because I had already received to maximum capacity.)
Those words? The ones about respecting and valuing the time of the folks in circle? Really landed in my body. I felt so seen, not in a personal way but in a collective way. There was truth and clarity and simplicity there and it nourished me and everyone in the room. <chef's kiss>
There is a time and place for everything and I would highly recommend that those of us who need extra time and attention to process do that by booking a one-on-one coaching session with the person we are working with.
So many women struggle to take up *any* space at all. It can come as a real surprise when someone shows up and models Bigness for us. It's a beautiful model and also one that a strong facilitator can provide boundaries for, so that the bigness doesn't overwhelm the flow of the group.
Now you know one of my Big Secrets and if you come into circle with me, you know to expect this: boundaries; a timer. And, of course, if there is something that needs to be processed or if a woman needs another minute or two? We flow with it. I am not rigid, I am boundaried. For you. For the people who sit with me in circle. This is just one of the ways in which I create safety.
It is actually kind of funny, isn't it? A timer. On my Iphone. Not always only 3 minutes.
It's been almost a year now since I decided to take a sabbatical from facilitating circles. There were a lot of reasons for it but I think the largest one was that I really needed to settle some wisdom down into my bones. To root into the safety and truth of my inner knowing/gnowing after a few bumpy years. Pandemic and menopause and changing lifestyle and relationships were a lot. But I’m coming back now, realizing how deeply I need to bring this Priestess Path and the Magdalene Mysteries to women and the world. This healing, nourishing, beauty way. This work, my Mystery School.
(Image is Chelse Ann Widen’s, from the Emergence of her circle.)
