Using the One Pagers
The following exercises are designed to get us started exploring and discovering more about our world and the people in it using The Circle Tool. The goal here is not to find instant transformation but to come into a deeper view of the dynamics operating both within and around us. It is also about redefining and strengthening relationships—or knowing when a certain relationship is just not good for us.
Using The Circle Tool allows us to step back and get out of our heads for a moment to possibly get a different view of a pattern that just seems old and tired. Patterns become patterns because they have played out so many times that they have become wired into our neural networks.
The Circle Tool also is a gateway or first step into Systemic or Family Constellation Work. Many facilitators use “tabletop” constellations to better see the operating dynamics of a system. However, in Constellation Work we use real people within a live group to stand in as “representatives” of the various parts or people within a system. This leads to a much fuller experience of what facilitators have called “the knowing field.” This field is an active and energetic field that is generated by a system over many generations. The goal is to identify entanglements or hidden dynamics operating within a system.
The Circle Tool is a little cousin to this work but can also be very effective in showing these hidden dynamics once we learn to read and trust those energies.
For these first exercises, you don’t need to worry about the nested circles on the white part of the game board. This is a more advanced assessment tool that we will be helping facilitators use as the program develops. Just use the blank board for the exercises.
One primary goal of this Circle Tool process is to help you gain a stronger sense of Core Self. Because of the way we are brain wired, we are vulnerable to constant sensory triggers out there in the world that cause us to time travel back to an earlier time and place. When this happens, we often loose our “grown up” sense of self and begin acting like a much younger part of the self. We lose our resources, our voice, and our strength. It is so important to anchor your Core Self and put her or him in charge of all those younger selves caught in unhappy times.
When working with The Circle Tool, just begin by choosing an exercise and starting. Do it with yourself. Do it with your friends or family. Do it with your clients. Each session will add depth to your understanding and use of the tool.
Establish the practice of opening the board with a state of curiosity at what you might discover. Begin with letting go of overactive thoughts or activity from the day. Take a few breaths. Take your time. Depending on your own personal practices, you may want to use a journal to further explore what you saw in each session and to integrate any learning. If an action toward a desired outcome shows up—make a list and begin to act. Acting in new ways creates brand new neural networks for us to build on and go forward. Old patterning doesn’t survive in the face of new actions.
And don’t forget to bring into visibility the creative and playful parts of you. They have much to give. So have fun.
1. Relationships
Desired Outcomes
- Gaining a greater feel of “the knowing field”
- Learning to trust your intuitive, knowing self and not just your brain.
- Understanding more about the qualities you desire in your own self.
- Practice being specific with your language and naming of “states of being”
The Exercise
Consider for a moment the many teachers, counselors and mentors you have had along the path to who you are today. If you could name just 3 qualities that they shared what would those words be?
1.
2.
3.
Now open The Circle Tool Board to the open field side and place a figure for you . . . and one for one of your main teachers. As you do so, allow any sensory memories, sensations etc. come into the field and into the representatives.
Let the two figures stand for a moment and consider your relationship to that person. Feel free to move closer, move around, and move either figure in any direction. Notice any feelings that come up as you are doing so.
Now, using the small blocks, give names to some of the qualities that you have gained from your teacher. Place them around you however close feels right. Pay close attention to how those qualities have become a part of who you are.
Are there qualities that you are still working on but haven’t fully integrated yet? What are they?
What actions have you taken to gain those qualities? Be specific.
Integration
When you are ready, remove all the objects from the board. Take a moment to integrate whatever learning you have taken from the session. Is there more information you would like to discover?
2, Challenging Relationships
Desired Outcomes
- Gain a stronger sense of the moving dynamics in relationships
- Understand how personal history can drive emotion and lock in old patterns
- Attend to the memories and impressions that come quickly into the neural networks.
- Look for resources and actions that could change the dynamics of this relationships
- Practice being specific with your language and naming of “states of being”
The Exercise
Open The Circle Tool board to the blank side. Take a moment to let yourself relax into a curious and expectant state, releasing any busy brain stuff from the day. Breathe.
Consider a relationship that you find challenging or confusing. This could be a family member, friend, or coworker.
Choose one figure to represent yourself and one to represent the person you want to do discovery with. Set both up on the board. Be sure to stay clear in your mind who is who. Use the small design on the figures to indicate forward motion or where that person is looking.
What are the active dynamics here? Old history, an event, a tone of voice? What makes this relationship challenging? As words or impressions come to mind, place a block or another figure to represent each thing that comes to mind. Place that element in relationship to the two representatives on the board.
As you do so, notice any feeling, sensations, additional memories etc. that come to mind. Just observe them without judgement as if you were viewing them from atop a hillside.
If any other people are a part of this dynamic, choose a figure to represent them.
Once you have let the representatives stand for a moment, ask yourself, what is it that I want or need in this relationship?
Again use the blocks to represent things that come to mind. Place them close to you.
Then ask, what is it that this other person might need in this relationship. Place blocks to represent anything that comes to mind and place them close to the figure representing the other person.
Integration
Now just take in the full picture that has unfolded on the board. Feel free to move pieces around, add resources, or move completely away. What is it that feels right to you? Trust the movements. Ask yourself what am I holding on to that I could let go of? Is there an action I can take to relieve or resolve this situation? Understand that you may not be able to “fix” this relationship but you can gain a new view of it.
3. Relationship with the Self
Desired Outcomes
- Understand conflict dynamics between parts of the self
- Bring into view hidden needs or desires that may be blocking progress
- Align opposing parts of self when possible to integrate a stronger self
- Begin to see and strengthen a sense of Core Self that can mediate between opposing parts.
The Exercise
Consider for a moment two parts of you that may seem to be at war with one another. They want different things and yet they “both” live in your body. We often feel this tug of war around health, weight, motivation toward a goal etc. We want one thing—another part of us wants something else.
Open The Circle Tool board to the blank side. Take a few breaths and let go of any busy thoughts from the day. Actively let yourself enter a state of curiosity and openness about what you might see on the board.
Give the two parts of you a simple name and choose a figure to represent each one. Place them on the board in relationship to one another. Let this movement be intuitive and not from the top of your head.
Take in what you see. Feel free to test movements around the board bringing the figures closer or moving them away from each other. Which one feels “stronger?” Is one dominant? Does either one feel like they are a younger you? Do any memories or impressions float up into your mind as you consider each part?
Just look. And notice. Give it some time.
As you are viewing this from above, notice how you feel about each part of yourself. Is there anger, sadness, frustration—what do you feel?
Now take another wooden figure to represent the “real” you. This is the Core Self that is full of resources, understanding, experience and even wisdom. We will be working with this Core Self in many of the exercise with the board. It helps to declare her age. “This is the me that is fully adult at ____ years of age.
Now place her on the board with the two parts that are in conflict. What does she see? How does she respond? Are there any actions she wants to take? How would she mediate the conflict?
Let any responses that feel right come in. If there is any urge to “do away with” a part, then further work is needed. Don’t throw them off the bridge. Just notice it.
Integration
When you have taken it in fully, then remove the pieces and close the board. Let yourself rest and integrate what you have seen and any resources that could be brought in or any action that might be taken to align these two parts of yourself with one another.
4. Whole Self Discovery Session—The Inner Constellation
Desired Outcomes
- Recognize that our inner dynamics contain multiple and sometimes opposing parts of self
- Bring into view the hidden and the most prominent parts of our self
- Establish a “boss” or Core Self as the center of this constellation.
- Align opposing parts of self when possible around the Core Self
The Exercise
For this exercise, your goal is to bring into full view the many and complex parts of you. You will find the parts hidden in your experience of daily life. The parts you are frustrated with, judgmental of, weary of, angry at or in love with. Use a sentence like this to identify parts. “I am tired of the part of me that ________.” Or “I love the part of me that ________.”
We will not attempt to “resolve” anything but just to fully see our depth and complexity. Work quickly with whatever comes to mind as you do this exercise.
Open The Circle Tool Board to the blank side. Let your inner self recognize and bring into awareness your many parts. Choose one figure or block to represent each part giving them a quick name and remembering which part is which as you lay them out.
As you do this, notice how you feel about the menagerie that is you.
Do you like them all?
Do you wish some were different then they are?
Are you angry at any?
Do you notice a specific younger age attached to any of them?
Have you named only the ones that cause you problems or do you have the creative and playful parts of you on the board as well?
Which parts are you friends with or just plain like?
When you have given yourself time to consider the many parts, then take one more figure to represent your “Core Self” and place her on the board. Notice any changes or feelings that you get.
Integration
Do nothing to change any of them at this point. Just be aware, accept, bring it in, and have the Core Self let them know that she has her eyes on them. She is watching.
