What changes when the subject of a conversation is no longer something outside us

but the relationship happening between us now?

In this conversation with Guy Sengstock, co-founder of the relational practice known as Circling, we explore how ordinary conversation can become a doorway into presence, self-awareness, and genuine human connection.

Circling emerged not as a planned system, but through a group of friends noticing that certain conversations were changing them. By turning their attention toward the subtle dynamics unfolding in real time, they began making the normally invisible field of relationship visible.

Most conversations have a familiar structure:

There is me. There is you. And there is the thing we are discussing.

Circling gently changes the centre of gravity.

The conversation itself becomes the subject. The relationship becomes something we can feel, examine, and inhabit together.

Guy reflects on the origins of the practice, its growth into communities around the world, and why relational work feels increasingly necessary in an age where technology is reshaping how we meet, speak, and experience one another.

In this conversation, we explore:

* How Circling emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area

* The movement from social performance into relational presence

* Why ordinary conversation can become transformational

* The invisible interpersonal dynamics present whenever people gather

* How relationships are usually mediated through external topics

* What happens when the relationship itself becomes the conversation

* The effects of technological change on human connection

* The difference between talking about experience and meeting it together

Perhaps being seen is not simply having another person understand our story.

Perhaps it begins when both people become willing to notice what is alive between them

before it disappears back beneath the words.

Explore Guy Sengstock’s work

Continue exploring Circling through the Circling Institute:

Self-study Circling courses:https://circlinginstitute.com/self-study-programs/

Live courses and programs:https://circlinginstitute.com/programs/

Contact Guy:[email protected]

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