Stand in the Circle
For everyone who knows we can't keep doing this alone.
Something is shifting. In living rooms and walking groups and WhatsApp threads and book clubs. In the people who have stopped pretending they're fine. In the friends who have stopped saying "I'm good, you?" and started telling each other the truth. In the way more of us are saying out loud what we have known for a long time: this isn't working. The way we have been asked to live is not the way we are meant to live.
The map we were given was wrong. Compete harder. Heal alone. Manage your wellness. Keep going. Don't be a burden. Buy the thing. Optimise yourself. Trust the institutions. We followed it for as long as we could, and what we got was an epidemic of loneliness, a generation of burnout, normalised structural violence, bodies and lives treated as disposable, a planet on fire, and a longing for integrity and care for all life to be returned to the centre of how we live.
So we are putting that map down.
We are remembering an older shape. The circle. People facing each other instead of facing forward. Power moving around instead of up. Vulnerability worth more than performance. Listening worth more than speaking. The question shifting from how am I doing to how are we doing.
For the vast majority of human history, healing was something we did together. When someone was suffering, the community held them. When someone was grieving, the community grieved with them. When someone broke open, witnesses gathered. There were elders who had been there before. There were songs and rituals and circles. Community was not a wellness add-on, it was the ground we lived from. The pyramid shape of modern culture: the hoarding of power at the top, the fragmentation below, the loneliness, the privatised pain, is a recent experiment, and it is not who we are.
We are remembering who we are.
Stand in the Circle is the name I give to the work of that remembering. It is a rallying call. To stand in the circle with ourselves, by practicing honesty and integrity. To stand in the circle with each other, by building communities of care. To stand in the circle with the living world, by remembering we are part of it. Standing in the circle is a different posture and orientation to life. It is bringing the circle back.
The physicist Ilya Prigogine wrote: "When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order."
All those who choose to stand in the circle are creating an island of coherence, together. The political scientist Erica Chenoweth's research shows that only 3.5% of a population standing together is enough to bring about real change.
So stand in the circle with us. Bring your friends.
Ways to Step Into the Circle
Free Webinar
A 60-minute introduction to the work, available to watch any time. I go deeper into the research on connectedness, show you the three levels of standing in the circle, teach you a daily practice, and introduce you to the ACER community where connecting to self, community and nature becomes a way of life. You'll leave with your own connectedness score on a research-validated scale I developed at Imperial College London, two pieces of original music for the start and end of your day, and a printable pocket guide. And you'll receive a discount on ACER if you decide to apply.
Stand in the Circle Podcast
Stand in the Circle is a podcast for all of us walking through the experiences of being human, and looking for the village we were never given. Each month, four weekly episodes explore the places that are hard to travel through alone. Depression. Cancer. Menopause. Addiction. Grief. Burnout. Solo episodes from me, stories from people in the ACER community who have been there, conversations with psychedelic researchers and other practitioners, and answers to your questions.
Stand in the Circle Keynote Event
Stand in the Circle is hitting the road. Jin Ros for a one-hour talk that walks through the manifesto, the practice, and the call. In person and online events throughout the year.
ACER Integration
ACER is the year-long online community where Stand in the Circle becomes a way of life, and we walk the circle path together.