Principles

The most powerful circles are made up of women doing the work.

​

We have been conditioned for years to compete with each other, bitch about each other and call each other out and the circle is an invitation to leave all of that behind and instead learn to elevate each other, celebrate each other and call each other in.​

 

It feels important to me, particularly as a white woman in these spaces, to honour and give thanks to the varied and diverse cultural lineage of the women's circle.

​

I do not take lightly the responsibility of carrying this tradition forwards and do my best to honour the many communities that have continued to honour women's spaces through time.

​

'White supremacy, a powerful idea, in operation around the world, erases other cultural practices in multiple different ways. For us Red Tents [another word for women's circles] are part of how we can build alternative cultural practices that can help us to address these things and in doing so to acknowledge that nothing is really new. We are aware that in many Indigenous cultures, women have held on to traditions that have helped them support one another and themselves in ways that most women in the white British culture we know best largely have not. And so, in creating Red Tent spaces we may be calling back to traditions our ancestors had but which we, as white women, can no longer remember clearly. Meanwhile, we may deliberately or inadvertently be borrowing from cultures that have preserved women's traditions in ways that constitute cultural appropriation - where we take a practice as our own without acknowledgement or accountability.'

~ Red Tent, Mary Ann Clements & Aisha Hannibal

​

Here are the principles of our circles:

​

Do the Work

When we ​are committed to meeting our shadows with love and acceptance we are more likely to do the same for others and this creates deep unshakable bonds and feelings of being welcome.

​

When we are committed to being actively anti-racist and to unearthing our unconscious biases, understanding our privilege, seeing our blindspots, learning about the perspectives of others and educating ourselves we start to create the foundations of a welcoming space for all.

​

One of our many gifts is that of our lioness like ability to love fiercely and deeply and to protect the ones we love and to expand this capacity to our wider human and animal community makes the world a safer and more inclusive space for all.

​

Radical Acceptance of Self and Others

In circle others hold up a mirror to us so that we see that all we admire in others is already with in us and that often the things that challenge us most in others are the things that we find most challenging about ourselves and have suppressed, rejected and hidden away (sometimes people are just harmful though of course). 

​

A circle is a space to meet yourself and others in wholeness as integrated human beings in all of our darkness and our light and everything in between.

​

Elevate and Celebrate

The direct opposite of our cultural narrative of stepping on others to succeed is elevating and celebrating others to connect.

​

We have an innate capacity to see the beauty and abundance all around us and when we broaden this to include one another we nurture neural pathways of joy, gratitude and upliftment.

​

There's nothing quite as powerful as a group of women who have joined forces and made a commitment to meet their shadows, unpick their conditioning and lift each other up

 

These circles are spaces of elevation and celebration from which I hope you will leave feeling seen, held, support, uplifted and crowned in your rightful queendom.

 

Rainforest 

One of the barriers to celebration and elevation can be the limiting belief that we must compete to thrive. 

​

Many of us have been raised to believe there are finite resources and that to survive and thrive is to compete and sure there are definitely finite resources, the planet is not a bottomless pit of giving but to shift to an abundance mindset is to shift from competing to cooperating and draws us away from separation and individualism into community and connection.

​

I often hear people speak of the market being saturated in various areas but I just don't believe it.

​

In the rainforest there is such fierce competition for resources that the creatures and plants have to diversify to survive and I feel like here in Milton Keynes we have a beautiful rainforest of offerings. The huge number of yoga, meditation and circle offerings means that there's something for everyone and I trust that everyone will find their place and their people. 

​

Truth 

Life has taught us that some subjects are off limits and that certain emotions are not welcome.

 

Women's circles are an invitation to undo this conditioning and offer a space to practice showing up as we are whether joyful, grieving, raging, celebrating, exhausted, quiet, overwhelmed, afraid, proud, wracked with guilt, full of shame or so anxious we can barely speak.

 

Whatever you are feeling I can assure you you are not alone.

​

In my years of facilitating circles, every time a woman shares their deepest darkest secrets full of fear and insecurity or something that is weighing heavy on her heart, or something so painful she can barely let the words come out, other women in that space share parts of their story too and feel so seen and full of deep relief. It really is no small thing.

​

Anything and everything you wish to share in circle is welcome, there are absolutely no taboo subjects. This includes: periods, menopause, abortion, sexual violence, domestic violence, anger, drug use and anything else that society has deemed unacceptable.