Open Circle

Across communities, organizations, recovery programs, mentoring relationships, and change initiatives, people are supporting each other to navigate some of life’s most difficult transitions.

A person stays sober one more day.
A young person meets the challenges of adulthood.
A community responds to crisis.
A team innovates as they navigate unknown territory in a changing environment
A  leader navigates broken systems and institutional decay

In all of these situations, the  transformation required to meet the transition depends on relationship to self, others and the world.

And wherever relationship exists, power is present.

Not only positional power, but the power of experience, expertise, charisma, vulnerability, culture, identity, authority, and influence.

Much of the work of mentoring, facilitation, coaching, leadership, and community building involves navigating these dynamics well. Yet power is often the least discussed part of transformational work.

Many of us are drawn to circles, peer-to-peer support, participatory leadership, and collaborative approaches because they offer alternatives to the hierarchical systems that are not providing the deeper connection needed to be resilient and move through change well.

But every form including the circle and the peer to peer relationship has a shadow.

What happens when participation masks influence?

When helping becomes control?

When vulnerability becomes coercive?

When new structures inherit the same assumptions about power as the systems they were created to replace?

And how do we step into our own power in ways that support growth, accountability, agency, and transformation?

This training explores how trust, power, and participation shape transformation.

Together we will investigate:

✔ The many forms of power operating in groups, organisations, mentoring relationships, and communities
✔ How to recognise and work with hidden power dynamics before they become toxic
✔ The shadow side of peer support, participation, inclusion, and consensus
✔ How to use your own experience in service of others without making their journey about you
✔ The balance between support and accountability
✔ Working with conflict, resistance, and uncertainty during periods of change
✔ How to create conditions where people can exercise their own agency rather than become dependent on guidance
✔ What it means to guide transformation while remaining part of the process yourself

You will walk away with the capacity to:

✔ See power more clearly in peer to peer relationships, groups, and systems you are working within
✔ Step into your own authority without becoming controlling or over-responsible
✔ Use circle-based principles to build trust, connection, and accountability
✔ Hold difficult conversations without rushing to fix, rescue, or collapse into conflict
✔ Support people through change while strengthening their agency and participation
✔ Recognise when an individual or group is reproducing old patterns under the surface of new language
✔ Work more consciously with vulnerability, influence, status, and responsibility
✔ Apply practical tools in the way you mentor, facilitate, and guide change

Logistics

Date: August 22 and 23: 9am - 5pm

Location: Topa institute,
9739 Ojai Santa Paula Rd
Ojai, CA 93023

Price: $595 

Included in this training is the "Introduction to the Listening Circle”  on demand listening circle training. For those who have not trained in listening circle or council this is a compulsory pre requisite to this workshop.

The online component takes around 3-4 hours to complete and needs to be completed prior to attendance.