Circles of One

I jus’ vanna be let alone…

Greta Garbo

Healing Circles Langley is a safe sanctuary…

Step outside the ordinary flow of time and treat yourself to quiet, reflection, and creative exploration of your own healing capacity.

Okay, so studies show we heal better in community, but where does that leave someone who doesn’t have a support structure? Or who has an exemplary support structure but just needs to get away from it once in a while? Or doesn’t even want outside support because what they’re going through is “too private”, or “too embarrassing”, or “really not that big of a deal and I don’t want to bother anyone with it”?

There’s nothing wrong with any of that.

Regardless of whether you are alone by choice or circumstance, Healing Circles Langley is a place where you can be alone to whatever degree and for however long you feel comfortable—or necessary. The volunteers staffing the facility can be anywhere on the scale between “available” and “invisible”, leaving you to explore and engage in your own healing at your own pace and on your own path.

Our “Circles of One” activities, materials, and spaces are designed with that in mind. Instead of finding yourself in a circle of fellow human beings, you are in a circle of everything that makes you human. Subpersonalities of transpersonal psychology? An organ recital? The li’l devil on one shoulder arguing with the angel on the other? Or just inner voices both insistent and reticent? It doesn’t matter what you call them. In the same way that a circle of many is a circle of one in our shared humanity, a circle of one is a circle of many, each with a valid voice that needs to be considered.

As in any circle, we listen to each voice with curiosity and compassion until there is either no more to be said or we reach a place of silence, at least for the moment. Then we see what, if anything, emerges. Mindfulness is one term for that. Sometimes we can be mindful in stillness. Other times there’s nothing more helpful for mindfulness than a mindless task to keep our hands and head busy while our heart goes off on a walk-about.