a guide to building share circles - spiritual and meditation groups for your community

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IntroductionWe need to start making Share Circles. Badly. We need local groups that support our urge to change, that share the need to talk or sit in the peace of the moment simply in awe of who we are. Our communities do not have such places. We must build them.

We have to start doing something different. All the normal things we do to create change haven’t worked. They just reflect our current reality from minds trained to find comfort in what already exists. If we are to commit to creating real change in our lives then nothing less than an evolution of human consciousness is necessary; from a consciousness that is capable of such hatred, greed and selfishness, to one that realizes the potential for genuine happiness within every human spirit.

Why do we accept so much suffering in our lives as background noise, collateral damage and ‘a part of everyday life’? Just because suffering has become normal doesn't make it unavoidable. We just have to learn to create happiness and accept nothing less.

Suffering is a warning about the type of change you need. It is a like an email from your subconsciousness to your consciousness: from you to you. Physical suffering, mental suffering, energetic suffering or spiritual suffering; each reflects the other and as it manifests it reflects the severity of the warning. Sickness and death are just the final warnings. If we can expand our awareness of how the messages from our mind, body and energy systems feel and what they mean, we create the opportunity of choice - to repeat the same patterns that created our current reality, or evolve by learning new ways to create new patterns. If we do not create the awareness, we simply keep repeating the same patterns.

The process of evolution is one where a species selects options that create desirable change. Darwin didn’t realize that natural selection, in humanity in particular, was also dependent upon freewill. We have the power to choose whether to evolve away from patterns that cause sickness and misery and evolve into patterns that create genuine happiness and wellbeing.

Do you dare to evolve?

It is April 2010 right now, and I am writing this introduction from Phuket, Thailand while Red Shirts rampage through the streets of Bangkok and fight murderous bloody battles with armed troops, all for a political point. It doesn’t work. It never has. All it does is shift the political power around like bumps in an uncomfortable mattress.

We need a new mattress.

There is no longer any point in revolting against the powers that be. It is counterproductive to anyone seeking genuine happiness. It just creates more of

Have you ordered your copy of Mike’s Book yet? “Provolution – A Guide to Changing the World Through Personal Evolution” is available now. If you found this free guide useful, please support Michael and his work by visiting his website www.provolutioncenter.com and visiting Mike’s Book Page. Pick up a copy of “Provolution” and help change the world by changing your own. Thank you.

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http://www.provolutioncenter.com




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the anger, hatred and distrust that fuels and expands the very suffering we are trying to strip from our lives. But there is also no longer an excuse to sit on the fence and watch the world polarize into forces that will fight for the last scraps of the illusion that is destroying us all.

You have to create your own force for genuine happiness if you want to be free.

The will to change comes from within. If you seek real change, you must be prepared to change your diary first and foremost, shifting your daily routine so that everything else is less significant than your effort to change you and become someone that no longer reflects the patterns you are trying to escape. The motivation for your own transformation must become, not a matter of debate, time or negotiation by the inner you struggling between what seems important and what is really important. Your personal mission to attain genuine happiness must become the unstoppable force and immovable mass around which your entire day revolves without question.

We have all spent far too long succumbing to the excuses of modern people; the lack of time, the pressing engagements and trivia, the reasons for making no real difference to the pain we smother with the rush for pleasure and excitement. Believe me when I say that the world is on the cusp of an epoch where your decision to become a catalyst for change is as important as Oppenheimer’s scientists constructing the nuclear trigger. The difference is that, if you choose to change, the fallout from your realization will be an explosion of peace.

This manual is a description of Share Circles, why we need them, how you can set one up and what to do when you’ve created one. Share Circles are a way to reset your routine and for anybody who wants to do so to get involved in their own process of change. They happen on your terms, on your turf, at your time and in your way. There are no more excuses for why we cannot, don’t know how to or do not have the resources.

All you need is this manual. And it’s free.

You have dreamt of change. You have imagined it. You have debated how, why, what, where and when. Yet the world still awaits it.

Stop talking. Start sharing.

Evolve now.





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Why do we need Share Circles?What are you seeking in life? Is it contentment? Is it comfort? Is it pleasure? For the sake of argument, let’s just call it ‘genuine happiness’. Your journey in life is one of understanding what genuine happiness is and how it can be attained. The thing is, as you look about your life and your society, what support structures are at your disposal to help you do that? What structures currently exist in our societies that take your search for genuine happiness as seriously as you should?

Is it religion? Well, one of the essential requirements of genuine happiness is to attain peace but there is not much peace found in the way we practice our world religions, is there? Let’s just take Christianity as an example: did you know there are more than 34,000 Christian denominations1? By their very nature, religions are divisive. They define for you what is true and what is not. What good to you are any institutions, religious or otherwise, that seek to promote peace but cannot be inclusive of different opinions and perspectives? At this rate we will just keeping dividing faiths again and again until we have 6.5 billion different religions! We are creating larger, more divided egos, not more unified and cohesive spirits. Genuine happiness is a process of bringing people together and helping one another to fulfill those needs, not of dividing them into one tribe and next. We need a more inclusive way towards peace.

Maybe the economic system holds the key to your genuine happiness? Think again. While the entire world’s population may be convinced that economic success is a prerequisite of genuine happiness the statistics show that, we live in a world where 40% of all wealth is owned by 1% of its people and the bottom 50% of our world’s population has just 1% of its total wealth2. In other words, if you’re poor, you may have to wait forever for your turn to arrive.

Luckily, the people of Vanuatu didn’t wait to get wealthy to be happy. The 2006 New Economics Foundation Happy Planet Index showed that Vanuatu, a pacific archipelago nation in the south pacific, with a population of a little over 200,000, was the happiest place on earth! Vanuatu has a life expectancy 8.8 years lower than USA and a GDP of just USD $3,346, that's $66,454 less than Luxembourg, the highest income per capita country in the world. Interestingly, the Happy World Index lists Luxembourg 74th on the list of happiest countries and the USA 150th out of 178! Rather than looking for success in materials, you’re going to need to look inside for a material chance at genuine happiness.

Perhaps we should give politics a chance? I think not! The political system has become so intertwined with the economic system that its difficult to tell who is running what anymore. And it’s getting worse. For example, since the year 2000 the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled to

1 David B. Barrett, et al., "World Christian Encyclopedia : A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World," Oxford University Press, (2001), ISBN-13: 978-0195079630

2 “40% of world's wealth owned by 1% of population”, Tuesday, December 5, 2006, CBC News

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34,7503 but we shouldn’t expect that trend to stop at the shores of the USA. Your choice of leaders is just one arm of the monster or the other. Which do you grab? The fact is that the system is not going to change from the top down anymore than turkeys would vote for Christmas.

Clearly, wherever we look, the structures through which we should be seeking genuine happiness, have not been designed for that purpose. If you want to create real and sustainable change towards change you have but three choices:

1) Retire to the mountains of Bhutan and become an ascetic hermit in the pursuit of enlightenment or

2) Put on your Che Guevara T-shirt, grow a beard and revolt against the system and its tyranny or

3) Create a new environment for your life where genuine happiness becomes possible.

The problem with choice ‘1’ is – not practical! As much as we might all look great in a saffron robe or knotted longhi, the ascetic life is not for everyone. There must be a way to live in society and yet still seek spiritual growth without going all ‘mung beans’ and ‘lentils’ on the world.

The problem with choice ‘2’ is that there is already too much anger, bitterness, jealousy and power-lust in the world. Adding to it your rage against the machine is neither going to solve the problem nor make you feel any happier about life as you’re doing so. Yes, you may get motivated but it is the passion of self-destruction, not self-realization.

So, that leaves us with choice ‘3’. If you want to liberate yourself from suffering, you’re going to have to do it yourself. No one else cares about your peace. It’s an inside-out-do-it-yourself job. All you need to know is how to create an environment where genuine change towards genuine happiness is genuinely possible.

People are unhappy because we spend most of our lives covering up our unhappiness with a sheen of pleasure and distraction…which causes more unhappiness! It is great to have fun and indulge one’s self once in a while but it can have terrible results if we begin to believe that this is life’s ultimate purpose. Yet it is this very illusion to which the world is dangerously addicted. We have become increasingly ignorant, not only of the reality that exists beyond our material desires but also the means to escape the illusion. If we are serious about creating genuine happiness, not just for our selves but in our families and our communities, we must first open our eyes that there are alternatives to the lifestyle that has created the unease or dis-ease that exists in our current life.

And the alternatives are not becoming a hermit or revolution. It’s Provolution.



3 Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post, “The Road to Riches Is Called K Street - Lobbying Firms Hire More, Pay More, Charge More to Influence Government”, June 22, 2005



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In my experience during the last 20 years traveling across four continents, there is a dwindling sense of spirituality in communities in all nations as well as a contracting awareness of what it will take to get it back. The result is the decay in community fabric accelerated by the competitive values we have preferred over cooperative ones, the explosion of personal independence that has chipped away at the trust and respect necessary for healthy relationships and the slow erosion of family as the core unit of society. Statistics tell us that nearly 40% of EU marriages4 and nearly 50% of US Marriages5 end in divorce. In some countries up to 50% of children “will witness the breakup of a parent's marriage. Of these, close to half will also see the breakup of a parent's second marriage."6 How can we be expected to be genuinely happy when the very structures that naturally support our happiness are failing us and we are failing them?

If you believe, as I do, that better relationships will result when people begin to have a better relationship with their own self, then spirituality must not become some new age dream or quirky pastime. It must be a socially integrated tool by which a closer understanding of your mind, your body and your energy system helps you to reconnect to your own self and those around you. While the everyday world wants you to keep watching 30-second ads and remain desensitized to the way in which whole societies are groomed to become economic and social sheep, your mind, body and spirit is screaming ‘listen to what I need’. The key to genuine happiness is inside you, not outside. All you need to do is wake up to what your natural senses are telling you that you need to do… and then do it.

Spirituality is about self-discovery. It is about breaking the archetypes that define a human being as a job, or a status or a class or a color or a wealth or any of the other perceptions that divide us and place us all in little sub-groups that wage war and wage hate against each other. People are not intrinsically like that. It is a lie if you have been told we are. We live in an environment of conflict because conflict is what we condition all around us in our thoughts, words and actions. We are placed in competitive environments that seem natural but are artificially created. We are warned time and time again that there is not enough money to go around, not enough food, not enough space, not enough jobs, not enough opportunity – now, if you want to survive, go out and fight for your share. Is it any wonder that so many people are scared, aggressive and alone?

Our mind, our body and our spirit implicitly knows that to be free we must let go of all those habits and feelings that have created slavery in our own shape



4 According to ‘Marriage and divorce rates: EU comparison, 2002’, available on the British Government website of the Office for National Statistics, showed that nearly 40% of all EU Marriages ended in divorce, a figure that includes Greece, Spain, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, predominantly Catholic countries where marriage is considered sacred.

5 Furstenberg, Peterson, Nord, and Zill, "Life Course," 656ff. Cited on page76 of The Abolition of Marriage, by Maggie Gallagher

6 National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 57, Number 19 July 29, 2009 ‘Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths: Provisional Data for 2008’, table A



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and form. Our freedom has not been really been snatched from us by advertisers, politicians, corporations or any external bogeyman. We have chosen to relinquish it by default, so frequently selecting apathy over action and denial over awareness.

The purpose of this booklet is to create a structure by which people can come together and share their process of growth and self-improvement because we are all connected and the connections between us are dying. We need to raise our awareness and expand our connectivity by talking to one another about our problems, our suffering and our pain. Someone around you, close to you, in your community, right now, knows how to help you and you know how to help them. You just need a way to find them. You just need the means to connect. We need to work together to create genuine happiness by recognizing that, when we support others in their spiritual growth, the natural return is an investment in our own.

You may already have a meditation practice or a routine. That’s great. But so many of the clients who visit my wife and I come with the greatest of intentions and passion to regularly practice their process of change, but as soon as they return to the rhythms of their regular lives their passion is swallowed up by everyday routines and responsibilities. This is why Share Circles are important. A locally based, regular session of sharing your spiritual process ensures that you keep topping up that passion. Share Circles are refueling depots where we can all replenish and nourish the energy of our human spirit.

The Chinese say that when the tiger comes down from the mountain, the villagers will kill it. Trying to practice change within a group of people who have every intention of keeping you the same as you have always been; what chance of survival does your dream of change really have?

This is why you need a Share Circle. Within your community, there will be many people who do not want you to change because your suffering reminds them of their own. That’s up to them. But there will also be many who do want change.

Build it and they will come.

Share Circles are an oasis of like-minded people who have come down from the mountain to practice something different, something evolutionary, something real.





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What is a Share Circle?Share Circles are small neighborhood groups comprised of friends and acquaintances who have chosen to commit a little of their time to the process of their personal evolution. The purpose is for all members of the group to share meditative practices and insights that contribute to the energetic growth of the entire group.

They are intended to be free, local, regular and without hassle. You can start a Share Circle in your kitchen, on your front lawn, in your loft or anywhere else where there is enough space for a small group of people to sit down together and share thoughts, a meal, ideas, a meditation, advice and suggestions.

Due to their casual, convenient and excuse-proof design, there is no reason why you cannot create a Share Circle in any neighborhood on earth and, if there isn’t already one near you, there is no excuse not to create one yourself, today, now.

Share Circles have no inherent political or religious affiliations. They are defined by the people in them. Indeed, the ways of the outside world are irrelevant within a Share Circle as they are designed to change the inner you, not the outer ‘it’ or ‘them’.

Share Circles are also autonomous of any central body. They have no leader, and they have no hierarchical structure other than a loose administrative function at Share Circle Community Forum for sharing information, experience and spiritual practices from all disciplines. Share Circles are not clubs, societies or secret groups. They are inclusive, not exclusive.

Share Circles do have a loose set of guidelines called the ‘Three Shares’, which are outlined later in this manual. These guidelines are intended to align the Share Circles in purpose in order that they stay connected to attaining genuine happiness for its participants while providing the flexibility for each group to be independent, unique and suited to the individual needs of its participants.

Finally, I want to make something very clear. Share Circles are not cults. I want to get that doozy out of the way from the very beginning, as the notion of creating local groups based upon personal transformation will surely send shivers through the conservative mind. A cult has certain characteristics such as requiring devotion to idols, leaders, symbols, or extreme behaviors that, according to the Wikipedia ‘Cult’ page ‘could be, reasonably or unreasonably, considered strange.’ While it could be argued that meditation, practiced by a small minority of the global population, is therefore a ‘strange’ behavior, we must also consider the evidence that, strange or not, society needs it.



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And here’s why. Scientific research has conclusively proven that meditative and awareness techniques reduce stress7, improve sleeping patterns8, speed up medical recovery9, reduce blood pressure to the extent that commonly available drugs perform the same function10, reduce cholesterol11, reduce the likelihood of heart attack12, the list goes on and on. However strange it may appear to you, the practice of connecting to yourself, also helps us connect to wellness and the sense of genuine happiness that society has thus far been unable to create using its current structures.

While Share Circles are independent and locally organized, we also want them to connect to and support one another. You organize the Share Circle yourself, decide what you will practice yourself and hopefully choose to connect to the Share Circle Community Forum in order to feedback ideas, events and initiatives that may assist other people in creating new Share Circles while simultaneously helping established groups stay fresh and meaningful.

Setting up a Share Circle is simple. Just let some friends know what you’re doing (which is a great way to get them to show up!) and set a regular time, date and location where you will hold the event. I would limit the Circle to no more than 10 participants, or less if you don’t have the space, simply because you want to keep to your time limit and with 10 people sharing their ideas and experiences, it can take a while!

Set up your Share Circles agenda so that people know what they will be doing. You might meet at 7PM each Wednesday, share some snacks that you each prepared or bought, meditate for 20 minutes and then share your weekly experiences with one another before going home at 9PM. Alternatively, you might meet twice a week, practice 30 minutes of yoga one day and tai chi the next. The structure and practices are entirely up to you and the forum will have a great database of share circle routines, meditations and practices that each group can submit, try out and share with one another.

Does the Share Circle need a leader? Technically not but it must be started by someone! There is no necessity that this person is a spiritual guru or regular practitioner either. Don’t let your ego or your fears get in the way of starting one. There are meditations in this manual that will help you kick off. Don’t wait for



7 Herbert Benson, M.D. Harvard Medical School, author of The Relaxation Response

8 Dr. Gregg Jacobs, Psychologist, Harvard- 75% of long-term insomniacs who have been trained in relaxation and meditation can fall asleep within 20 minutes of going to bed.

9 IDEA Health & Fitness Source, September 2000

10 Journal of the American Medical Association, “Meditation significantly controls high blood pressure at levels comparable to widely used prescription drugs, and without the side effects.”

11 Health, October, 1994, reported that “77% of individuals with high levels of stress were able to cool down-lower their blood pressure and cholesterol levels-simply by training themselves to stay calm.”

12 Stroke Journal, reported in Psychology Today, 2001, “Meditators over 6-9 months showed a marked decrease in the thickness of their artery walls, while non-meditators actually showed an increase. This change translates to about an 11% decrease in the risk of heart attack and an 8% to 15% decrease in the risk of stroke.”





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perfect conditions. All you need to do is get the ball rolling and agree amongst yourselves when each meeting will be. Different members can set up different events each week, or you can assign responsibilities so that each person has a role in organizing a part of your Share Circle meet. It’s entirely up to you to get some nice routines and rituals together that suit the energy of your group. Just make the events fun, practical, informative and a learning experience for everyone involved.

The great thing about Share Circles is that, if they get too big, you can simply create another one and split into two. One part of a group may want to meet more regularly or at different times or locations, for example. You don’t need much of an excuse to start one and as startup costs are virtually zero, there is no barrier. You can start a Share Circle on a street corner, if you have to. All you need are people willing to share their ideas, experiences and wisdom to help one another through life.





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The Three SharesThe Three Shares define what your Share Circle is formed to share. Their purpose is to align everyone in the group and all the groups to a common purpose in order that anyone who joins one or starts one knows what they’ll be getting.

The Three Shares are:

1. Shared Purpose2. Shared Values3. Shared Responsibilities

Let’s look at them each in turn

Share 1: Shared Purpose

If you are not aligned in purpose, how can you work together to get where you want to go? The purpose of Share Circles is:

•Genuine Happiness through self-awareness

I could spend a few books talking about the importance of self-awareness in the process of creating happier people but the basic concept is simple: if you are not aware of what creates your suffering, how can you cure it?

In layman’s terms this means that Share Circles are designed to help you get to know yourself better. This process is key to better health and happiness as a mental, physical, emotional or spiritual problem can only be solved if you are first aware of what it is!

Share 2: Shared Values

Values underlie your behaviors. They define what will facilitate achieving your purpose and what will not. In Share Circles we share four values to help us attain Genuine Happiness through Self Awareness

a) Awarenessb) Equanimityc) Connectivityd) Perseverance

a) Awareness

If you are a surgeon, to begin surgery without first exploring the root of the issue you wish to cure would be, not only dangerous, but negligent too. The same is true of a person wishing to change their life to be genuinely happy. If you do not know what is making you unhappy, how can you change anything without running the risk of making things worse?



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Awareness is the purpose of all meditational techniques. You learn to listen to your body, your mind, your emotions, whatever the subject of your meditation might be, and through this process, learn how to extend this awareness beyond your practice and into daily life where practice makes perfect!

By being aware of what you are doing and how you are feeling throughout your day, you are more able to make adjustments to feel better. If you are unaware, however, you will go through your life like the proverbial bull in a china shop, wondering why accidents keep happening that are more a lack of awareness than the world conspiring against you.

b) Equanimity

What is equanimity and why should a Share Circle value it? Equanimity is achieved when the mind is balanced and able to sustain a state of calmness at all times. An equanimous mind is incredibly valuable because it creates a state of bliss in your life and who wouldn’t want that?

Imagine being able to deal with any crisis, any emotional issue, any conflict or problem with a clear and balanced mind unaffected by rampaging emotion or automatically triggered reactions. This would be valuable indeed, which is why it is a value of a Share Circle.

Some people say to me, ‘Equanimity sounds like becoming an emotional zombie? Why would I want to become a robot like that?” In fact, you are far probably far more robotic in your reactions now. That is what creates suffering. As you meet events and situations in your life, you react according to past experience, not the present situation. Reactions are conditioned into you, just like we might program a machine to respond time and time again.

Therefore, equanimity is a state of mind that we cultivate in order to alleviate this problem of continuous reaction and enter a state of being-ness. This means that your awareness practices help you to generate a peaceful mind that is aware of its surroundings and therefore fully equipped to respond in a way that is balanced and harmonious rather than conflicting and emotional.

c) Connectivity

Connectivity is the value of connections between people. We can hardly live genuinely happy if we do not have fine quality relationships with people who love and respect us for who we are. Therefore, Share Circle participants strive to build bridges of trust and respect between all members of the group. As we will learn in the section on communication, how we talk to one another and feedback information is a large part of this. Is our communication constructive or destructive, for example?

In the search for genuine happiness, Share Circle participants place a premium on behaviors and attitudes that build the trust and respect critical to relationships built on firm foundations.





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d) Perseverance

Nothing changes if we all give up when we hit the first barrier. Be sure, there will be many barriers to your happiness but by persevering to develop equanimity and connectivity with the rest of your group, you can overcome anything. Understanding that everything passes, a key learning as you become more and more self-aware, helps perseverance and passion to grow. Don’t give up. Keep Practicing. Keep meeting. Keep sharing.

Share 3: Shared Responsibilities

a) Practiceb) Feedback

a) Practice

Nothing changes without practicing different things. Closely connected to perseverance, practicing is what share circles do together. You meditate together, you talk together, you tai chi together, you yoga together, you find a spiritual recipe that suits your group’s participants and, well…get practicing.

It is true to say that knowledge without application is entirely useless. So, if you have learned a meditation and don’t practices it each day, there is little point in knowing it. Real change in your life will come about with a commitment. Share your practice in your Share Circle and take what you learn home to practice in your familial life, at work and throughout your day. That’s when application really matters!

b) Feedback

Being able to talk to one another and feedback the experience you have in your practice and during the days between each Share Circle meeting is very important. It is certainly wise to encourage feedback each session as each member of your group will have a unique perspective on each practice and a unique experience during the week.

What is important to understand with Share Circles is that you technically have no leader and so each person must step up and play their part in being both a teacher and a student with the rest of the group’s participants.

In some Share Circles, participants will know each other quite well, in others, not so well. In some, there will be people more open to change than others and so, in order to ensure that feedback is always conducted in a way that is conducive to the value of connectivity and quality relationships, I include the following:

Communication Circles

1. Suspend your Ego





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Ego says “I am right – you are wrong” This creates conflict. Everyone has different experiences and ideas so removing your ego from a Share Circle helps you to become both a student and a teacher, learning and teaching without preference for one role or the other

2. Observe your Emotion

Emotion is important to experience but it is not a great to act upon. People will feedback or say things that trigger emotions inside you. Watch them. Listen to them. Use them for awareness practice.

3. Speak Your Truth

Your truth is unique. Without it, the world would be different and thus it is vital that you express it so that it is not forever lost inside you. In Share Circles everyone has a duty to speak their mind but to do so with love and respect of others. If you have feedback, say it. If someone else has feedback, listen with love.

4. Listen with Love

If we don’t listen to others, we cannot learn from them. Maintaining full awareness when others are talking is an act of respect and appreciation.

5. Nurture Trust and Respect

Whatever we say and however we listen, always maintain in your mind the belief that what is being said is with respect and what you say must always be based upon respect. None of us can change others. Our words are not a force for change. They are tools that others must pick up.

6. Have Fun!

While we may take our practice seriously, life is a joy ride and should be kept light. We do not make light of problems, but we lighten people’s load and give them the power to raise themselves up. Keep your Share Circle a place of light. Keep it fun.

In one gathering I have attended here on Phuket, one of our customs is to pass around a ‘talking stick’, which is actually a crystal that, when we are holding it, we become the primary talker and everyone else becomes listeners. You will find you own ways of communicating but remember, love is still the best way of communicating with anyone.

What to do with the Three Shares?

So, you have the Three Shares. So what? Well, as I said, the Three Shares are intended to guide you. It’s up to you how you use them.





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Perhaps you use one of them each week as a discussion point and feedback how well you think you are doing in each area. Perhaps you nominate one person each week to talk in one area of the Three Shares and how that person applies it to their Share Circle. Maybe you make posters and stick them on the wall to remind your group of the communication circle. You could all think of innovative ways to apply each one and try them out at the next meeting – its up to you.

On the Share Circle Forum there is a page to Share how you apply the Three Shares. As we build on possibilities, it will be interesting to see how different people of different cultures and backgrounds apply them to attain their purpose as a group.

The essential role of the Three Shares is that your Share Circle stays aligned in purpose, practicing and sharing what are the essential ingredients of a happy and fulfilling life. The Three Shares are as much a spiritual undertaking as a set of guidelines. Share what you can and the rest happens naturally.





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Start-up MeditationsThe following meditations will help you get started, if you have never done any type of mediation before or are looking for some inspiration. However, there are gazillions of meditations that cover a wide range of activities and styles – just Google and find out.

The point is for you and your group to learn and practice numerous meditations and awareness practices in order that you can find a diversity that suits you and keeps the process of Share Circles fresh and rewarding. If a meditation gets stale, learn a new one.

Moreover, please feed into the Share Circle resources by emailing us the meditations and practices that you have organized in your group. It may very well help another group get greater benefits from their meetings.

1. Getting Started – Mindfulness of Breathing

You can meditate sitting down, lying down or even standing up but the most common position is sitting. Find a comfortable position, cross-legged or on a chair that is sustainable for 20 minutes. Use cushions if you sit on the floor but make sure they are firm so that you do not move around and strain your back when sitting.

Choose a quiet place, where you will not be disturbed. Nature is great for meditation but if you cannot get outside, use a quiet room. The correct posture for meditation is to keep a straight back as this will help you to breath easier, open the chest and allow for the energy to pass freely up and down your spine. Relax your shoulders, place your hands on your knees or in your lap, wherever they rest most comfortably. Push the tip of your tongue gently to the point where your team meet the palette of your mouth and open your mouth just slightly. Most importantly - relax!

Now begin training your concentration on your breath. Follow it as it goes in through your nose, down into your lungs, the movement of your stomach and chest and then how it leaves your body and the sensations all the way back out to the tip of the nose. This is one round of breathing. Count three rounds of ten breaths in your mind. When you can keep concentration for all three rounds, stop counting and follow the breath without any more internal dialog. Once you have a little concentration, you can keep going with watching your breath or move on to another meditation of your choice.

As your mind wanders from the breath, bring it back. Don’t do this forcefully, with anger or frustration, as this will increase the power of the ego. Do it with love, like a parent correcting the behavior of child. This may happen many times and is perfectly normal. Keep bringing the mind back and set yourself a time limit: 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes.





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Do not have a purpose in meditation other than experience and sensation as this creates the tendency to judge or criticize, which is counterproductive and merely stokes the ego. Be patient. Be gentle. Persevere with your practice and things will change.

2. Centering & Grounding

Centering and grounding is a quick easy way to reconnect with your own center and grounds you in the present moment. Strong emotional outpourings un-center you, as if you lose yourself in the emotion and this brief meditation brings you back to the true you.

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, eyes open, knees slightly bent (not locked) and relax your body. Imagine that you are a tree and roots are growing from your feet into the ground. With each in-breath the roots grow deeper, beyond the floor, into the soil, into the rock, into the very core of the earth that created your body and feeds and nourishes you every day.

Imagine that each breath, draws energy up through the soles of your feet, all the way up your legs, into your shoulders and head and down through your hands.

Maintain this breathing and visualization for a minute or two. Keep visualizing your roots growing deeper and wider. Feel solid but natural, empowered but in control. In a few short moments of centering and grounding you should feel your body calming down, your mind balancing and your emotions subsiding.

As you practice this frequently it will be easier to bring yourself back to this state creating instant relief and empowerment.

3. Chakra Meditation

Chakra meditation is a classic visualization technique to clean your energy field and empower your center. It is great for centering awareness in your body and to sensitize you to your true self.

In your body you have 7 major energy centers called chakras. These centers respond to your emotional, physical and energetic conditions as well as influence them. Each has a corresponding color that, when visualized in the region of the corresponding chakra, helps to open up the energy and expand it. When all your chakras are working well and full of energy, this is a major contributing factor to good health, quality life and contented feelings.

Begin your meditation by bringing you attention to your breath and conducting three rounds of breathing mindfully.

Next bring your attention to your root chakra. This is represented by the color red. It is located at the base of your spine - the coccyx or tail bone. The root chakra is your groundedness and is responsive to your sense of family & group safety/security, ability to provide for life’s necessities and to stand up for yourself.





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With every in-breath imagine a ball of glowing red energy to be growing at the base of your spine. With every out-breath, imagine a grey cloud of smoke is exhausted from you, as if you are clearing your body of any old or stagnant energy that you no longer need. Spend about 3 minutes expanding the energy in that area.

Cycle through the other 6 chakras like this:

2. Sacral Chakra: Orange - Located one inch below your navel - Responsive to your sense of blame & guilt, money & sex, power & control, creativity, and ethics and honor in relationships

3. Emotion Chakra: Yellow - Located in your solar plexus just under the sternum - Responsive to your sense of trust, fear & intimidation, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, care of oneself and others, responsibility for making decisions, sensitivity to criticism and personal honor

4. Heart Chakra: Green - Located in the center of your breast plate - Responsive to your sense of love & hatred, resentment & bitterness, grief & anger, self-centeredness, loneliness & commitment, forgiveness & compassion, hope

5. Throat Chakra: Blue - Located in your thorax - Responsive to your sense of choice & strength of will, personal expression, following one’s dream, using personal power to create, addiction, judgment & criticism, faith & knowledge, capacity to make decisions

6. Third Eye Chakra - Purple - Located between your eyes - Responsive to self-evaluation, truth, intellectual abilities, feeling of adequacy, openness to the ideas of others, ability to learn from experience and emotional intelligence

7. Crown Chakra - Golden white - Located on the top of your head - Responsive to your ability to trust life, values, ethics and courage, humanitarianism, selflessness, ability to see the larger pattern, faith & inspiration, spirituality and devotion

Meditate on each of these chakras or, if you feel particularly drained in one or two areas focus on them and invigorate by using the same technique

4. Awareness of Being

Awareness of being is simple, easy to practice and applicable virtually anywhere. All your do is cycle your attention through each area of your body, and, as you do so, expand your awareness to include all your senses simultaneously. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Start by concentrating on your toes. How do they feel? Can you feel anything? Concentrate on them, patiently, with intention, until you can. Now feel the soles of your feet and your toes together. Can you feel the blood pumping through your feet, or your shoes cutting into your ankles? Now add your calves, then your shins, and slowly work your way through your body parts, becoming more





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and more aware of where tension exists, pain, coldness, hotness etc. If you feel tension, release it. If you feel pain, cool or soothe it, but don’t judge what you are feeling or become despondent if you feel nothing - just move on to the next body part.

When you have a complete sensual picture from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head, you will have enlivened and become aware of who you are. This awareness brings with it a sense of peace in the present moment where there is nothing to worry about or fret over.

You can practice this in just 60 seconds and, if you practice three of four times a day, you will soon be able to ‘remember’ the peace and awareness associated with it and recall the feeling instantly whenever you feel ungrounded or upset.

5. Loving Kindness Meditation

Loving kindness is the act of growing compassion. Nobody deserves your anger or hatred, certainly not your poor heart, that, each time you practice hanging onto your hatred or bitterness, holds on to the resulting energy and is affected by it. Why do you think heart disease is one of the leading killers in the western world? No, it’s not just fast food. It’s slow love. And love starts with you.

What if you could feel compassion for everyone you meet, no matter who they are? Wouldn’t that make you world a little freer of anger, jealousy, frustration and resentment? Of course it would, and it is only because we have become so accomplished at holding onto our judgments about other people that this seems so idealistic. In fact, we can learn to love even our greatest enemies, if we learn how. All it takes is a little bit of effort and the belief that we can do it.

In loving kindness we consciously generate love from within for three different people. Sometimes you might to choose three people before you begin, particularly if you have some forgiveness to practice on particular people. However, you can also practice this meditation and see who comes up as you go through it. You might be surprised.

• Start by getting comfortable, perhaps practicing 5 minutes of mindfulness of breathing or being in order to get yourself in the zone.

• Now, begin breathing green light into your heart. Visualize with every in breath, the green light filling up your chest. Perhaps visualize a green rose in the middle of your chest, opening up each time you breath in.

• Once you feel relaxed and full of green light, bring into you heart the image of a person who you love very much. Visualize them standing opposite you in your heart space and hug them with as much love as you can generate. Feel also their love flowing back at you, who is also worthy of love and appreciation by others. Spend about 5 minute on this practice





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• Next, bring into your heart the face of a person who you are emotionally neutral about. This may be a co-worker, someone you saw on the bus this morning, or a relative who you hardly know. It doesn't matter. Bring that person into your heart alongside the first person and begin holding hands in a triangle. Generate the same degree of love for the second person as you did for the first, looking back at the first if you need to be reminded how unconditional love feels. Spend another five minutes on this part.

• Finally, bring into your mind a person for whom you hold onto a painful emotional reaction. This reaction is just learned, based upon judgment and memory. Whatever you think that person deserves, you don’t deserve to feel pain for them anymore. So, bring that person into you heart alongside the first two people and yourself and practice generating some love for them. This may be difficult at first, but so is riding a bike. Each time you fall off, brush yourself down, and get back on.

This mediation is cumulative in effect. You don’t just top yourself up with love and go out and be Jesus for the rest of your life. It takes continuous effort and practice. After a while, you may just begin meeting people with an open mind and, more importantly for you, an open heart.





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ConclusionsThe world is not well. It needs spiritual medicine. You can make it better.

•Eighty per cent of humanity live on less than $10 USD per day13

• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names14

• In the year 2000, less than 1 per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school15

The current systems have created these inequalities and each of us, connected to those systems by our participation in them, have played our part. Do we continue to keep trying to create a fair wage from unequal distribution systems, more winners from competition and greater love from the stark mechanisms of economics or do we shift the focus from fighting the monster to healing our own wounds from which the monster has grown?

New systems won’t evolve by themselves. They will only grow when aware minds recognize that the problem exists within each of us and we are ready to accept the responsibility for change. Share Circles are designed to support the expansion of your consciousness that will help transform the world from a place where we must worry about the next meal to a place where we can focus on the development of the human spirit.

This won’t happen overnight but it will never happen if we don’t start today.

As I write this I am thinking about my two children, Jacob and Aine. They are two years and three months old and three months old respectively. I wonder how the human spirit will be when they are hitting forty. Will it be well or continue to be sick?

You may well read this and think to yourself, “Not to worry, I’ll start taking this sort of stuff seriously when I get a bit older” but here’s the thing. You only have the present. The time for change is now. You owe it to yourself to start dealing with the luggage of your life immediately and there is no time to waste. You may not be able to change the planet today but you can change the place on the planet that you occupy with immediate effect. If you are of the feeling that time is accelerating, you are quite right. Nature is teaching us all that the present is indeed a gift and we must work together to create the moment where we are all present as one and not as many.



13 Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen and Prem Sangraula, “Dollar a day revisited”, World Bank, May 2008. They note that 95 per cent of developing country population lived on less than $10 a day. Using 2005 population numbers, this is equivalent to just under 79.7 per cent of world population, and does not include populations living on less than $10 a day from industrialized nations.

14 Carol Bellamy, “The state of the world's children”, 1999, UNICEF

15 Chris Brazier, “State of the World” New Internationalist Issue 287 - Feb 1997,



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I hope that my children will grow up taking responsibility for the state of the human spirit by expanding awareness of their own. I hope they will have a chance to live in places where Share Circles have evolved into communities that we would all like to live in but have no way of creating within the trap that society has sadly become.

Share Circles can play their part in this transformation but we cannot make human evolution much simpler than a couple of hours a week spent listening to the beat of your own soul. After this, it is up to you. The only barrier between a future of shared ideas, meditations, help and support is the mind that remains blind to their absence within the ordinary rituals of our modern world and insensitive to the suffering that exists in their place. We have created societies that are growing apart, growing tired, growing in anger and resentment. And this isn’t really growing at all.

In a Share Circle anyone can grow. All you have to do is dare to evolve.

Michael Stephens, April 2010

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a guide to building share circles - spiritual and meditation groups for your community

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