INTENTIONAL SOCIAL SPACES SERIES #5

Coaching Circle: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Image: Lydia Chlpka

I cannot imagine my life without coaching circles.

This is my seventh year hosting them. I was first introduced to the method in 2019 through my participation in the U.lab Hub. What began as curiosity has become a foundational rhythm. I now host three active circles that meet monthly. Each one continues to surprise me. Each one feels like a gift that keeps on giving.

Where else would I integrate experiences of triumph and loss?

Where else would I recalibrate my thinking when I notice it narrowing?

Where else would I stress-test a new idea before bringing it into the world?

Where else would I metabolize old pain so it does not unconsciously shape my future?

A coaching circle has become the place where I meet ghosts from the past, face tensions of the present, and articulate possibilities for the future — in the presence of others who are doing the same.

For years, my tagline for coaching circles has been: a space where vulnerability is safe and empathy is abundant. That still captures the essence. Coaching circles are intentionally designed social spaces where vulnerability is welcomed and empathy is actively practiced.

The trauma expert Peter Levine has said, “Trauma is what happens in the absence of an empathetic witness.” I often return to that line. It speaks directly to my own childhood trauma — and to the healing that became possible through the empathetic witnesses who showed up along the way.

Over time, I’ve found myself paraphrasing it this way: stuckness is what happens in the absence of an empathetic witness.

Stuckness is what happens in the absence of an empathetic witness. Vulnerability is safe and empathy is abundant in coaching circles.

Stuckness is quieter than trauma. It shows up as looping thoughts, hardened narratives, unspoken tensions, abandoned dreams. Because it is less dramatic, we often tolerate it. We adapt to it. We normalize it.

I recently received a beautiful message from a 95-year-old woman who has lived with a pronounced stoop since her sixties. In her eighties, a doctor told her it might have been corrected earlier in life — but by then, it was too late. She has since made it her mission to tell others: do not settle for unnecessary limits. Keep searching.

Her message moved me deeply. Last year, several of my own long-standing physical challenges were finally resolved, and I remember the sense of relief — as if something I had adapted to for years no longer needed to define me. It made me think about psychological patterns. They are less visible than posture, but just as real — and just as correctable when we bring awareness, courage, and support to them.

Coaching circles invite us to stay with stuckness before it calcifies. Within an empathetic field, what feels blocked often reveals hidden information — grief beneath anger, longing beneath frustration, possibility beneath fear. There are treasures inside stuckness. Just as we do not have to wait for the stoop to become too pronounced and too late to receive treatment, we do not have to wait until pain escalates into trauma to begin the work of transformation. We can start right here in a coaching circle that can be accessible to anyone who is open to it.

How else would I describe coaching circles?

A Third Space

A coaching circle is a third space — outside of family and workplace — where we crowdsource human wisdom.

Families carry entrenched relational patterns. Workplaces carry vested interests. Both matter deeply. But both are structurally constrained. They are close-knit networks with limited diversity of perspective.

What if kinship were not defined only by blood or proximity?

Exponential organizations crowdsource talent. Why can’t we cultivate communities where we crowdsource friendship and chosen family — gathered around a shared commitment to growth, reflection, and mutual care?

In a coaching circle, people come together not because they share history or hierarchy, but because they share intention. We speak about grief, ambition, jealousy, calling, fear. We practice listening without fixing. We ask questions that open rather than close.

It is healing — but not clinical. There is no diagnosis, no pathology. Just human beings learning how to be with one another more intentionally.

A Practice Field

A coaching circle is also a practice field — the last mile in the knowing–doing gap.

I have taught many workshops in rooms structured by high power distance: the instructor as expert, the participants as recipients. But high power distance often produces shallow learning. Knowledge transmitted only to the head is subject to the forgetting curve. It evaporates.

In a coaching circle, lived experiences take center stage.

In a coaching circle, knowledge is not delivered; a living field of learning is cultivated.

Instead of packaging answers, we practice inquiry. Instead of performing competence, we practice presence. Instead of giving advice, we mirror and resonate. Instead of feeling good, we meet in the field beyond judgment. Someone shares a conflict with a colleague. Another mirrors with the tightness in their body and an image that captures the dynamics. A third risks offering a question that reframes the story. A fourth goes deeper to help reveal a pattern.

This is not theory. It is practice. It is knowing entangled with doing.

Everyone is a teacher; everyone is a student.

It is not power over. It is power with and power to do.

We practice thinking differently.

We practice relating differently.

We practice telling new stories about ourselves.

And through those micro-shifts, new realities become possible.

A Laboratory

In response to the turbulence of our times, many people tell me they feel like they are emotionally surviving rather than thriving.

Emotional survival shows up subtly. Conversations feel flat. Energy stalls. Curiosity shrinks. Micro-aggressions feel acceptable. We become less alive.

One core insight from complexity leadership is this: when micro-patterns of interaction shift, macro-patterns of emergence shift. Change does not only cascade from the top down. It can propagate from the bottom up — through everyday interactions.

If we bring more aliveness and care into each exchange, we increase the likelihood that those qualities ripple outward.

Coaching circles are laboratories for that work.

The conversations crackle — sometimes gently, sometimes fiercely. I affectionately call my circles ‘councils of crones and wizards’. Wisdom and mischief coexist. So do tenderness and truth.

People are fully embodied human beings, carrying far more detail and nuance than the abstract concepts and beliefs that so often fragment and divide us. It is difficult to hate someone when you are close enough to see their humanity. Coaching circles are labs to practice intimacy.

During a recent visit to the War Museum in Ottawa, I was struck again by the brutality of human conflict. It is easy to blame distant leaders or historical forces. But the seed of war lives in ordinary moments — in unexamined resentment, in defended identities, in the refusal to listen.

The seed of peace lives there too.

A coaching circle offers space for irritation to be named before it calcifies into contempt. For fear to be spoken before it turns into aggression. For difference to be explored and celebrated rather than erased and judged.

It is small work. It is intimate work. But it is not insignificant work.

Moving from surviving to thriving is not a private achievement. It is relational. It happens in the field between us.

The Gift

This is why coaching circles are gifts that keep on giving.

It is not the format alone. It is not the questions alone. It is the people — the social field we co-create — and the relational intelligence we practice together.

Month after month, we gather. We listen. We reflect. We challenge. We soften.

And slowly, almost invisibly, we become more capable of inhabiting our own lives — and of contributing to a world that feels more alive.

That is a gift worth tending.

Voices from the Field

I invite you to hear from the members of my coaching circles — those who help steward this gift with me.

The Coaching Circle feels powerful because of its structure. The framework is consistent, yet it continually takes us to surprising and meaningful places. It also feels precious because of the people. Each of us brings vulnerability, deep listening, humor, and encouragement. Together, we create a magical combination of rigor and warmth. When so much of life is churn, it’s deeply anchoring to have a circle to turn to for wisdom and new perspectives.

The Coaching Circle feels precious to me because it is a space where deep relationships and true presence are required. We hold a space where our open mind, open heart and intuition are listened and used at the service of one of us needs. It generates a special care for each other, which nourishes the relationship and allows to offer deep metaphoric meanings, allowing clearing entangled situation for the one we serve.

I appreciate and enjoy so much about our coaching circle. I like that we are playful and I get to show up as my real, whole self. I like that my gifts are honored and reflected back to me. I like being with true peers — intelligent, caring people who are creating change in the world and serving their community. I like being of service to the others in the circle in a focused way when they present a case, that invites poetic, artistic seeing/feeling. I like the feeling of belonging in the circle. We are each unique beings, yet we come together to really be together. What could be better than all that?

I feel grateful to be part of our coaching circle because of the warmth and wisdom shared within it. I value being part of a group of talented, intelligent coaches who are open to vulnerability — both their own and mine. My heart is consistently drawn in by the energy and authenticity everyone brings, even over Zoom. I have gained so many “golden nuggets” of new perspectives and techniques from our sessions that I am able to immediately apply to both my coaching practice and my personal life. Let’s keep our momentum in 2026!

One experience from the Coaching Circle that stands out to me is witnessing a man show the ultimate level of vulnerability to a group of women he’s never met outside the circle. In this day and age, it is rare for people to open up and share a part of their lives with anyone. Most are afraid to do so because the world seems to be losing its humanity; everyone is self-absorbed and unaware of others and their struggles. My coaching circle comrade shared that he has had to do a great deal of self-reflection in both his personal and professional life, and that this self-reflection has, in some ways, left him feeling depleted. As a team, we listened and provided support, which he was open to receiving. After that circle, I realized that men carry so much, but many don’t have a safe space to share. My heart is full knowing we could provide a safe, caring space for him to share and be heard. That is the beauty of the Coaching Circle.

For more in the Intentional Social Space Series:

Coaching circle: a temporary alternative world

Coaching circle: third space revisited

Coaching circle: A prototype for the third place

Social Solidarity Circle: The Power of Bearing Witness