Global Impact Stories

See how Open Floor is making a difference in communities around the world.

The Circle Is Behind Me

Every time I went back to Bulgaria for a holiday, I had a recurring nightmare: the airport is shut down, the communist regime is back and I can’t leave. 

I didn’t resonate with “Coming home” as a safe space, not until the online Immersion on the Open Floor Teacher Training.

“Held by community-on my own two feet.” These were the first words I wrote in my journal. And later that day.
"They've got my back."

Dancing at home, after lockdown, seeped into solitude and wary of circles I was struck by the power of the community. I felt held and witnessed and I was astonished at my own vulnerability. I have been in circles before, sometimes at the edge, often in the centre, but mostly my habit was to move between them. Through the experience of witnessing and being witnessed, In the Open circle, I felt a sense of belonging. The circle was holding my back, so I could look out into the world and be part of it.

One Open Floor teacher training and three years later, I now live in Bulgaria. 

I have no groups, my family is not what it was 21 years ago when I left Bulgaria. My friends are used to a quick chat once a year. I don’t belong to their daily routines. Or at least that is the same old story which over the years has stood guard between me and life.

In many ways, I am visible, the only Open Floor teacher in Bulgaria, the newly returned old friend, but in many others, I feel in-visible. 

The differentiation between the story and the sensation of being seen was the thickest Dragon’s Gate I had to walk through. To be seen is an intimate experience with a powerful impact. It reminds you of your existence and your belonging.

And in a world where so much suffering goes unseen, the personal is also universal. 

O’Donohue differentiates between “belonging to” and “belonging with”. To belong to is to have the same ideology, the same skin colour, the same language. It is powerful to feel that, yet so many of my dear friends and colleagues in the Open Floor community live in different countries, speak different languages and have different economic status. 

To belong with means to walk different paths and still have common ground, empathy, love and support with the rest of the world. 

Many of us are walking different paths in our countries, many are experienced teachers with thriving practices, many are moving between the excitement and the fear of their new beginnings. Many are faced with tragedies, for some it is close to home, others only see it on the TV. 

The impact is different for us all. It may well be that we don’t belong to the same groups, nor do we go through the same challenges but I hope we belong with each other, in a community and in a circle that has our backs. 

Author picture
I was eight years old when the communist regime in Bulgaria fell. Growing up without a television, in that liminal space of childhood, I fell in love with reading, stories and poetry and dreamt of becoming a writer, or a ballerina.The harsh reality of the raves in ’90s East Europe hit hard, and in my early twenties I emigrated alone to the UK. I worked in a fish factory in the Outer Hebrides, later I moved to England and acquired a BSc in Psychology. I nannied and worked with children for 19 years....

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