Our Practice
New Life Circles supports a life practice of self-empowerment. Our community process does not ask you to believe in anything other than your own potential to change, heal, and feel alive and connected; we choose to do it together.
The Practice of New Life Circles
Life Circles
We know that just being part of a positive peer community is healthy and supportive. When starting out at New Life Circles we recommend attending meetings and finding a few friends to begin your journey with. What is important is becoming comfortable being and sharing who you are. Simply sharing who you are with others and feeling accepted can be the most healing experience of your life. Become an active partner in Life Circles, offering support and service wherever possible, and participate in supporting the community and other members as they support you on your path. We aim toward deepening positive ownership of our lives and encourage a process of discovery that leads to more happiness and the freedom to be you.
Finding Your Life Path
Your Life Path is the path that supports you being you. The best you! We each must find our own path to experience the freedom that comes from living authentically and alive in the present. To get there you must accept who you are in the present–embracing your good and bad experiences and decisions–and find what practices make you happy and healthy today. We can’t change the past. We only have control over the present and how that supports a healthy future. This foundation opens the door to hope and a better tomorrow. It will strengthen your intention towards understanding what “Healthy Practices” support and nourish you, and those will guide your Life Path. Following your path leads to health, greater happiness, and the freedom to live authentically and connected.
Once you discover your path you will always have the support of choosing to walk close to it or allowing your journey to move in a different direction.
Healthy Practices
It is essential to commit to the intention of developing and doing things that support and sustain walking our Life Path. We call these wholesome activities “Healthy Practices.” They may include daily meditation, good nutrition, life circles, yoga, physical activities, using kind words, tai chi, offering service, coaching or therapy, and religious practices. What is most important is that you find the things that support you.
Healthy Practices are the guideposts to your Life Path. We won’t always be walking straight along this path. No one can. But once you learn what Healthy Practices line the edges of your Life Path, you then have the power and support to take on obstacles when life throws roadblocks and hardship your way. You will also know what supports and nourishes you back to feeling good and alive, and feel self-empowered to move closer to your best self. As we grow our Healthy Practices can and will change. There isn’t anyone or anything on earth that has the cure for making you feel good about yourself–happy and free to be you. Only you have that power!
New Life Circles offers lifelong friendships and community. We encourage a process of self-empowerment and radical responsibility, and a community that supports it. New Life Circles is a practice of self-empowerment. We don’t ask you to believe in anything other than your own potential to change, heal, and do the things that make you happy to be alive – we choose to do it together.
Inquiry, Experimentation, and Sharing
Finding the Healthy Practices that guide your Path is a process of learning more about yourself, accepting the wounds that burden you, and learning to feel good in the present. We explore this through Inquiry, Experimentation, and Sharing. Inquiring into myself, finding out new things about who I am, and inquiring about others. Experiment with new ideas, practices, and relationships that reveal more of who you are and what’s important to your health and happiness. Sharing who you are with others.
Community, Friends, and Facilitators
We cultivate relationships within New Life Circles to both support our happiness and growth and to support the happiness and growth of others. New Life Circles is a practice of self-awakening. Health and happiness can never be given to you by someone else. Community, important friends, and facilitators are there to build greater support. All members offer their willingness to create and hold a loving supportive space that allows you to be who you are while experimenting, learning, and growing. Acting in service of others is a central part of the Life Circles process. We support others not only because we love them and want to be helpful, but because we believe we can only feel the freedom to be who we are if we support others doing the same.
Growth
Life-changing growth doesn’t happen in a single place and time. It’s a process that unfolds over time as we fully accept who we are and learn to share that with others. Healthy living will become a process of choice and responsibility. Sometimes we feel empowered, free, and happy, while at other times we may struggle and suffer. Life Circles are here to support us in moving through all phases of our lives with acceptance, community, encouragement, and compassion for ourselves and others.
14 New Life Circles Intentions
Share Who You Are
Aware and Present
Feel Connected
Compassion
Slow Down
Generosity
Exchange Gifts and Hugs
Stop Acting Start Being
Feel Free and Liberated
Daily Aspirations
- I will love myself by being me and connecting with others.
- I am responsible for the cultivation of my own Life Path and Healthy Practices.
- Every day is my opportunity to add more love and compassion to the world by loving myself and those around me.
- I want for others what I want for myself
- Within me is beauty and grace and to express it I will look for it in others.
NLC Affirmation
I will be kind to myself and others.
I accept who I am, including the choices I have made and the hardships I have suffered.
Suffering is part of the pathway that leads to healthy growth and transformational change.
I will work to know my Life Path, and what Healthy Practices serve as guideposts and support.
I know my journey will not always follow this path.
I have the strength to be me,
and I honor others doing the same.
I will be compassionate to myself and others.
Dedication
Happiness and healthy living do not only arise within our bodies and minds but in a life lived in a world with others. When we sit together in a space filled with love, respect, and support, we call it a Life Circle. We hope that life’s joy, pain, and trauma leads us back toward the support of relationship and community so we can each continue our process of becoming who we are and grow ever more deeply grounded and connected. Our practice is one of self-empowerment and doesn’t ask us to believe in anything other than our own potential to change and feel alive and happy; we choose to do it together.
May each of us make the best use of our community Life Circles and whatever support, connection, and freedom arise from our efforts here today. Let Life Circles be a cause and practice for less suffering and more safety in our world.