Forum FAQ 

Forum is an embodied, lived circle—a practice that connects the person speaking to the group listening. It's a structured relational practice where what happens between the presenter and the circle is the work.

The method comes from Zegg Forum, developed in Germany inside a long-standing intentional community that discovered something most organizations already know and rarely name: the interpersonal gets in the way of everything else. Forum was built to address exactly that. What I bring to it is my own—the way I enter a group, read what's underneath, and hold the exchange that needs to happen.

Before we ever sit in a circle, I do my homework. I speak with whoever is bringing me in, and where possible, with others who see the situation differently. I ask questions. I listen for what isn't being said as much as what is. Sometimes I send a short questionnaire to participants in advance.

When we meet, we sit in a circle. Someone speaks—that person is the presenter. Everyone else witnesses. My job as facilitator is to hold the connection between the two: to build it, expand it, and keep everyone's attention oriented toward what the presenter is actually saying, feeling, and showing. It's lived and embodied. You will not be able to perform for very long inside of it. That's the point.

Most first circles begin with surface-level observations and short shares, enough to get a feel for what it is to be inside the circle before anything else.

I'm not a therapist and Forum has its own goals.

What I'm working toward in every circle is movement first—something shifts that couldn't shift before we sat down together. From there, completion becomes possible: the thing that needed to be acknowledged gets acknowledged. When the circle is really working, repair happens—a genuine change in what's possible between people.

I don't promise any of these outcomes. I work toward all of them.

Most people walking into my circles have never done anything like this.

I ask for presence. A willingness to be in the room, to witness others, and to try, even briefly. Everything inside the circle is consent-based. You choose to speak. You choose to receive feedback. You choose how far in you go.

Forum can live inside a workshop. Forum can be the heart of a retreat. The format is flexible, what stays constant is the practice itself.

I come in as a complete outsider with no stake in your internal dynamics and no history with your people. What we work with is what you bring—the tension, the pattern, the thing nobody's been able to say out loud yet. That material only exists in that room, with those people, on that day.

Conflict is often exactly what we're there for.

When something difficult surfaces, that's the circle doing what it's supposed to do. Getting triggered is a possibility. Working through the trigger, in the presence of the group, is part of the process. It happening in a held, witnessed space is what makes it land differently than every conversation that's already been had.

My role is to hold the container steady while that moves.

If your group has the people and something still isn't moving — this is probably worth a conversation.

It works for groups just forming and for groups that have been together for years. It works when the problem is obvious and when nobody can quite name what's wrong. The existing dynamics, including the difficult ones, are the material.

Reach out and tell me about your group. I'll tell you honestly whether this is the right fit.

Three things hold the container. 

First: phones on airplane mode, tucked away and unreachable for the duration of the session. This is a practice of presence—screens interrupt that at a level most people underestimate until they're actually in the room without one.
Second: no recording of any kind, audio or video, unless explicitly arranged in advance as part of a photography agreement with full participant consent.
Third: you speak only for yourself. You share your experience, your reactions, your story. You never speak for anyone else or tell anyone else's story on their behalf.

These aren't rules for the sake of rules. They're what makes it possible for people to actually show up.

Everything that happens in the circle is confidential. What that means specifically: 

• You can speak freely about your own experience—what you felt, what moved for you, what you said, what some reflected back to you about your own share. 

• You cannot share what anyone else said, did, or brought to the room. Not the content. Not even the fact that someone was there if they haven't shared that themselves or given you explicit consent.

This confidentiality is established at the opening of every session. It's also why my circles are not the right container for HR investigations, performance documentation, or anything where what people say will be used as evidence of anything. 

If that's what's needed, ask me about my mediation offerings.

Sessions are private and undocumented by default. In specific cases—gift sessions or engagements where visual documentation has been discussed in advance, or a request made by the client and with consensus for all concerned—a photographer can be present. This is always disclosed and agreed upon before the session begins. Any participant who prefers not to be photographed simply says so. No one is ever photographed without their knowledge, consent, and comfort.