I want to share about sharing.

Two years ago that I was introduced to the structured practice of sharing. I was living in Ängsbacka, a Spiritual and Self-Development community in Sweden.

Sharing is one of the foundational blocks of the Ängsbacka community. Twice a week - during the winter season, and daily - during the summer season Angsbacka residents and festival participants engaged in mandatory sharing.

After lunch sharing groups meet in a calm place, sit in a circle - so you could see everyone's face - and then one at a time, each person shares for 5-7 minutes.

The role of the sharer is to open up about whatever they wish; what's on their mind, what's on their heart, what’s on their soul. They are not required to perform. They’re not even required to speak, they simply have the allocated time for them.

All non-sharing members of the circle remain entirely silent, they may choose to look at the sharer or receive their words eyes closed. Their role is to be fully present with the person sharing, without comment, without judgement, simply a vessel to receive their words.

The magic of the sharing circle is that it is a vault of confidentiality. What is spoken within, will never again be shared, and therein lies the creation of safety. A safety that allows the heart to open.

For my first weeks at Ängsbacka, my first weeks of sharing, I used to race through my five minutes of airtime. Squeezing in as much as I could about what I’d been up too, what I wanted to get up too, who I was into. I was diving into story, and that was okay, I was new this.

But as I continued meeting the same people week in and week out for sharing, listening started to awaken something in me. I started to observe how slowly other people shared… One man began each sharing by taking a moment to look into each of our eyes. Another used up half his time breathing. Many closed their eyes. And some barely spoke more than a few sentences in the whole five minutes.

They were all dropping into something that I wasn’t very familiar with...they were dropping into the present.

I noticed that when I sped through my sharing I was dancing between two worlds, the past, and the future. I was unconsciously avoiding a place that my fellow circlers were not - the present.

Weeks of sharing went by, and when our group met I could feel something arriving between me and my co-sharers, safety. I felt safe.

The depth of what others were sharing; deep and painful emotions, shocking and taboo thoughts - yet not once, not ever were they judged. I could feel that there were no limits to what I could say with these people, nothing I  could do that would be wrong, not enough or too much.

And so this time, when it was my turn, I did something scary. I took a breath, I looked around, I felt into my body, and I shared what was alive in me - right now.

What was alive was: “ I feel scared, I feel like I’d been doing sharing wrong until this moment, I feel embarrassed that you have all probably been thinking that.” As I spoke my raw truth I dared to peek around and see if my thoughts would be confirmed. My co-sharers simply looked at me lovingly, I felt my heart expand and I kept sharing, “Now I realise you don’t think that at all, you all just accept me as I am.”  And I began to cry.

There I finally was, in the present. When I truly dropped into the present my body released with tears. It released tension. It released stories. It released expectations. It released the fast pace of life. And I just was. I was healing through sharing.

For seven months I continued this practice. I was able to move through pieces of my unconscious that have remained dormant for a lifetime, and I watched my co-sharers do the same.

Sharing became as important a daily routine as brushing my teeth. If I missed a day, I could feel the plaque of emotions and pace building up around me like decay.

I shared with 100+ different beings, soon sharing with strangers became second nature. I wasn’t sharing a story or a feeling for anyone, I was not performing, I was just being present for me.

Though sharings were never spoken of, when you saw a co-sharer outside the circle there was a different connection between the two of you. Like an artificial layer of each had been stripped away, and you were eternally connected by truth.

Sharing opened me up. Got me in touch with myself. Got me in touch with the language of my body. It brought me for the first time fully into the present. Sharing assisted in healing me.

But then I left Ängsbacka.

And I began to spend my time with people who didn’t know about sharing. I was inspired to teach this practice I had come to love with some. But with many I didn’t feel I could.

I slipped into the fast paced chatter of my culture. I spent more and more time talking about the past and about the future. But now my heart is calling out for me to be present.

Two years have passed since I learnt about sharing and I woke up this morning feeling the dense presence of plaque accumulated from far too long without sharing in my life.

I made my way heavy with emotion yet motivated to share through writing, the practice of sharing as a reminder, as a dedication to myself to reawaken it in my life.


Sharing is caring. And sometimes you have to be the change you want to see in your world.

I’m bringing sharing back. I want to share it’s gifts, it’s possibilities with you those who are brave enough to swim, in that unfamiliar, yet beautiful gift that is - the present.

I will be birthing some live events in Melbourne next month and I’m curious to see if there is interest for an online portal for my loves abroad - write to me at chloe@chloeadriana.com to express your interest - or to simply share your heart.