Healing Circles

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

—Ranier Maria Rilke

An old proverb reminds us that sharing joy with others doubles that joy and sharing sorrow halves that sorrow. Scientific research is starting to confirm what people have long known to be true: Those with positive social support have fewer heart attacks, live longer, experience less dementia, recover from illness more quickly, and are generally happier. But many don’t have the support they need. Commonweal’s Healing Circles programs provide positive social support — powered by volunteers — to anyone who asks for it. The framework of the circles encourages participants to treat one another with kindness and respect, hold one another’s stories in confidence, withhold judgment, and honor one another’s unique path to healing without advising, fixing, or rescuing.

Healing Circles draws on 30 years of experience with four of Commonweal’s programs: the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, The Institute for Health and Illness, the Healing Kitchens Institute, and the Healing Yoga Foundation. You can find out more about this work on the Healing Circles Global website.

  • Michael Lerner, Parker Palmer and Friends

    Moving Forward: Circles for Healing and Coming Together

  • Diana Lindsay and Oren Slozberg

    Healing Circles Global: Healing in Community

  • Janie Brown and Michael Lerner

    Intentional Healing: Transformative Retreats for People with Cancer

  • Parker Palmer and Michael Lerner

    Circles of Trust: A Hidden Wholeness

  • Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea, Diana Lindsay

    Calling the Circle: A Leader in Every Chair

  • Dwight McKee with Michael Lerner

    Integrative Approaches to COVID-19 and Cancer

  • Lisa Simms Booth and Michael Lerner

    Healing Work with Cancer in a Time of Transformation

  • Michael Lerner and Friends

    Bringing Deep Healing Work Online

  • Diana Lindsay and Michael Lerner

    The Inner World as Resource and Guide

  • Francis Weller and Michael Lerner

    When the Bough Breaks: Grief, Community and Rough Initiations

  • Michael Pollan

    How to Change Your Mind

  • Lael Duncan

    When the End Is Near: The Art and Science of Compassionate Care

  • Brian Bouch

    Integrative Oncology

  • Francis Weller

    Living in the Ashes: Communal Grief and the North Bay Fires

  • Michael Samuels

    Dancing Bears and Greek Gods

  • Michael Lerner

    Love Heals: A Talk at the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco

  • Erlene Chiang

    Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treating Cancer and Grief

  • Don Lattin

    Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy

  • Frank Ostaseski

    The Five Invitations: What Death Can Teach Us About Living

  • Michael Lerner

    Memories, Dreams, Reflections

  • Anna O’Malley

    The Ecology of Community Medicine

  • Michael Lerner and Rachel Naomi Remen

    The Commonweal Story (part 4)

  • Jerry Jampolsky and Diane Cirincione-Jampolsky

    Attitudinal Healing: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

  • Akil Palanisamy

    The Paleovedic Diet: A Complete Program to Burn Fat, Increase Energy, and Reverse Disease

  • 2016 Symington Conference

    on New Directions in Integrative Cancer Care

  • Dwight McKee

    After Cancer Care: Reflections on 40 Years Practicing Integrative Cancer Medicine

  • Rick Ingrasci

    A Life in Healing: Cultural Transformation and Psychedelic Medicine

  • Rabbi Rachel Cowan

    Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience and Spirit

  • Francis Weller

    The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

  • Leroy Lowe

    Getting to Know Cancer

  • Diana and Kelly Lindsay

    Healing Circles Langley

  • Shodo Harada Roshi

    Zen and the Art of Dying

  • Betsy Stroman

    The Sausalito Village Experience: Will This Help Us in West Marin?

  • Kate Hoepke

    The Village Movement: Aging in Community

  • Mark Renneker, MD

    Medical Advocacy for People with Cancer and Other Serious Conditions

  • Michael Pollan

    The Trip Treatment: New Research on the Healing Properties of Psychedelics

  • Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

    Trusting the Process: The Basics of Discovery Model Learning

  • Lynn Willeford

    Small Is Beautiful:  Building Volunteer Circles of Mutual Support on South Whidbey 

  • Nate Hinerman, PhD

    Ending the War on Death: Improving Care for Dying Patients and those Who Will Be

  • John Marks and Susan Collin Marks

    Search for Common Ground:  Building Peace In Our World and In Our Hearts

  • Sadja Greenwood, MD

    A Life of Changing the Rules

  • Ann Cutcher, MD

    Enso House: The Story of a Zen Hospice

  • Lennon Flowers

    #Realtalk: How Millennials Are Transforming Loss from A Conversation-Killer to A Conversation-Starter

  • Donald Abrams, MD

    Integrative Cancer Care: A Training for Health Professionals and Cancer Advocates

  • Shodo Harada Roshi

    The Calligraphy of Emptiness, The Zen of Dying

  • Betsy MacGregor, MD

    In Awe of Being Human

  • Steve Heilig

    Confessions of an Accidental Activist

  • Peggy Taylor

    Unleashing the Creative Potential in Youth--and Adults

  • Ted Schettler

    The Ecology of Breast Cancer

  • Artist Tu-2 (Tu Ying-ming) and Angela Oh

    108 Portraits of Compassion — The Blue Portrait Series

  • Francis Weller

    Beauty, Imagination, and the Life of the Soul

  • Diana and Kelly Lindsay

    Something More Than Hope

  • Ilene Serlin, PhD

    Dance and Psyche: How Moving Moves Us

  • Angeles Arrien, PhD

    Nothing Special: The Mystery of Everyday Life

  • Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

    Symbols, Rituals, and Archetypes: Speaking the Language of the Deep Unconscious Mind

  • Rebecca Katz, MS

    The Longevity Kitchen: the Top 16 Age-Busting Power Foods

  • BJ Miller, MD

    Dying: Exploring the Terrain

  • Stephanie Sugars

    What Do I Have to Offer before I Leave My Body?

  • Francis Weller, MFT

    Entering the Healing Ground: Grief, Ritual, and the Soul of the World

  • Mark Renneker, MD, Michael Lerner, and Others

    Clinical Advocacy Public Forum

  • Brother David Steindl-Rast

    Spiritual Biography

  • Emilie Conrad

    Moving Medicine: Continuum, Movement, and Enlivening Health

  • Donald Abrams, MD, and Clint Werner

    Marijuana: Is It Medicine Yet?

  • Rebecca Katz and Jeanne Wallace, PhD

    The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen

  • Frank Ostaseski

    Being A Compassionate Companion

  • Steve Heilig

    The Modern Evolution of Death

  • Gregory Orr

    The Blessing: Poetry as Survival

  • Margaret Kripke, PhD

    Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk

  • Mike Witte, MD

    Fighting 'till the End?

  • Michael Lerner, PhD

    Death and Dying: Lessons from the Commonweal Cancer Help Program

  • Ted Shettler, MD, and Sharyle Patton

    The Ecological Paradigm of Health

  • Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

    Stories and Poems at the End of Life

  • Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Christina Puchalski, MD

    Spiritual Dimensions of End of Life

  • Sadja Greenwood

    A Nutritional Supplement Strategy Based on History, Science, and Individual Needs

  • David Servan Schrieber

    The Instinct to Heal: Treating Depression, Anxiety, and Cancer without Drugs or Talk Therapy

  • TKV Desikachar and Kate Holcombe

    Healing Yoga

  • Keith Block, MD

    Life over Cancer: Program for Integrated Cancer Treatment

  • Russell Jaffee, MD

    The Alkaline Way: Diet, Supplements, Detoxification, and Real Health Reform

  • James S Gordon, MD

    Life Lessons in Healing: Cancer, Trauma, and Mind-Body Medicine

  • Thomas Yeomans, PhD

    A Spirituality for Our Time

  • Sandra Steingraber, PhD

    Healing Inside Out: A Poet's Quest, A Mother's Journey

  • Ram Dass and Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

    Healing, Aging, and Dying