How Big Is Your Circle? Let's Talk Love and Acceptance

Apr 30, 2025

Explore the expansive nature of love and acceptance through the lens of personal growth. Discover how stress can shrink your circle while experiences can help it grow. Delve into the six stages of ego development and their impact on relationships. Reflect on interconnectedness, embracing all beings with compassion. There's a guided meditation to deepen awareness and promote understanding of both familiar and distant individuals, fostering acceptance even amid differing opinions.

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INSIGHT

Circles of Acceptance Expand and Contract

Our circle of acceptance and love can expand or contract depending on our experiences and state of mind.
Meditation helps maintain a larger, more accepting circle while stress and busyness tend to shrink it.

INSIGHT

Growth of Circles From Self to Others

Circles of care grow from pre-egoic survival to egocentric self-focus in childhood.
Children begin with tiny circles focused only on their immediate needs and themselves.

INSIGHT

Ethnocentric Circles of Loyalty

Ethnocentric circles include loyalty to tribe, family, or nation where care is reciprocal.
This stage values mutual support within defined groups, like family or tribe.

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We’re diving into the idea of our circles of acceptance today. How big is your circle of love and understanding? I’ve been thinking about how our perspectives change as we grow up, from a tiny circle in childhood to something much larger as adults. It’s fascinating to look at how our circles can expand or contract based on our experiences and feelings. I’ll be sharing some insights on this journey and how it affects our relationships with ourselves and others. Plus, I've got a guided meditation coming up that’ll help us explore these circles even more. Let’s get into it!

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

🎙️ Stillness in the Storms — Episode: “How Big Is Your Circle of Love?”

A heartfelt reflection on how wide your love really reaches — and how to gently grow it.

🧭 What This Episode Covers

How big your circle of love, care, and acceptance really is
Why it naturally shrinks during stress and expands with growth
The six stages of ego development and how they relate to your caring
How to reflect without judgment on who is inside — or outside — your circle
Zen and Buddhist perspectives on expanding compassion

🌀 Circle Stages — Simple Breakdown

Pre-Egocentric – Me as impulse (pure survival)
Egocentric – Me as person (all about me)
Ethnocentric – My tribe (loyalty, shared identity)
Worldcentric – All humans (equal value, global empathy)
Planetcentric – All beings (animals, ecosystems, future life)
Kosmocentric – No separation (universal awareness, nondual)

We move in and out of these stages — even in a single day. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s awareness.

🧠 Quotes That Land

“Growth is always in the direction of greater wholeness and inclusion.” – Ken Wilber

“Love is a state of being.” – Eckhart Tolle

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” – Richard Rohr

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” – Jesus (Luke 23:34)

Takeaways:

In this episode, we explore the different stages of our circle of acceptance and love.
Understanding how to recognize and expand our circle can lead to greater empathy and compassion.
The podcast emphasizes the idea that our circles of caring are not fixed and can change over time.
We discuss how personal experiences, such as stress or busyness, can contract our circles of acceptance.
The conversation highlights the importance of caring for not just loved ones, but also for people across the globe.
We delve into deeper concepts of world centric and planet centric thinking for a broader perspective.