Andréa Bendewald has been gathering people in circles for more than three decades.

Long before I knew I'd spend my life gathering people in circles, I noticed people felt comfortable telling me things.

Strangers. Friends. Adults. Kids. They'd start talking, and I loved listening. I wasn't interested in small talk. I wanted to know what was really happening beneath the words. Why were people missing one another? Why did genuine connection seem so rare? To me, it always felt obvious that we were longing for the same thing.

At a very young age, I found acting and fell in love with storytelling. For years I was fortunate enough to make a living as an actress, bringing other people's stories to life. Acting is the pursuit of truth—of what makes us human. But eventually I realized I was even more fascinated by what happens when real people tell their own stories.

I was hooked from the very first circle I sat in back in the '90s in Laurel Canyon, and I've been participating in and facilitating circles ever since. Through every chapter of my life, I've gathered in circles. I have lead circles in every space imagineable, in living rooms, backyards, tipis, classrooms, retreat centers, beaches, meditation studios, around campfires, behind podcast microphones, and anywhere people are willing to come together with intention.

"The greatest wisdom I've ever encountered didn't come from a teacher. It came from a circle."

I've studied Transcendental Meditation, the Way of Council, storytelling, psychology, spirituality, grief, death and dying, and the messy, beautiful art of being human. Yet my greatest teachers have always been the circles themselves.

The Art of Circling taught me how to find my own voice, trust myself, and listen in a way that changed the way I live. It showed me that every person carries wisdom, every story has value, and every gathering has the potential to change us.

I still love the art of acting. I still believe in the power of a great story. But I believe something even more powerful happens when ordinary people have the courage to tell the truth about their own lives—and someone is there to truly witness it.

That's the art I'm devoted to now.

One shared truth at a time.