When Ken and Karen Sensenig’s family gathered for Christmas 2025, joy was shadowed by years of accumulated pain, conflict, and distance. With their 50th wedding anniversary on the horizon, they hoped their adult children and in-laws could come together to celebrate, but they weren’t sure it was possible.
“Our pain drove us to Advoz,” Ken recalls. What they found there was the circle process: a structured, facilitated space where every voice receives equal weight and no one may interrupt. Over two three-hour sessions, their family, including a son and daughter-in-law who had traveled from abroad, did the hard work of speaking and listening, often through tears.
The questions were simple but penetrating: What do you hope doesn’t change about your family? What do you need from each other to move forward? Slowly, something shifted. “Gentleness and caring pervaded the discussion,” Ken says. “We all felt the need to hold and alleviate the pain of those we truly love most dearly.”
The Sensenigs describe their journey using an analogy from a drive through a Pennsylvania turnpike tunnel: you can’t get over the mountain, under it, or around it. You have to go through it. “Advoz and the circle process helped our family slog through a mountain of pain, alienation, and grief to move toward healing.”
They now look forward to celebrating their anniversary together this summer, pointed, as Ken puts it, “in the right direction.”
Karen and Ken Sensenig shared this story at the 2026 Around the Table Dinner and Auction.
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