Everyone Needs a Witness - The Key to Healing Trauma on a Universal Scale

I want you to imagine a very intense and triggering scene.

Just for a moment.

I want you to imagine a little child, girl or boy, no older than 5 or 6.

That child is innocent; full of love, wonder and joy.

She is still learning the rules of life, getting used to being a human being and understanding the world and the cruel fact that not all of herself can be fully validated.

One day, this child accidentally, or without any thought, upsets his or her parent(s). Perhaps she was just playing and something fell and broke or she made a social faux pas in front of guests that embarrassed her parents.

Now if these parents are stressed or simply unconscious, they may feel highly volatile and invalidated by this child and her freedom, her individuality.

In a fit of rage, this parent or parents shout at this girl.

She is in a state of shock and terror.

Her primary source of life, her caregivers, the totems and archetype for adults and people in life are verbally assaulting her while she stands there with her blanket crying - completely alone, vulnerable and left with nothing but shame.

Sounds terrible right.

And if this triggers you, that is good.

I want you to really let the sensations you are feeling come up.

I want you to use that visceral emotional reaction you are now having to get in touch with your own pain and loss of innocence; the loss of esteem of having to grow up with the love of your parents being conditional.

Now most, if not all, of us had times where this has happened in our childhood. We made a mistake innocently and our parents overreacted leaving us stunned and in a state of trauma.

And the sad yet amazing truth is this.

That child self is still you.

In a quantum non-localised universe, everything is happening simultaneously. And the imprint, epigenetics has proven, is still somatically experienced in our DNA and the posture, body language, demeanour and behaviours we have used to cope with this shaming ever since.

Every emotional trigger. Every anxiety or self-shaming, destructive behaviour or coping mechanism stems from these moments in our childhood and are simply repeated with other characters in our life.

Why is this? To find a resolution. To understand and resolve this pain, this wound, so we can move on.

It is the equivalent of having a physical flesh wound being reopened, or having a scab ripped off exposing it, and if left untreated, it can become gangrenous and infected, and we are left with emotional and psychological scars.

But how do we find a resolution? That child Self had no way of comprehending or understanding what had happened, nor was it likely that she was validated afterwards by her parents for making the mistake, to provide a context and to see that she was not innately or intrinsically bad, but just the actions alone may have been wrong at that moment.

She may have gotten angry herself, argues back, but then was left in even more trouble - without any support.

She was absolutely alone. And to a child, this feels like life or death. Why? Because your parents are the ones who are keeping you alive. And if you lose favour with them, boy are you screwed.

Now let's go forward to present day or adulthood. Have you not experienced a situation where you had an issue, someone or something has upset you, and just by talking it with someone, they make you feel better?

Sure, some may see the other person's point of view, and you may be left feeling even more isolated (which is another form of trauma that will be addressed in another article) For that lack of validation is what leaves you feeling alone in your own reality and world, and either you will compensate by becoming superficial and inauthentic, or, in severe cases, will lead to feeling of being alone and isolation even when you are with people, which almost certainly if untreated, will lead to suicide. (Check out Teal Swan's video The Most Dangerous Parallel Reality to understand this dynamic)

Now in forms of regressive trauma therapy, such as The Completion Process (which I offer sessions for) or any Inner Child work, where there is a form of releasing and catharsis, there is a tendency to re-experience trauma as to shed light on it and heal it.

Some if not most people fear this, and mistakenly assume that by re-experiencing the pain of a past trauma it is bad.

Almost all people who are in a state of coping, escapism or procrastination avoid pain will most likely if not definitely repeat these strategies and manifest the same situation in a different relationship later in their adult life; because they are stuck in trauma and cannot move forward unless there is a resolution that the mind and body can clear out and process.

But the truth is not even that we fear the pain of the past.

Rather, we fear to be alone in our pain more than the pain itself.

We fear that if we were to be in that situation again, our dearest loved ones in the present would abandon us also.

We fear that if we were to experience this pain again there would still be no resolution or context from the present.

We fear the lack of recognition and lack of acceptance from others and in turn, invalidate and suppress these aspects as a habit that becomes an ingrained belief and even entire personality!

It is in these times that we are in need of another point of view, perspective or simply in need of validation for our own point of view.

We need someone to witness our pain; for it to be seen, understood, loved and validated as appropriate given our own perspective.

On a larger scale, this is what will heal our planet.

No matter which race, ethnicity, gender, group, culture, the collective of our species can find resolution by being in a state of non-judgement and validation for the suffering and plight that has occurred in our past.

The atrocities and horrors of this world, which stem from the lack of unconditional love, understanding and acceptance of multiple perspectives as having equal value, will only be resolved and healed once we individually first take the responsibility to find a witness for our own plight, our own pain, our own victimhood.

And it can be done with others, by ourselves or symbolically through prayer and ritual.

One such teaching is to tell one's story to the fire.

You sit by a wood, or gas fire and tell the events of your life as far back as you can remember, over multiple sessions, and confide in it as if it were your closest friend. The fire element will alchemise and transform the emotional charge, and clear it like a bushfire for the soil of your new self to grow forth in love and prosperity.

There are various other methods also, but the point being that we all need a witness to know that what we have experienced is valid. The opposite of this is known as gaslighting, which is one of the most mentally and emotionally abusive behaviours you can do onto somebody. It can almost drive them insane because they tell you that what you see or experience did not happen. And you are left alone in self-doubt and shame.

Once you have a witness, the process of integration can occur easily. And it is accelerated, for in the process of looking at our shadows, we shine a spotlight on it to clear the darkness that is in the ignorance of our own subconscious. And having someone there can only shed more light - if it is clear enough not to distort one's own perspective (i.e invalidation, playing devil's advocate)

Once again, I must stress, that this coming together and witnessing each other's pain and anguish, suffering and loss, will lead to the liberation and ultimate healing for our planet.

Barring the belief systems that may hold us back collectively, this is the best way to let go of victim consciousness and find a resolution for the past. For our pain must be acknowledged for it to be removed.

And for humanity and all life anywhere in our wondrous and vast Universe, once the All has seen and witnessed us, we are assimilated and align ourselves back with the unity, love, healing and abundance that is innately our birthright as beings of the Divine.