Lesson 1 B: Bearing Witness Video
Click here for Bearing Witness Audio File & Transcript
B = Bearing Witness
What’s the 1st thing you do when an unhappy thought or feeling pops up?
Well duh! You either deny it, minimize it or distract yourself from it. Sheesh, where’s this guy been?
You know folks like this, yes? Too busy to comb out the gremlins that sabotage their ability to enjoy life peacefully.
Heck! I used to be one of those people. Problem is, the gremlins don’t get smaller, disappear or get discouraged. Unless they’re faced honestly.
The most powerful and direct way to do that, is by “bearing witness” to them. That’s the B in my BRAVE Method for transformational change.
Bearing witness is the ability to observe your experience in the present moment:
nonjudgmentally curiously and with self-compassionI show up for my clients in this way as their coach. I show them loving kindness as they share their experience. I also guide them so they can learn to bear witness to their own experience.
The ultimate goal is for them to be able to bear witness for themselves and others. People need to be seen and heard more often then they need to be fixed.
Bearing witness offers the experience of being deeply seen and heard.
Imagine being able to meet your feelings without getting swept up in a guilt trip or a shame spiral.
Bearing witness is the key to escaping that pattern.
By learning to be present with the thought or feeling, all by itself.
Without falling down the rabbit hole of reacting to it.
No story of how it makes you a bad person, or life a terrible experience.
It really is something to be experienced.
It’s something my clients experience every time they talk to me.
Having someone listen to you, without telling you how you should or shouldn’t feel about it.
Without telling you you “just” need to do this or you “should” do that.
Instead, you have someone open their heart and listen as you share how an experience honestly felt for you.
How refreshing, how healing, would that be for you?