Be my witness

I need you dear reader because I don’t really exist unless I am perceived.

I write to be witnessed. See me my friend. Come see what resides within my flesh and bones, the pulp of my brain and heart. Come listen to the roar of the universe beneath my small voice and peculiar accent. Feel the entity that is I.

I am a witness. My work has placed me in the roles of counselor, psilocybin facilitator, biographer and journalist. I have made a living witnessing people. I have also had the good fortune of being seen and heard by many good witnesses.

We all need to be witnessed. We need someone interested enough to want to know us, someone we can review our beliefs, our past, our wins, and our losses with. Someone who can sit with our soul as it pushes and strains and struggles to stay contained within the vessel of our personalities, our hobbling, limited and deceptive forms.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The philosopher’s consensus is “No” because sound is a vibration and it requires an ear drum to be perceived. If something is not perceived, the fact of its existence remains in doubt. Perhaps this is why we all need to be witnessed. It is not a case of “I think therefore I am”. It’s a case of “I am seen, heard and felt, therefore I am”. We can exhale a sigh of relief only when we know “Someone has caught this vibration which is me. Someone heard and understood what I was trying to say, who I was trying to be, who I could not be, who I am.”

Thoughts exist in a vacuum. If they have nowhere to land, they dissipate. So we park our thoughts into the music, paintings, photos, or pottery we make, the clothes we wear, the food we cook, into our books, and movies, our buildings, our dancing, our warring, our love making, our childrearing, our inventions, our ceremonies, our religions, our speeches and campaigns. We do so because the contents of our interior world demand an audience. This is how our lives unfold and materialize, through the pulsation of our thoughtforms confirmed through reception. The inner man/woman wants to be externalized so it knows for certain that it exists and this can only be done if there is someone else watching.

This is one reason why we crave connection, why we gravitate towards being partnered, having friends, children or pets. It’s why we have social media accounts. If we are to be real, we must be perceived.

The difficulty arises when we feel we are not being perceived accurately; when what we sense ourselves to be on the inside does not match what we see reflected in the eyes of those closest and dearest to us, or to the rest of the world. This can leave us feeling deeply isolated, frustrated and misunderstood because then the reality of “me” is called into question.

Why is it so difficult to relay the essential content, “the essence of me” to others? It is because the secret self – call it the soul if you will – is uncivilized, unpredictable, and therefore unacceptable to unskilled witnesses. When perceived by those who carry judgement and fear, the soul’s reflection becomes marred, and we do not agree with what we see in the mirror of their eyes and reactions. Yet even these perceptions allow us access to a fuller and richer picture of our souls. There are sides to the inner man/woman that only the judgmental or hateful witness enables us to encounter, and we ought to be appreciative of these opportunities too.

So what does impactful witnessing entail? It entails a suspension of self. If I can put aside being “me” with my beliefs, likes and dislikes, values and past experiences for a while, then I can be fully present to attend to you. I can then see beyond your many layers of skin. True witnessing is an act of service because this is the only posture that allows one to see and hear another with the heart and soul rather than the mind. When we see with the heart, we see not just the broken parts, but the whole, complex and gorgeous picture.