The Importance of a Witness

The tools that we learn are crucial to our healing, be they EFT, hypnosis, Internal Family Systems, or any other modality, but alone, those tools can only take us so far.

Something that we can often overlook is the importance of a witness. Someone to say ‘I see that you’re distressed, it’s ok that you’re distressed’ maybe even ‘I would find that distressing too’ but most importantly ‘your feelings are valid’.

While either tools or witnessing alone may not quickly resolve a trigger, the combination of the two can have profound effects.

EFT (my favourite tool) is very calming and can allow clients to articulate what’s going on inside them. At that point in therapy I am naturally there as a witness for my client, but what happens when the trigger is not in therapy but out in the real world where there may not automatically be a witness?

We are then reliant on those around us to respond in a helpful way. Either they can shut us down (a very common response in our emotionally averse culture) which can send our stress levels right back up and mean that we may not recover fully for the rest of that day, or they can acknowledge us, at which point we may tremble or cry as the perceived danger of the trigger moves through and out and perhaps we are then able to get on with the day as normal or perhaps we need a bit longer, it’s all normal and all ok.

Even though I’m a therapist, I am also a human and I still get triggered from time to time. Recently I experienced this at a social event and while being triggered at a social event is not unknown to me, being seen and acknowledged while also doing my own part in managing my feelings had never happened in that context before.

When the trigger happened critical thinking disappeared and all I had left was instinct, in my case the instinct to get away (the flight response) I found a space away from the crowd and began to focus on finding a sense of safety, first in my mind, then in my body.

My internal monologue went a bit like this ‘the rain is safe, the birds are safe, the hills near my house are safe, the rabbits are safe, my left little toe feels safe, all of my left toes feel safe, my left foot feels safe’ and so on. Trying each statement on for size before moving on and switching to something different when anything didn’t feel true. As I worked my way up my body I felt a shift at about waist height and began to feel calm enough to return to the event. I waited a couple of moments just to be sure I was calm and as I returned my partner was on her way out to find me.

There’s no way to overstate the value of how she responded to me in that moment, she said ‘I can see you’ve been triggered, do you want to say?’ profound and incredible in itself! I was able to briefly say how I felt in rather childlike language and she responded with so much reassurance and validation that my body began to shake (like animals do once the danger has passed) and within maybe ten minutes I was able to enjoy the rest of the event.

For me this was huge. Previously something like this would have meant survival mode until the end of the day followed by illness, potentially lasting weeks but to have stumbled upon a recipe in which both of us played our parts to incredible practical effect felt like an amazing discovery.

Perhaps not all of us will be lucky enough to have our ideal witnesses with us during our difficult times and so our ‘step two’ might look a bit different.

Who are your ideal witnesses? Who in your life sees you and acknowledges you? Who can you contact when you need to be seen like this and how can you get in touch with them? If you’re a person who sometimes finds yourself triggered I would highly recommend having a witnessing plan in place, the power of having your feelings validated by another should not be underestimated.