by Thomas Hübl
edited by Giselle Charbonnier
We all need witnesses. The most painful thing is when pain was inflicted upon somebody and this is not seen. We all need to be seen where the pain is. We all need that somebody sees and recognizes our pain. If not we are our only witnesses, and our movies keep running internally, because there is no outside in which they can be anchored.
Trauma is energy that remains disconnected, encapsulated. Confined into a bubble, it turns into a circular movement. There is a power in how we held ourselves, in how we withdrew and took care of ourselves, and when the world around us becomes a bit safer, or when we become a bit stronger, we may want to regain our freedom and full strength, but for this, we need to become conscious of our patterns of contracting and withdrawing. Once these patterns become conscious, our nervous systems can create space around them.
Once the trauma is witnessed, the bubble can open up. When somebody can say, yes they did hurt me, and it hurts, it hurts being beaten up, or mobbed, or bullied; then this can open up into relating. That you experience someone witnessing you, that you land in a felt sense, that you land in someone with what has happened in you, what touches you; from that, a release can happen, a burden can be dropped, and an opening can happen. An essential gate can start to open.
It’s always important to check if there is a felt sense of sharing, otherwise, part of us may not be included in it. It’s important for us as a community to have this on our screen, to notice it, because transformation happens by deepening the relationship.
A transgression of the divine law has to be witnessed to be reintegrated. It needs somebody who sees it and feels it. This is, of course, the base of many therapeutic techniques, but it’s also the foundation of being human.
This article is an excerpt of a conversation between Thomas and
one of his students who experienced severe childhood trauma.
Edited with permission from Thomas Hübl.
