The absence of an empathetic witness

I'm watching Dan Harris 10% Happier podcast and at around 40:20 guest Vinny Ferraro echoes something that Peter Levine says a lot: trauma is something that happens with the absence of an empathetic witness.

I've always been intrigued by this statement and never felt I got a true grasp of it. I mean, clearly the majority of us here had to cope with terrible and unfair situations, where we had no option but to numb ourselves to what was happening. Which brings a sad reality of our society that is: a lot of times we'll suffer and there won't be this empathetic person by our side.

So the empathetic witness has to be ourselves. But how? Through self-compassion, soothing techniques, allowance etc.? I practice all that but somehow I feel I'm missing something. Thoughts anyone?

 

What comes to mind for me is how resilient the human spirit is. We can survive and heal from unthinkable atrocities if we are comforted and accompanied afterwards. But alone, it doesn’t get processed. It just gets stored in our bodies, to sooner or later wreak havoc.

To answer your question, Yes. I think we can witness it —even years later, ourselves, by being willing to listen to what the body is telling us. We can accompany ourselves through the healing process. There is this part of us, called the Self, that is wise and strong and can witness and heal us.

I just read some pertinent stuff about this is Chapter 9 of Crushing Doubt, by Dr. Dan Ratner. Here are some passages that really hit me:

“To fully heal, you have to accept the real and deep suffering of your story.

Recognize what the body is telling you.

Your body shows you aren’t making up a sob story. Quite the opposite: you haven’t been willing to feel your legitimate pain and suffering.

What you’re feeling now is exactly what you felt then and your symptoms won’t relent until you heed the message of your suffering.

You’re being told the full story of you for the first time.

Each horrible thing you process fully is direct information that you’ll never have to experience again.”

 

The latest episode of The Cure For Chronic Pain (S4 E 25) discusses being the empathetic witness through journaling.
The subject of the interview recounts how she remembered being on a school bus when nobody would sit beside her. She told herself (at the time) not to cry, and just got on with her day. Journaling, she could see this abandonment, and not feeling accepted and could really empathize with that feeling - because as an adult she found out she was neuro-divergent, and that those feelings were often experienced in her life as people's reactions to her uniqueness.
Journaling paved the way.