Blessed to be a Witness

As we encounter each other in daily life, we are offered opportunities to experience one another in a place of personal suffering. Suffering is defined as "physical or psychological pain and distress." We are mostly accustomed to identifying physical suffering, as we observe someone struggling with an illness, managing the effects of disease, or coping with an injury or deformity. Psychological suffering is less accepted. We are fascinated by our capacity to engage and express suffering. We allow ourselves to investigate vicariously through movies and images of world disaster. Yet, we really don't know what to do when that "private" part of our experience is exposed in daily life.

When another person reacts from that vulnerable place of distress, we have learned to guard ourselves with ideas of threat that substantiate our defensiveness. We have adopted ideas of being "put upon" as though we believe that others have the power to control our goodness and influence us back into our darker parts. We have been taught to not let others "pull us down" as they descend into the depths of their own anguish & pain. Suffering is a very personal experience, and we've all learned to take it so very personal. But suffering is also universal. Every single human being will experience at some point in their lifetime some form of internal conflict, torment, oppression, persecution, agony or sorrow that feels unbearable. Suffering is a state of loss, which can be sudden or start as an irresolvable discomfort that produces greater degrees of struggle and pain in our bodies and being. But suffering is more than pain; it is a combination of physical, mental, emotional & spiritual distress. Given that we all have this capacity in common, why is it so difficult for us to navigate being a witness to each other's suffering?

It has a lot to do with what part of our being we live from. If we live our lives from the mind, then we are more likely to perceive suffering as a loss of control. The body is our natural resource for allowing the experience of suffering, not the mind. The mind is for analyzing, understanding, organizing, compartmentalizing, categorizing and putting things together. Suffering is a need for pause, for breaking things down, to disarm and disassemble in order to reveal something deeper. We will be as disoriented with another's suffering as we are unfamiliar with our own. As we learn to live our lives more from our bodies, we encounter the awareness and sensitivity to things deeper in our humanity, giving birth to the tolerance and compassion that brings forth the true witness in each of us. Bearing witness to our own suffering and being in service to witness the suffering of another … these are our ultimate obstacles and our greatest capacity for union, joining each of us as a link in the formation of an enhanced and expanding whole.

Through the focus of the intellect, the mind will attempt to put up barriers to being present with observable suffering. These barriers present themselves mostly in the form of judgment. We feel more comfortable when we can judge someone else's behavior as "inappropriate," usually in calculations of too much or not enough. We seem to pick up on the personal nature of another's suffering, but since our mind's perception responds with so much filtering, we end up applying our experience too personally and make it about protecting ourselves. We feel treated unfairly, improperly, victimized by the other person's place of imbalance, as though we are being challenged or imposed upon by their inability to be more in control of their own experience. We focus on how we are being affected, and how out of control we feel in the presence of suffering. We perceive that the other person's "unacceptable" behavior has the power to inflict upon us unjustified pain, which we naturally want to deflect, resist and resent.

What if we could recognize in that moment that we are receiving insight about another's state of suffering? What if we could actually make this conscious distinction and acknowledge the suffering that is present in another, and then allow our own perception to be informed with this awareness? What if this awareness of suffering didn't threaten us, but actually enlightened us as to how to be in relationship with our own experience? What if we actually felt grateful for the opportunity to bear witness to a fellow human being in this place of creative birth, with the knowledge that the fires of suffering will burn away all that is unimportant and leave only the truth to remain? What if this knowledge is our gift too?

We have been granted the unique access through suffering to see each other, hear each other, and to be known. What if the growing degree of suffering in this world is simply an invitation to stand before each other and receive the collective blessings of our oneness? Will we decline this invitation and continue to react through separation & containment, fostering self-preservation and denying our longing to belong? Or will we choose to stand in this place of honor and proclaim our existence through our infinite capacity for love and our boundless power to embrace one another amidst our suffering? We will pass from this life in time, but while we are here in each other's presence, what if we offered our hearts instead of protecting them … what if we were blessed to be a witness?

"Glory behold all my eyes have seen, have seen ...

I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed to be a witness.

Gather around for today won't come again, it won't come again ...

I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed to be a witness.

So much sorrow and so much pain, still I will not live in vain …

I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed to be a witness."

Ben Harper, Excerpt from Blessed To Be a Witness (Diamonds On The Inside, Album)