The Power of Witness
Do you ever call a friend to talk about a bad day and really just need to vent? But when you get on the phone and start talking they immediately jump in to provide suggestions. It's one of the worst feelings, when you really just need someone to listen and tell you it's going to be okay.
Why is this so painful? Because you're probably have the experience of not feeling heard with the added dash of "oh you feel like there's something to fix here" that makes you then consider how wrong or bad this thing that you're dealing with is.
There is so much power in the witness.
I was discussing this with a friend over dinner last week and we both echoed to each other how rare and absolutely relieving it is to have someone just sit with you through whatever your feelings. Simon Sinek has a rule with his friends, "never cry alone" (and while I cry with such regularity that this isn't logistically an option for me, I appreciate the premise).
Of course, after the feelings move through, we are ready to talk about solutions, next steps and what to do about it. But often, you already know the things you will need to do or the next steps, you're just not quite ready to do it yet because of the sadness, anger or loss. And that's okay.
This is one of my greatest privileges as a coach to witness the feelings of my clients. To show them that they're allowed to feel. In fact, letting that emotion come out and through us is beautiful and powerful and healing.
Now I know you're a practical mind, to-do list thinker so just feeling your feelings probably doesn't sound sufficient to get you where you want to go. And in that you are correct. This is why I always come back to this power pairing for making real change in our lives:
Shift your mindset and act differently.
We cannot expect to just work on our mindset but be able to act the exact same way we always have and see big change. Eventually our actions have to shift to reflect the new mindset. On the other hand, if you're just doing the actions but not actually shifting the mindset beneath, it's not really going to sink in (this is the biggest problem with "play hard to get" - actions but not mindset!)
But in order to shift your mindset you will always have to feel something. To address the sadness for all the times that you accepted less than you deserve. To feel anger at the parent or friend that always let you down, when you didn't deserve that kind of pain. To face the fear that nobody will ever show up for you so you can see that just because some people won't doesn't mean that nobody will.
But I'd invite you to consider which one you want to tackle first.
If you know you'll get started faster if you can be in action, doing things differently, then seek out programs or challenges that will give you practical actions to take.
If you feel like you want to address your thoughts and feelings first, because they're the real source of your struggle right now, then seek out support and potentially a space like coaching where you will have room to process and feel and then you can jump into action. This could also be the opportunity to better communicate to your friends and family when you just need a listening ear.
But I think we can all use the reminder, for ourselves and for the other people in our lives, that sometimes you don't need to DO anything to support somebody or to process a difficult feeling. Sometimes the ask is just "can I sit here while they feel this so they know that they're supported?" We can pay it forward for when we know we'll need the same.
