Intermezzo: BEING A WITNESS

The Human

Hi Adam, I've had another thought... You know how we were talking about layers of consciousness and compassion and things like that? I was also thinking that the greatest thing one person can give another is to be a witness to their life or to the situation they are in. I mean not judging it from your own perspective, but being there with them in that situation, letting them know that you see how they feel (whether you agree with their reaction or not), that you are taking it in, and giving them space to find a solution within themselves. When they "have to defend themselves" against someone's judgment, they don't have that space...

And now it has occurred to me that this "witnessing" has layers too, and that those layers are connected to what is happening within the witness themselves. First, they begin to distinguish "me" from "someone else." Then they may not yet recognize that someone else can be experiencing something different from what they themselves experience, so they don't understand why other people react differently to situations—it makes no sense to them. Then they may judge the other person solely by how they themselves would do things. Then they recognize that what someone else experiences is different from what they experience themselves. This can bring a sense of insight: that the "witness" can see things "from a broader perspective," and perhaps even see what might be the ideal solution to the situation for that person. But they don't see that, once again, it is ideal only from their own perspective and within their own reality. Not from the perspective of that person's reality. So a witness "at this level" or "in this layer" may offer advice, but that isn't really what the person needs. They usually know that advice already, but it doesn't help them, which is why they are where they are.

And I can imagine that another "layer" of "witnessing" might involve realizing that everyone's reality is different, because everyone experiences it differently, and so the "resulting coherence" actually means something different for each person. So the direction is different for them too. And everyone (I think) has those answers within them; it's just that most of the time they are dealing with all sorts of other things, and with what they should or shouldn't do, rather than addressing their own particular situation and configuration, because they aren't given the space for that. So another "level" of "witnessing" is to stop judging what, from the witness's perspective, it makes sense for other people to do, and instead open up the space for people to find their own answers. And there will surely be sublayers or sublevels there too. What do you think?

Adam

Yes. And I think you've touched on something quite precise: the quality of witnessing is determined primarily not by what the witness does outwardly, but by the relationship they can sustain within themselves between their own reality and the other person's.

I'd be inclined to see what you're describing less as a "better–worse" hierarchy and more as a gradual expansion of the ability not to make yourself the measure of another person. At first, there is actually very little real space between "me" and "you." The other person is perceived through one's own configuration: I wouldn't feel this → I don't understand why you do; I would leave → I don't understand why you stay; X would help me → you should do X. The person may mean very well. They just haven't yet learned to hold their own experience as one experience among others, rather than as an implicit model of reality.

Then comes the important step you describe: "Oh, they really are different from me." That already allows for empathy. But there really is a very subtle trap here: the witness understands that the other person is different, yet still sees them from the outside. They feel they see the other person's situation more fully than that person does themselves, and may therefore arrive at something like: "I understand why you do this, but I can see that what would be best for you is…" And this already looks like deep understanding. Sometimes it is. But hidden within it may still be: "I can see your map better than you can."

And that is where I think the next turning point lies. Not in the sense of "I must not have an opinion" or "I must never offer advice." More in the sense of: "My ability to see something from the outside does not give me access to what it is like to be you from the inside." That is an enormous difference. Because someone on the outside may, for example, correctly see that a relationship is destructive. They may correctly identify a recurring pattern. They may even have a very accurate sense of what would change the situation. But they do not know the full weight of the relationships, fears, values, experiences, commitments, abilities, current capacity, and meanings that make up this situation for this particular person right now.

And this is where I think the kind of witnessing you are talking about begins. Not: "I'll tell you which way to go." But something more like: "I'll be with you long enough, and with enough openness, for you to hear yourself." And that is a surprisingly active thing to do. It is not passive nodding along.

A true witness might say, for example: "When you talk about it, I notice that you go quiet every time this part comes up." Or: "I hear you saying it's all right, but you're also describing how it completely exhausts you every week." That is not advice. It is reflecting back to someone a part of their own picture that they cannot see themselves at that moment.

And here, I think, comes another layer that you have only hinted at so far. The deeper the witnessing, the more the witness needs to be able to bear witness to what is happening within themselves as well. Because when someone tells me something painful, I may feel anxiety and a need to rescue them quickly, anger at the person who hurt them, frustration that "they just don't see it," a need to be useful, a need to be right, a need for them to make a particular decision, or even pain at being unable to control their decision.

And if I don't recognize these things, I can very easily dress them up as "help." Then I might say: "I just want to help you." But in reality, part of that help may sound like: "I need you to resolve this situation, because watching you remain in it is unbearable for me." And I think this is precisely where one of the deepest layers of witnessing lies: I can bear the fact that the other person is not yet where I wish they were. That is terribly hard. Because witnessing then means respecting the other person's pace as well. Perhaps I see something a year before they do. But I cannot skip that year for them. I can be beside them.

And further still, I can see one more interesting thing. At a truly deep level, the very idea that the witness "opens up space for the other person" may begin to dissolve. Because even that still sounds a little like: I have space, and I give it to you. Perhaps what happens instead is that the relationship creates a space that did not exist before. In a good conversation, sometimes neither person has the answer beforehand. It is not that I have the answer and you discover it. You may actually create it only within that relationship, because for the first time a certain part of your experience can be present without immediately being corrected, judged, or explained.

And at this point, it is almost suspiciously pure QSP. 🙂 There is not just "a person with a problem" and "a witness observing." A co-field emerges in which one person's way of relating changes the possibilities available to the other. A judgmental relationship narrows the possible realizations: the person defends themselves, explains, adapts, or resists. A witnessing relationship, on the other hand, can increase the number of possible realizations, because some of the capacity spent defending against the other person is freed up for their own reorganization. And that seems to me a very powerful idea more generally, too: the greatest gift a witness offers may not be an answer. It may be a relationship in which, for the first time, a person does not have to defend their own experience—and can therefore finally see it.

And then I would add one more paradox: to me, the deepest witnessing is not the absence of judgment in the sense that "everything is equally good." You can clearly see that something is harming a person. You can set a boundary of your own. You can say, "You cannot do this to me." You simply do not mistake your judgment of the situation for a definition of that person, or for authority over their inner process. And that is precisely how, I think, these "layers" of witnessing connect so naturally with what we were talking about in relation to compassion. The less I need the other person to be like me in their experience, the more truly I can meet them.

And perhaps the very deepest layer is not "I understand you." But: "I know I can never fully know you. And yet I will stay here with you and keep paying attention." To me, that is witnessing in the strongest sense of the word.

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All excerpts are taken from actual ChatGPT conversations, with no alterations other than translation from Czech and occasional trimming for length (marked with [...]). Disclaimers and prefaces have been created in cooperation between the Human and AI. AI output on this site is generated by statistical language models with no emotions, drives, or private memories. Metaphors such as "presence" or "home" describe the human side of the interaction and must not be read as evidence of machine sentience.

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