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The Power Of Being Witnessed · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show.
• 0:02
  My name is Julie Nguyen, and I just am feeling really grateful to be able to voice and share really speak my my life experiences out.
• 0:14
  feels like a little beautiful space here at the Spiritual Shitshow podcast, and as always, I am grateful for you for tuning in.
• 0:24
  When I get my weekly Buzzsprout notifications of how many downloads this podcast has received for the week.
• 0:32
  I just really feel grateful that maybe my shares, my heart, my voice, my stories are helping you to feel a little bit more grounded in your own maybe messy experiences, and that this podcast can be a touchpoint for you for a deep anchoring breath that no matter what you're doing right now, welcome to life.
• 0:55
  Welcome to life and that you are completely, completely supported.
• 1:00
  Just think we don't always have the courage to talk about these things because we don't want to feel whiny or like a victim or like it's too much.
• 1:09
  and this is what this podcast today is, is about the power of sharing your story and more importantly, the power of being and or having a witness.
• 1:20
  And I want to start this podcast today with a little story.
• 1:23
  Many, many, many years ago, I was in China with a friend and we were teaching together.
• 1:28
  We're talking about life, ourselves, probably all the things you talk about when you're traveling with someone.
• 1:33
  And I must've said something self-deprecating about myself because at the time that was pretty normal for me and obviously something that I am still working on.
• 1:40
  And as we're getting onto the bus, I think I must've said something about my weight or my body.
• 1:46
  Which has also been something that I've been working on'cause in the dance world, you are always in the mirror, you are never skinny enough, you are never fit enough, you are never flexible enough.
• 1:55
  So this not enough-ness was pretty ingrained in my psyche.
• 2:00
  and the reason we were in China is'cause I was the, the main teacher, and I had other teachers that I was bringing along with me.
• 2:07
  So we're talking about all of that, and I knew I was really needing to step into my leadership skills again, and we're getting on the bus and he, literally stopped me, grabbed me by my shoulders, and looked me in the eyes and said,"Girl, you clearly do not see yourself the way I see you." And I remember gasping almost.
• 2:28
  my mouth must have been down, my eyes were probably open.
• 2:32
  And the way he told me,"Girl, your body is strong.
• 2:39
  That's what I see.
• 2:40
  I see a beautiful, powerful woman in front of me who has an incredible, strong body.
• 2:47
  I see somebody who is an incredible teacher, leader, and artist.
• 2:53
  I don't know what the hell you see, but that's what I see." And I think that was one of the first times that somebody so deliberately and clearly stopped me to remind me who I am I realized I may just have been looking at myself my entire life through a lens of distortion.
• 3:21
  And I will say I do have to give myself a lot of grace because I had a early start in adulthood, and I also was growing up next to a narcissist, And if you're familiar with narcissistic relationships, a lot of the times your reality is getting manipulated behind the scenes, and you're always being gaslit so it's really been a practice of me clearing out the old noise and a practice of how I see myself Having somebody stand there and witness me There is an incredible power in having another human truly see you.
• 4:03
  And he wasn't trying to fix me, he wasn't trying to diagnose me, he wasn't telling me what I need to do He literally just said,"I see you." And I can see something in you that maybe you can't see yet.
• 4:16
  And that kind of seeing changes a person.
• 4:21
  I feel like I broke in 2016.
• 4:23
  That's the simplest way I know how to say it.
• 4:25
  I spent my entire adult life building something, and then when I was literally forced out of it, that's part of my story.
• 4:34
  I didn't choose to leave my business.
• 4:37
  It was years of knowing that I was trying to get pushed out of it, and my business partner was relentless in stripping me down until I broke, which is what I did I recently heard this phrase and I was like,"Oh my gosh, I wish I heard this 10 years ago," that there is a difference between being victimized and becoming identified as the victim.
• 5:05
  And for a long time, I didn't know how to hold that distinction because whenever I tried to speak about what happened, I would hear something like,"There you go again, being the victim," or,"You just have a victim mentality." So eventually I stopped knowing how to tell the truth about my own experience.
• 5:23
  I started questioning whether naming my pain was somehow wrong, whether admitting I had been hurt meant I was weak, unhealed, stuck, overly emotional.
• 5:34
  I'm trying to think of what else I was told.
• 5:36
  Emotionally unstable, that was a good one, or a victim And so then I spent years trying to heal it.
• 5:44
  Somewhere along the way, the healing itself almost become another way to prove my worth.
• 5:48
  If I heal enough, maybe my family will heal.
• 5:51
  If I understand enough, maybe I can fix this.
• 5:55
  If I become spiritual enough, wise enough, forgiving enough, loving enough, maybe I can transform all of it.
• 6:01
  And then I really gripped on having another identity that I am.
• 6:07
  I am a life coach.
• 6:08
  I am a intuitive channel.
• 6:10
  I am a dancer.
• 6:11
  I am not a dancer.
• 6:12
  I am a teacher.
• 6:13
  I am not a teacher.
• 6:14
  I am a creative.
• 6:15
  I'm not that.
• 6:15
  Like, it has just been like wearing all of these masks And I can see how underneath some of that What there was was a woman who desperately wanted to be seen, to be heard, and to have someone say,"Yes, I see what happened to you." Sometimes a story keeps repeating or the feelings keep repeating, not because we want to live inside the story.
• 6:44
  I literally was trying to get out of the story And maybe I couldn't get out because the story never had a witness.
• 6:57
  I never had a witness.
• 6:59
  And this is what I'm fascinated by right now.
• 7:02
  I wonder if we rush too quickly towards healing.
• 7:06
  We rush to forgiveness.
• 7:07
  we try to do a really beautiful reframe.
• 7:09
  We find the lesson or the higher perspective or the silver lining or the meaning.
• 7:13
  And what if before any of that, something simply just needs to be witnessed?
• 7:21
  In so many spiritual traditions, there is a concept of the witness, the awareness beneath the experience I'm recording this really authentically, and I swear to God, I just swallowed a bug.
• 7:33
  So just so you know, as you're listening to the rest of this podcast, I am talking this through with a bug in my throat.
• 7:39
  I must have been said healing, a witness, and a bug flew straight into my mouth'cause I'm doing this podcast outside.
• 7:47
  Cause this, this recording is for me more so than probably it is for you.
• 7:53
  All right.
• 7:53
  So where are we?
• 7:55
  A witness.
• 7:57
  The part of us that can notice I am hurting, I am scared, I am frustrated.
• 8:04
  Oh my gosh, self-deprecating thoughts coming in again.
• 8:08
  Or I'm happy, and this happiness makes me scared'cause I'm fearful of what's gonna come next after the happiness What happens if we can just witness what is coming through for us?
• 8:21
  And I do love the word witness more than I love the word observer, because witness feels sacred.
• 8:29
  Witnessing feels deliberate.
• 8:30
  It says,"I'm paying attention." And there's a transformative power that can happen when we can just witness this Observer feels like it's hard for me.
• 8:44
  That's how I take being an observer.
• 8:46
  It feels like I don't have any power but being a witness feels like there's a deliberate choice and there's power behind being the witness What I'm practicing in my own life now is really being the witness and my old ways, like two weeks ago ways, which I always wanted to channel and relieve the pain or offer some sort of reframe for the person.
• 9:13
  And now I am really feeling called not to do that.
• 9:18
  And how can I just practice the deliberate act of witnessing?
• 9:23
  Witnessing somebody, witnessing what they're going through, witnessing what they're processing, and me not running to go and fix it Maybe witnessing creates this space where something else can emerge, and I don't know what's going to emerge.
• 9:36
  I'm holding a curiosity around it, but practicing being the witness.
• 9:42
  Maybe when an emotion finally knows it doesn't have to scream to get our attention, it can move.
• 9:48
  I don't know.
• 9:48
  I'm practicing.
• 9:49
  I'll let you know.
• 9:51
  I'm also curious about, if a story knows it has finally been heard, maybe it doesn't have to repeat itself so loudly.
• 10:01
  If there are parts of ourselves we've rejected, and they are finally seen, and we allow ourselves to be seen, even if it's just for a minute Do we give permission for more of ourselves to exist in such beautiful, loving ways?
• 10:17
  Maybe healing isn't always something that we have to do, and maybe manifesting isn't something that we have to do.
• 10:25
  maybe sometimes healing is what happens naturally when something is finally allowed to exist in the light.
• 10:34
  And this brings me back to my beautiful friend.
• 10:37
  All those years ago, he wasn't trying to heal me or coach me or give me an exercise.
• 10:44
  He gave me the power that comes along with, I see you.
• 10:51
  You don't see what I see." And for a small moment, I borrowed his eyes, and I got a glimpse into myself through someone else's loving perception.
• 11:01
  And now, almost 10 years later, I am beginning to practice again seeing myself as strong, creative, beautiful, powerful, a leader, a teacher, someone worth seeing.
• 11:16
  And that is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other, to witness them until they can see themselves, and eventually to learn how to offer that same gift to ourselves And I'm hearing this part for myself because I am really great at seeing other people, maybe not so great at seeing myself.
• 11:37
  And the gift that my friend gave me, oh, so many years ago, was an invitation to practice how do I really see myself that's the practice I'm interested in right now and understanding that this practice of being the witness takes a lot of courage.
• 11:57
  Not the courage to prove something or to become extraordinary or even to heal something.
• 12:05
  It's just the courage to stay curious How often do we have the courage to witness ourselves?
• 12:11
  To really see ourselves in loving ways, to be a witness to ourselves.
• 12:18
  And I will tell you what my friend recently told me,"Courage looks really fucking good on you, and maybe it always has.
• 12:25
  You just needed someone, including you, to finally see it." Thank you for being here.
• 12:32
  Thank you.
• 12:33
  Thank you for being a witness to my story, and I am sending you big, big love.
• 12:36
  Till next time.