The Healing Salve of Being Witnessed
I’ve had the honor of working with many people in my business, who come to me to learn about their astrological natal/birth charts or ask to understand how to have better relationships with partners, family or their children, and I’ve learned something extremely important that informs my work every day.
People value being WITNESSED. People want someone to see the light of their soul. That luminous spark that shines brightly the day they are born. During our early lives, that light gets clouded up by judgements, familial experiences, social programming and the opinions of others. Our soul light still burns bright even if it’s covered in detritus and buried under layers of silt. Part of our job on this mortal coil is to remove the detritus and find our soul light that was always meant to shine. People usually recognize the need to start delving into these depths in mid-life.
We all want to have our gifts and our “flaws” witnessed without judgement. I put “flaws” into parentheses because it often turns out that the traits we beat ourselves up about are just unique attributes of our astrology that are innate to our personalities. Flaws should not be fodder for self-flagellation and discomfort, they should just be seen as obstacles that need our awareness. Awareness allows us to find ways to work with their challenges instead of believing somehow their presence is an insurmountable obstacle in our personality for life. This grants us the permission to stop beating ourselves up over things we cannot change. It grants us freedom and it helps us get more familiar with the soul light, the person we were always meant to be. The truth about flaws is that they were likely our unique shine that was unacceptable to someone in our early life.
For example, if you were a high energy kid who was interested in everything, had so many mental tabs open that your exuberance spilled over every day, yet you had a parent who viewed this enthusiasm with disdain, it could have sent the message that you were “too much” or “a busy body” - those messages got inserted into our psyches and into our fascia/body. Inserted regardless of whether they said those words to us or not, inserted because they were felt. Inserted because our parent’s energy shifted subtly when we approached. Regardless of the specifics on how they reacted, we absorbed their judgement as “feedback” to our personality. We decided that it was not safe for us to be in our “full shine” and we chose to edit ourselves to be accepted and safe in our homes. That editing could have been either shrinking our shine, or exaggerating our shine, both can lead us to change or morph a trait that was wholly unique to us. And because these interactions with our families could be so subtle, we often have no idea that we edited ourselves at all. Yet, at some point in our lives, our inner shine demands that we reacquaint ourselves with it. We can no longer ignore the calls back to our authentic selves.
My sacred work is helping people find their way back to their inner light. It is work that is not only life changing for my clients, it’s particularly impactful for me. When I help someone come back into right-relationship with the soul they were always meant to be, I feel immense satisfaction. The work is its own virtuous cycle and I am honored that my clients trust me to be a beacon in their journey, it’s a win-win.
