Dear Patient,
Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of bearing witness, thanks to my fellow Substack writer Todd Wiebe and his recent piece Bearing Witness. 1
As a healthcare provider I’m trained to fix problems. But sometimes what a patient needs is first to be seen and heard. Sometimes my presence serves as a mirror to validate their lived experience. Sometimes the needles are secondary. Bearing witness calls me to pause before moving toward action.
It’s interesting to me that we use the phrase “bear witness.” This word “bear” implies a responsibility, a choice to shoulder a burden. A witness is a passive observer, like a witness to a crime or a car accident. But bearing witness is participatory.
When we bear witness we see the suffering of another. We resist the pull to ease our own discomfort by fixing or minimizing or erasing. Bearing witness calls us to be still, and in this stillness is the offering of our humanity, when we choose not to turn away, and instead take up the burden of seeing, and knowing. We remember and carry it with us, and it changes us—that’s the burden we bear. It is how we heal, and how we love.
Love and gratitude,
Your Acupuncturist
Earlier this year I participated in Substack Go, a workshop for Substack writers who are looking to reach more readers. One of my cohort members, Todd Wiebe, inspired today’s Note with his recent piece Bearing Witness. Todd writes about hope and faith in his newsletter Evangelically Departed. I look forward to sharing the work of my other cohort members in the coming weeks!
Alexa, thanks so much for shout-out. And thanks for the beautiful reflection on the call to participatory stillness and identification. You demonstrate again how so much in the world of medicine and the healing professions is pastoral at its heart. Makes me recall the great book by Paul Kalanithi, "When Breath Becomes Air".
I found myself writing in my journal this morning how we have to tend to our discomfort to truly heal. That this is the opposite of "fixing" or "pushing away" or "pushing past". Rather tending is the act of noticing with compassion, being with and truly tending to easing the discomfort. We have such a cultural idea that "pushing past our boundaries" is heroic, but I think in my experience that when I tend to my discomfort and allow my curiosity to lead me, my "comfort zone" expands in a much healthier way.
PS - got the earseeds and in my first try with them I can see some obvious changes! Pretty excited about this, thank you!