What's important to us
This is a living, emergent document. It is designed and destined to grow as we and this community grow and learn, to change as we are all changed by witnessing and meeting ever more of the world. We understand that what is addressed here is what we can see, understand, and embody today. We will all change tomorrow and from time to time we will edit this page to reflect those changes.
In the meantime, we invite you to let us know what you see as missing, or missing the point, and in the process to expand your and our inner and outer worlds. We look forward to the dialogue and to the possibility for emergence in the process.
In the meantime, we invite you to let us know what you see as missing, or missing the point, and in the process to expand your and our inner and outer worlds. We look forward to the dialogue and to the possibility for emergence in the process.
What Motivates Us in this Work
We believe that all life is sacred and interconnected.
We understand that we, as humans, are not the masters of the universe or the earth. We are an integral part of the planetary ecosystem, subject to the cycles of birth, death, decay and rebirth, to the laws of cause and effect, and to the natural order of balance and interconnectedness. We are meant to be stewards from within this ecosystem but have too often been disconnected, self-obsessed and destructive.
We see clearly that centuries of patriarchal, white dominant, colonizing, extractive, absence-based behavior is seriously damaging and endangering the viability of life on the planet.
We understand that war never serves and is never worth the cascades of generations of aftereffects and damaged lives and communities. There is no sustainable future for our human family in which war is an acceptable option.
At the same time, we are aware of our human fallibility. We know that the attitudes that support destructive behaviors in the world also reside as tendencies in us and in our behaviors toward others. If we look closely, we find them in our own lives.
We are all impacted in ways large and small by the endless historical cycles of perpetrators and victims, traumatizing and being traumatized, and the unintegrated trauma from these experiences passed down epigenetically through generations. This shared history reminds us to notice our habits of absence and separation and the ways they manifest in turning away, rejecting others or projecting wounds and wounded behaviors outside of ourselves.
This understanding leads us to a sense of humility when we are tempted to divide the world into us and them and reminds us that speaking truth about and standing up to destructive behavior and holding those involved in the behavior in compassion are essential partners in healing and building peace.
We believe in deep listening and humility – in relation to the beauty and order of the natural world, the wisdom residing in diverse and often silenced cultures, and the inspiration from what we understand to be Divinity.
We understand the essentiality of listening across and honoring differences, as well as respectfully and authentically sharing our perspectives. We believe in caring and compassion, responsibility and accountability, justice and forgiveness.
We believe in the absolute need to live sustainable lives.
We understand that creating a different future requires healing the effects of centuries of trauma, and transforming the consciousness at the root of conflicts and suffering in the world. We believe that this consciousness change begins with our healing as individuals, families and communities, and ripples out into the world creating the future we envision. Through witnessing, we expand our capacity to relate compassionately to events in the world, refine our ability to respond, and become more effective peace builders and agents of restoration and change.
We believe that all life is sacred and interconnected.
We understand that we, as humans, are not the masters of the universe or the earth. We are an integral part of the planetary ecosystem, subject to the cycles of birth, death, decay and rebirth, to the laws of cause and effect, and to the natural order of balance and interconnectedness. We are meant to be stewards from within this ecosystem but have too often been disconnected, self-obsessed and destructive.
We see clearly that centuries of patriarchal, white dominant, colonizing, extractive, absence-based behavior is seriously damaging and endangering the viability of life on the planet.
We understand that war never serves and is never worth the cascades of generations of aftereffects and damaged lives and communities. There is no sustainable future for our human family in which war is an acceptable option.
At the same time, we are aware of our human fallibility. We know that the attitudes that support destructive behaviors in the world also reside as tendencies in us and in our behaviors toward others. If we look closely, we find them in our own lives.
We are all impacted in ways large and small by the endless historical cycles of perpetrators and victims, traumatizing and being traumatized, and the unintegrated trauma from these experiences passed down epigenetically through generations. This shared history reminds us to notice our habits of absence and separation and the ways they manifest in turning away, rejecting others or projecting wounds and wounded behaviors outside of ourselves.
This understanding leads us to a sense of humility when we are tempted to divide the world into us and them and reminds us that speaking truth about and standing up to destructive behavior and holding those involved in the behavior in compassion are essential partners in healing and building peace.
We believe in deep listening and humility – in relation to the beauty and order of the natural world, the wisdom residing in diverse and often silenced cultures, and the inspiration from what we understand to be Divinity.
We understand the essentiality of listening across and honoring differences, as well as respectfully and authentically sharing our perspectives. We believe in caring and compassion, responsibility and accountability, justice and forgiveness.
We believe in the absolute need to live sustainable lives.
We understand that creating a different future requires healing the effects of centuries of trauma, and transforming the consciousness at the root of conflicts and suffering in the world. We believe that this consciousness change begins with our healing as individuals, families and communities, and ripples out into the world creating the future we envision. Through witnessing, we expand our capacity to relate compassionately to events in the world, refine our ability to respond, and become more effective peace builders and agents of restoration and change.
Our Intention
Our intention is to make this social technology available to support efforts around the world to create a more sustainable, just, inclusive, compassionate, intersupportive, war-free world. We intend to share the technology and empower individuals and organizations to utilize it to create restoration and healing in their communities and in their work in the world.
Sharing/Availability mean several things to us:
In this journey, our experience is that witnessing chose us; we follow it rather than deciding on its course. We are in service to something greater than us, something with a life of its own, that will continue to enroll others in the process and to evolve. As we make decisions to help grow and share the worldwitnessing.org practice, the question is not what we want from or for witnessing; it’s what does witnessing want from us. With that intention, we listen deeply and have always felt led to our next steps.
A key element of our mission with witnessing is to share it broadly in the world, supporting the spread so the practice can be done effectively, with respect and care for participants and with maximum impact in the world. Financially we have no desire to colonize this process or to operate extractively with witnessing. We will receive fair and reasonable compensation for our witnessing teaching, coaching and facilitation but we will never restrict or constrain access to effective witnessing to increase our income. We are committed to ensuring that individuals’ or groups’ availability of financial resources is never a bar to participation and access. We will share, teach and empower others to employ witnessing in their social change, organizational and collective healing work and then move on, always remaining available for support.
We are excited to feel the power and aliveness of the river of energy the creation of Global Social Witnessing has produced since it was introduced by Thomas Hübl in 2017 and to follow where it leads. We hope to meet, and share the journey and the learning, with you.
Our intention is to make this social technology available to support efforts around the world to create a more sustainable, just, inclusive, compassionate, intersupportive, war-free world. We intend to share the technology and empower individuals and organizations to utilize it to create restoration and healing in their communities and in their work in the world.
Sharing/Availability mean several things to us:
- Making witnessing accessible to people across all levels of financial resourcing
- Providing the teaching and support people need to learn the practice and its subtle competencies so they can utilize it effectively in their work
- Being available for ongoing or periodic training and support for the network of practitioners as it grows
- Sharing updates and emerging learning to support refinement and new applications of witnessing for healing in the world
- Disseminating, writing about and supporting witnessing to enter mainstream consciousness and culture
In this journey, our experience is that witnessing chose us; we follow it rather than deciding on its course. We are in service to something greater than us, something with a life of its own, that will continue to enroll others in the process and to evolve. As we make decisions to help grow and share the worldwitnessing.org practice, the question is not what we want from or for witnessing; it’s what does witnessing want from us. With that intention, we listen deeply and have always felt led to our next steps.
A key element of our mission with witnessing is to share it broadly in the world, supporting the spread so the practice can be done effectively, with respect and care for participants and with maximum impact in the world. Financially we have no desire to colonize this process or to operate extractively with witnessing. We will receive fair and reasonable compensation for our witnessing teaching, coaching and facilitation but we will never restrict or constrain access to effective witnessing to increase our income. We are committed to ensuring that individuals’ or groups’ availability of financial resources is never a bar to participation and access. We will share, teach and empower others to employ witnessing in their social change, organizational and collective healing work and then move on, always remaining available for support.
We are excited to feel the power and aliveness of the river of energy the creation of Global Social Witnessing has produced since it was introduced by Thomas Hübl in 2017 and to follow where it leads. We hope to meet, and share the journey and the learning, with you.
Commitment to Cross-Racial and Cross-Cultural Inclusion, Learning and Respect
Global Social Witnessing as a practice has developed in a field predominated by European and U.S. white culture. This is true of our practice community as well. We understand that this limits the breadth and depth of what arises in group practices and leaves out huge potential richness. We are committed to growing our witnessing practice beyond our/its initial cultural and geographic constraints and in doing so, weaving a much richer and more complex fabric of awareness and understanding through this work.
We also understand that the form and structure of our practice is impacted and even defined by white Global North assumptions, beliefs, language and power relationships in ways that are not always visible to us. As we have involved more people of color and invited more geographic, racial and cultural diversity into our practices, we have been made aware of some of the ways our acculturation as teachers and practice facilitators can limit and create stressful experiences in the practice for people of color and culturally diverse participants. We have been blessed that several of these individuals have shared their experiences with us and opened our eyes to things that are sometimes obscured by our conditioning.
We acknowledge that the sense of safety in a We space can be significantly impacted by people’s past and current trauma and by the systemic trauma structures in which we all live. We are committed to increasing safety and to providing a ground of belonging for all participants.
For us, witnessing is an emerging practice and social technology, through which we are continuously learning and developing the capacity to hold within each of our nervous systems more and more of the world in all its diversity and complexity. We appreciate the learning that has already begun, both personally and for the witnessing process itself, and we welcome your feedback about how to evolve our living process.
While there is much for us to learn about how to evolve the practice in this way, our commitment based on what we understand so far is to:
We understand that doing this will change the witnessing process as we currently know it. We are committed to creating an environment and a witnessing practice that produces, and is strengthened by deep cross-racial and cross-cultural learning, respect and growth.
Global Social Witnessing as a practice has developed in a field predominated by European and U.S. white culture. This is true of our practice community as well. We understand that this limits the breadth and depth of what arises in group practices and leaves out huge potential richness. We are committed to growing our witnessing practice beyond our/its initial cultural and geographic constraints and in doing so, weaving a much richer and more complex fabric of awareness and understanding through this work.
We also understand that the form and structure of our practice is impacted and even defined by white Global North assumptions, beliefs, language and power relationships in ways that are not always visible to us. As we have involved more people of color and invited more geographic, racial and cultural diversity into our practices, we have been made aware of some of the ways our acculturation as teachers and practice facilitators can limit and create stressful experiences in the practice for people of color and culturally diverse participants. We have been blessed that several of these individuals have shared their experiences with us and opened our eyes to things that are sometimes obscured by our conditioning.
We acknowledge that the sense of safety in a We space can be significantly impacted by people’s past and current trauma and by the systemic trauma structures in which we all live. We are committed to increasing safety and to providing a ground of belonging for all participants.
For us, witnessing is an emerging practice and social technology, through which we are continuously learning and developing the capacity to hold within each of our nervous systems more and more of the world in all its diversity and complexity. We appreciate the learning that has already begun, both personally and for the witnessing process itself, and we welcome your feedback about how to evolve our living process.
While there is much for us to learn about how to evolve the practice in this way, our commitment based on what we understand so far is to:
- include more participants of color and cultural diversity in our practices
- remove financial and other barriers to inclusion
- ensure practice and learning spaces that are increasingly safe and welcoming for all
- train our whites bodies to be more aware of and sensitive to the impact our language and assumptions can have on people of color
- support and remove barriers from people of color and cultural diversity to be trained as facilitators and teachers of World Witnessing
- learn from each other
- incorporate, and have our process transformed by the wisdom of other cultures.
We understand that doing this will change the witnessing process as we currently know it. We are committed to creating an environment and a witnessing practice that produces, and is strengthened by deep cross-racial and cross-cultural learning, respect and growth.
We appreciate your visit!
|
In partnership with:
|
|
|
|
World Witnessing
Copyright February, 2022. All rights reserved. |