If we focus on the means to change a person's state in the direction of what we believe is greater health, we are also stepping out of empathic connection. This is a violation of our innate expectation, at every biological level, that we are meant to be embedded in a nest of warm relationships.

This reassurance that we only want to witness and acknowledge what is happening may be the essential stance that deepens safety. When we have no intention of being an active agent of change, the feeling of possible coercion seems to leave the relationship.

One gift of nonjudgmental, agendaless presence is that a wide road of acceptance opens, so that the inner world of our people gradually begins to sense, experience and trust that every part is equally valued and equally welcome.

Our conviction that staying with 'what is' will support those changes is not easy ground to hold. Being with both those parts of ourselves, the one who stands witness to anguish and the one who wishes for change, broadens the foundation that anchors us and ultimately may also help our people hold the ambiguity of their feelings towards implicit arisings.