If only we could give place to all the parts of conflict.
Every role lives somewhere inside us…flickering in and out across time and space, waiting for its season to surface.
“If I am a human being, nothing that is human can be alien to me.” - Terence
A bystander stands between victims and perpetrators, peripherally aware, yet far enough away to avoid direct impact. They are neither directly harmed nor directly harming, but remain part of the same field, often unconsciously aligned with one side.
This in-between position can be a refuge (and later, guilt) or a trap that mirrors the moralistic bypassing found in both victims and perpetrators. It offers safety from direct exposure, but often at the cost of vitality, movement, clarity, and soul weight.
A loyalist fights for one side no matter the cost to themselves, often summoning the same strength it would take to move forward and put their own gifts into the world.
Unable to fix the broken bonds in their family, they employ chronic outrage as a way to fix the world. They are stuck in the innocence of righteousness and the exhaustive fire of chronic sympathetic activation. Unable to hold the enormity of their grief, rage, and unreconciled experiences, they burn their outrage beyond its useful catalyst.
A witness turns toward the truth. With humility and self-respect, they know their limits and so aim to sustainably increase their capacity over time. They let themselves be impacted without enmeshing, staying immersed without losing the boundary of self. They look fully, acknowledging what is, without collapsing into the victim–perpetrator stalemate or freezing in the status quo of the bystander. Their loyalty is to the emergent living versus past systemic loyalties or reactive back-and-forth of zealotry. They speak simply about what they see when they turn toward.
Outrage and zealotry have their place, too. As states. As temporary touchpoints. But not as a ground to remain on.
Victims, perpetrators, loyalists, and bystanders lack the humility required to fully meet the moment.
Cost. In constellation work, we see that every role carries a cost. Even the witness. The witness is lonely, living outside the raw, messy, dirty reality.
Part of intimacy and belonging is lust, projection, and pain.
To let the enemy rest is to honor each role’s reality, even the one that harmed us. It is to give the fight back to the comforting arms of the ancestors, to recognize its cost on every side. It is a discipline of looking, of staying in contact with what is, until everyone is seen and warmed. And the field can exhale.
In this way, constellation workshops become an act of radical empathy. A balancing. A restorative justice that emerges iteratively instead of where the living lay down with the dead. Where we include even those we fear and despise.
When no one is left outside, the enemy can finally rest. And so can we.