Holy Wound

Wound is like a shadow. It follows us wherever we go, comes into everything we do. It is like uninvited guest that crashes on your party over and over again. And if it apparently doesn't show up, we ourselves drag it into the party; we make sure it comes. Over our lifetime, it has been extremely loyal companion, so we immensely trust it… more than anybody else in this world.

 

I sometimes deeply wonder will my existence, my life that I have right now, ever be without it. These days I feel how my wound is deeply embedded in my psyche, that, when there is nobody to threaten me with abandonment and rejection, I do it myself. I make sure, or my ego makes sure, that I am always reminded and kept in fear of it. The amount of our identity invested in wound is incredible.  

 

The wound is soft and vulnerable: it is a place where we were betrayed, abandoned, inhibited and scared at a very young age. And that place is still very young inside of us. 

 

In order to protect those tender places, some of us have given vows that the hurt will never happen again, that we will protect, shelter and lock those parts of ourselves. We build big fortresses around us, we isolate that part of our personality, and more importantly life force,  and we harden it over the time, so it looks "strong". We do not show it to the world the way it really is. We do not go there ourselves anymore because the pain and inconvenient feelings that we encounter are just too much to bear. 

 

What happens if we wonder in the wound territory, by mistake, usually, or somebody just pushes us in there? Besides those hard to bear feelings of pain, rejection, humiliation, etc. we find a deep sense, a deep felt sense, (it is almost physical and so real), that something is deeply wrong with us. Not only wrong, it is irreversibly wrong. No matter what we do, how hard we try; we can never be good enough. We cannot believe that people will stay and love us for who we are; we push them away to make sure we are abandoned and rejected again. And we become loyal to our wound as it is loyal to us. Unbreakable alliance!

 

Protecting the wound was once upon a time a good thing to do. We were young and helpless and the young psyche wanted to make sure it can survive. But what now, when we are 30, 40, 50 or more? Do we still need to protect it so hard, to be one with it? 

 

Maybe the time has come to start letting go of our lifetime companion. How to do that and not feel like we are betraying ourselves? It is something we so deeply know, it is a big KNOWN to us. Living without it is like jumping off the cliff, not knowing where our feet will land, which rock or branch on the way down will bruise us. It is a lot to let go. I think, besides the dying process itself, when we are leaving the physical body, letting go of the hurt ego, letting go of the wound is the biggest letting go in life.

 

And there is a pain involved in that process as well. As there is a pain when we are wounded, there is a pain with carrying and protecting the wound, so there is a pain when we try to let go of it. The pain that we are avoiding all life, is just there sitting on our shoulder, however we turn it.

 

But there is a difference in the types of pain I mentioned above. Just the other day I came across Barbara Brennan’s article, where she said:

 

"It is important to learn the difference between healthy pain, which comes from letting go of expectations of a child within us, and unhealthy pain which comes from repeating the patterns of our childhood over and over again". The first one, healthy pain, in my own experience, feels like relieving pain; it is like weight that we carry finally drops and we can breathe. We usually feel vulnerable, soft and quiet afterwards. When old pain comes into play, it does exactly that: it plays over and over again like broken record, strengthening defenses and fears. As a result we feel more isolated and alone…and deep down in the pain again, the one we are so desperately trying to avoid.

 

Believe it or not, we survive our death, physical and ego death. And so we survive our wound death as well. If we can just start the process of letting go of it. Now, as adults, we have resources that we did not have as children. We go into it, face it, feel it and release it, bits and pieces at the time and chunks at the other.

 

And during this process we start seeing it with different eyes: it is really something sacred not something just to get rid of. In the depths of it, there is a holy grail, a gift we came to share with the humanity. Our biggest strength, sensitivity, compassion and love are lying dormant in there.

 

So that is why we do this work, of going to the pain, into the darkness and back to the light. We are wounded healers looking for the lost parts of our souls; we are the only ones that can fill ourselves up with our own essence, one that got buried long time ago.

 

So I honor my wound, my strength and my life path as much as I honor yours. We are all warriors of a kind, battling our inner demons every day: sometimes losing the battles and yet other days coming out victorious. 

 

And one day, hopefully, we will come in peace and acceptance with all parts of ourselves.