Wounded Healer

[Professori]

Has anyone considered the reality of being a wounded healer? Life and people wound us incessantly. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and hurt, even shame, then our inner darkness can neither be illuminated or become a light for others. We end up clinging to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with our lack of acceptance and hurt when what we should do is let go. When we dare to live as those who acknowledge the reality of hurt and brokenness and the reasons for it, vulnerable in the endless search for 'healing' and share this with others, then we become wounded healers. The wounded healer implies that grace and healing are communicated through the vulnerability of those who have been fractured and heartbroken by life. The fact is that in true love's service (yes, true love), only wounded healers can serve and benefit. Being tight, aggressive, angry, withdrawn only keeps one in a small world of self.
Let me give you a picture of one man who is a magnificently chiselled athlete, six foot-three, 185 pounds, twenty-two years old, and who has won 8 gold Olympic medals. He is a dazzling display of co-ordination, agility and grace, and the the crowds love him. Meanwhile, one of his attendants approaches with a glass of water. In his early fifties, he is five-foot-four and paunchy. He wears a rumpled shirt, open at the collar, tie askew. He has a thinning sliver of matted hair and is unshaven. His bulbous jowls and glass eye cause the spectators to look away and speak of him in contempt - pathetic little twerp.
However, behind his glossy delivery, the athelte's vacant stare reveals that the exterior does not inhabit his soul. Stardom has eroded his true self and left him an image of who everyone else wants him to be. But the attendant is at peace with himself, has found a deep inner healing, moves through crowds which despise him with peace and confidence, as comfortable as a hand in a glove in his servant role. He understands himself deeply and is full of gracd and compassion for others.
Here is the rhetorical question: so, who is the wounded healer here?

 

[StephF]

What ?

 

[Professori]

What ?

It's a metaphor, symbolic of using your own pain to help others who are the same kind of pain. The one who is not able to relate to others in pain is the one who has not experienced it, but the one who has been hurt and dealt with the hurt is able to relate and be used to help others. One of the reasons why I used this type of metaphor in this forum is because the assumption is that we are not able to understand or relate to that type of metaphor. I don't agree. However, if it does not resonate then I will withdraw it. I relate to it very deeply and it has been a basis of growth and means of assisting others in my own life.

 

[tree]

I can see how the dumpy little fellow with the water could be called a 'healer.'
The young athlete doesn't seem to be any sort of healer, wounded or
otherwise.

 

[Mia]

The attendant with the rumpled shirt and the glass of water is a healer. Although the athlete is also a healer for the people who look up to him, without even being aware of it.

 

[Professori]

Interesting, as that's what this morning's message touched on. Those of us who have gone down some terrible paths (like Joseph) are in a better position to minister grace and compassion to others because we have been wounded and "have been there."

Exactly, spot on, and the point is whether those who are considered 'rejects', etc. can turn that rejection around to help others. That is precisely why I used it in this forum. Better to be a wounded healer than to have made your woundedness (rejection, hurt, etc.) your friend, never expect to be helped, or want to be, and become stagnant, even bitter. The question, 'Do you want to be healed?' applies in that case - the answer would be, 'No.'

 

[Professori]

I can see how the dumpy little fellow with the water could be called a 'healer.'
The young athlete doesn't seem to be any sort of healer, wounded or
otherwise.

Yes, and that rumpled little fellow is just like most of us who make the choice to actively work at helping others like us. There is a great deal of pain there, but it is turned to the good.

 

[Professori]

The attendant with the rumpled shirt and the glass of water is a healer. Although the athlete is also a healer for the people who look up to him, without even being aware of it.

It would be great if the athlete could a healer, but he has never been forced into facing the pain of rejection and is a blank inside - he has nothing to give and help with. That has to come from a place of deep wrestling and seeking real identity and peace. His identity is given to him by his hero worshippers and it is shallow and a false image - thus the emptiness in his own eyes.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I like you. Great thoughts...

The wounded healer implies that grace and healing are communicated through the vulnerability of those who have been fractured and heartbroken by life. The fact is that in true love's service (yes, true love), only wounded healers can serve and benefit. Being tight, aggressive, angry, withdrawn only keeps one in a small world of self.

I would add to this that "being wounded" doesn't qualify one as a wounded healer. Many people are wounded, and yet stay in denial or victim-hood or bitterness, and never use those wounds to develop the capacity to hold painful reality.

It takes grace, and the willingness to sit with pain, and the courage to keep growing and becoming anyway, and the humility to see oneself as still in process, in order to offer true healing support to someone else. You can't "hold space" for someone when you're stuck in your own judgments, moralism, or resentment without at least being able to acknowledge that those things exist in you, and taking steps to address them within yourself instead of using them as ammunition against those who hurt you.

 

[Professori]

I like you. Great thoughts...



I would add to this that "being wounded" doesn't qualify one as a wounded healer. Many people are wounded, and yet stay in denial or victim-hood or bitterness, and never use those wounds to develop the capacity to hold painful reality.

It takes grace, and the willingness to sit with pain, and the courage to keep growing and becoming anyway, and the humility to see oneself as still in process, in order to offer true healing support to someone else. You can't "hold space" for someone when you're stuck in your own judgments, moralism, or resentment without at least being able to acknowledge that those things exist in you, and taking steps to address them within yourself instead of using them as ammunition against those who hurt you.

Definitely - in that case the person would not be a healer, just wounded.

 

[Professori]

I like you. Great thoughts...



I would add to this that "being wounded" doesn't qualify one as a wounded healer. Many people are wounded, and yet stay in denial or victim-hood or bitterness, and never use those wounds to develop the capacity to hold painful reality.

It takes grace, and the willingness to sit with pain, and the courage to keep growing and becoming anyway, and the humility to see oneself as still in process, in order to offer true healing support to someone else. You can't "hold space" for someone when you're stuck in your own judgments, moralism, or resentment without at least being able to acknowledge that those things exist in you, and taking steps to address them within yourself instead of using them as ammunition against those who hurt you.

By the way, I like you too - that is great insight into those who will not at least be on the road to healing.

 

[DogwoodTree]

that is great insight into those who will not at least be on the road to healing.

Well, it's from personal experience. My mom made good progress for a while, but now has decided that she's pretty much "arrived" and healed, and so has become very difficult to be around, despite her wounded past and current efforts to help others.

A good example of a "wounded healer", in my opinion, is Dan Allender. I just finished his newest book, Healing the Wounded Heart, and one of his other books really helped to turn my own journey around: The Cry of the Soul.

Do you consider yourself to be a wounded healer?

 

[Professori]

Well, it's from personal experience. My mom made good progress for a while, but now has decided that she's pretty much "arrived" and healed, and so has become very difficult to be around, despite her wounded past and current efforts to help others.

A good example of a "wounded healer", in my opinion, is Dan Allender. I just finished his newest book, Healing the Wounded Heart, and one of his other books really helped to turn my own journey around: The Cry of the Soul.

Do you consider yourself to be a wounded healer?

Well, I would like to believe so. Let me disclose a bit here - I grew up in a very abusive family environment in which I was really beaten, whipped, burnt, etc. - physically and mentally tortured, and later ended up with a terrible battle with cancer and various psycho- emotional problems (OCD, anorexia as examples), was at one stage classified as paranoid schizophrenic (did not accept that - it really boils down to Asperger's, but a confusing story), and walked a very long path of inner healing. Hey, I was a real mess, and it has been a long, difficult process. I have walked with a range of people who have suffered similar issues and problems in life, and certainly know that to be able to relate to someone's problems and be truly empathetic and directive takes having been in the same place. Healing comes through genuine love. However, healing is a lifelong journey and we can only remain in that process if we remain humble. I do not believe it is possible to be fully healed in this lifetime because we are healed through our brokenness and not of it. I would really like to grow up before I grow old - too many kids in adult bodies out there!

 

[laurag9g9g9]

Has anyone considered the reality of being a wounded healer? Life and people wound us incessantly. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and hurt, even shame, then our inner darkness can neither be illuminated or become a light for others. We end up clinging to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with our lack of acceptance and hurt when what we should do is let go. When we dare to live as those who acknowledge the reality of hurt and brokenness and the reasons for it, vulnerable in the endless search for 'healing' and share this with others, then we become wounded healers. The wounded healer implies that grace and healing are communicated through the vulnerability of those who have been fractured and heartbroken by life. The fact is that in true love's service (yes, true love), only wounded healers can serve and benefit. Being tight, aggressive, angry, withdrawn only keeps one in a small world of self.
Let me give you a picture of one man who is a magnificently chiselled athlete, six foot-three, 185 pounds, twenty-two years old, and who has won 8 gold Olympic medals. He is a dazzling display of co-ordination, agility and grace, and the the crowds love him. Meanwhile, one of his attendants approaches with a glass of water. In his early fifties, he is five-foot-four and paunchy. He wears a rumpled shirt, open at the collar, tie askew. He has a thinning sliver of matted hair and is unshaven. His bulbous jowls and glass eye cause the spectators to look away and speak of him in contempt - pathetic little twerp.
However, behind his glossy delivery, the athelte's vacant stare reveals that the exterior does not inhabit his soul. Stardom has eroded his true self and left him an image of who everyone else wants him to be. But the attendant is at peace with himself, has found a deep inner healing, moves through crowds which despise him with peace and confidence, as comfortable as a hand in a glove in his servant role. He understands himself deeply and is full of gracd and compassion for others.
Here is the rhetorical question: so, who is the wounded healer here?

I was solo healer for my late husband for 11mths. He died from lung cancer 3/3/10. I was depleted mind, body, spirit & finacial. I was 30 lbs under weight. seizures, toothpain, backache, etc... I rocked in a chair for 4wks listening to music. Then the boxer puppy which my husband and I decided we would get if we were to get another dog... came my way!! Einstein the boxer saved my life!!!! He juiced me up!! Took bee pollen & carrot juice. Got better. I'm stronger than I've ever been. It's worth the suffering. Stay open...what you need will come... It won't be anything you expect.

 

[laurag9g9g9]

It sounds like you and I have spent some time on the same bumpy road. I know there are a few other travelers here that are also familiar with the same road. You're right, healing is a lifelong journey. One thing I have learned, though, is that one can heal, but scars always remain.

I've also gotten a bit icy. The scars are pretty thick

 

[Mia]

It would be great if the athlete could a healer, but he has never been forced into facing the pain of rejection and is a blank inside - he has nothing to give and help with.

I'm certain that the athlete has lost or come in second or third in his life, and was not a winner every time, therefore he's faced rejection on a grand scale, consider the olympics. Many athletes use physical competition as a way to recognize personal goals and to overcome their own difficulties. Boxers for example, marathon runners, cyclists, they are not all blanks inside. They give something to the people who watch them, and they overcome many things in their lives. For some athleticism is both a salve on the wounds they've suffered, and a personal victory.

 

[Professori]

I'm certain that the athlete has lost or come in second or third in his life, and was not a winner every time, therefore he's faced rejection on a grand scale, consider the olympics. Many athletes use physical competition as a way to recognize personal goals and to overcome their own difficulties. Boxers for example, marathon runners, cyclists, they are not all blanks inside. They give something to the people who watch them, and they overcome many things in their lives. For some athleticism is both a salve on the wounds they've suffered, and a personal victory.

Yes, your point is taken, and I do not refute it. For lack of space, I could not expand on the particular example I was giving in which case crown adulation would have caused a sense of false security, without deep suffering and rejection, and thus the inability to empathize with those who have suffered deeply, and there are certainly those who become arrogant and lack either the desire or ability to relate at that level.
But of course, not every champion athlete is a blank or without deep suffering, and so I accept your stand.

 

[Professori]

I was solo healer for my late husband for 11mths. He died from lung cancer 3/3/10. I was depleted mind, body, spirit & finacial. I was 30 lbs under weight. seizures, toothpain, backache, etc... I rocked in a chair for 4wks listening to music. Then the boxer puppy which my husband and I decided we would get if we were to get another dog... came my way!! Einstein the boxer saved my life!!!! He juiced me up!! Took bee pollen & carrot juice. Got better. I'm stronger than I've ever been. It's worth the suffering. Stay open...what you need will come... It won't be anything you expect.

Tough time! Good for Einstein the healer. You can now absolutely empathize with those who find themselves in a similar place of suffering; thus a wounded healer. I understand those scars.

 

[Professori]

We could probably start an entire thread devoted to the rough road we've traveled. I have no doubt there would be many participants.

Agreed, I am supportive of that suggestion.

 

[Warmheart]

Great thread!

To be a good healer, it takes looking very deeply into my own suffering to see what has brought it about, then embracing the suffering, as I invite the energy of mindfulness to transform the suffering into peace. (Whew!)

If it is others' treatment of me causing my suffering, I know that the others' suffering is spilling over. I then need to look deeply into the nature of the others' suffering, to awaken my compassion. Compassion is a peaceful place of strength and solidity.

No mud, no lotus. We all have mud. My challenges always give me gifts. I gain a lesson, I gain strength, and I gain the understanding to relate to, and tenderly care for others who may similarly suffer.
The warmth, caring, and tenderness is a very beautiful lotus.