One of the deeper, underlying archetypal patterns which is being constellated in the human psyche that is playing itself out collectively on the world stage is the archetype of the “wounded healer.” To quote Kerenyi, a colleague of Jung who elucidated this archetype, the wounded healer refers psychologically to the capacity “to be at home in the darkness of suffering and there to find germs of light and recovery with which, as though by enchantment, to bring forth Asclepius, the sunlike healer.” The archetype of the wounded healer reveals to us that it is only by being willing to face, consciously experience and go through our wound do we receive its blessing. To go through our wound is to embrace, assent, and say “yes” to the mysteriously painful new place in ourselves where the wound is leading us. Going through our wound, we can allow ourselves to be re-created by the wound. Our wound is not a static entity, but rather a continually unfolding dynamic process that manifests, reveals and incarnates itself through us, which is to say that our wound is teaching us something about ourselves. Going through our wound means realizing we will never again be the same when we get to the other side of this initiatory process. Going through our wound is a genuine death experience, as our old self “dies” in the process, while a new, more expansive and empowered part of ourselves is potentially born.
In the ancient tongue, the word for "peace" was interchangeable with the word for being "whole". Within our modern lexicon we have lost this subtle truth, and so in many ways, peace remains allusive.
Mending a broken heart can seem a task so monumental that we dare not attempt it for fear of damaging ourselves further. But heartbreak, like all emotions, falls under the spell of our conscious influence.
Often the pain that wounds us most deeply also leaves the most enduring mark upon us. The shock that becomes the tender, throbbing ache of the heart eventually leads us down the path of enlightenment, blessing our lives with a new depth and richness.
Acknowledging heartbreak's impermanence by no means dulls its sting for it is the sting itself that stimulates healing. The pain is letting us know that we need to pay attention to our emotional selves, to sit with our feelings and be in them fully before we can begin to heal. It is said that time heals all wounds. Time may dull the pain of a broken heart, but it is fully feeling your pain and acknowledging it that will truly help you heal. Dealing with your heartache in a healthy way rather than putting it off for tomorrow is the key to repair. Gentleness more than anything else is called for. Most important, open yourself to the possibility of loving, trusting, and believing again. When, someday soon, you emerge from the cushion of your grief, you will see that the universe did not cease to be as you nursed your broken heart. You emerge on the other side of the mending, stronger for all you have experienced...
We punish ourselves needlessly when thing go wrong. Life lessons are meant to help us, not hinder our progress. Every wound carries a blessing: imagine that each time we were hurt or hurt someone that we never learned anything from it. We would continue our behaviors because we could not draw any other conclusions. Consider the gift we’re given each time we walk away from a situation with a greater understanding of who we are and what we have learned. The road to self-forgiveness is long, but there are plenty of signs along the way.
Many of us feel we’ve done things that make us unforgivable. When we look deeply enough inside we see that keeping ourselves “unforgiven” is actually motivated by love. We hold ourselves as unforgivable in hopes that we never do that thing again because we don’t want to hurt anyone else or ourselves. This is usually unconscious.
Although at the core this is a loving act, unfortunately, withholding self love and self forgiveness causes us to feel separate from Source. Consequently we feel cut off from love, which causes us to do things that are off balance, which generally have off-balance results for ourselves as well as our Brothers and Sisters. In other words, we end up acting in the very ways that we held ourselves unforgivable in the first place.
This is not because we are “bad” and shouldn’t be forgiven. It is because we carry the energy of “I BELIEVE I am bad” in our energy field. By the Law of Attraction, we draw to us circumstances that reflect our assessment of ourselves.
Apologize to yourself and let it go. Practice this often, whenever you find yourself beating up on yourself about something you did or did not do, accept that the deed is done and it cannot be undone, forgive yourself and move on to find a solution if necessary, if it something that another action cannot rectify then you must let it go, for it is in fact in the past already and remind yourself that no one can change the past.
This is not meant to relinquish you from responsibility, it is in fact making you more responsible, but in a more positive and focused way. Often responsibility is seen as something negative, something to be endured, but being responsible can also be remarkably freeing and in terms of forgiveness if you take responsibility for forgiving yourself you will learn what it is to live without the burden of guilt, blame, fear and shame.
When you have mastered the loving act of forgiving yourself, your heart will then be open to forgiving others. This is part of a natural progression on your journey to enlightenment, to forgive others means to take away yet a bit more control from ego and allow your higher self the possession of your thoughts and actions that it deserves.
Forgiving others shows you have the ability to open up and let love flow through you.
It shows that if you no longer bear grudges and carry hatred in your heart, you will recognize the connection that you have to every other soul in the universe, you will not feel separate and alone, you will no longer allow the actions of others to instill bitterness within you and because you are radiating love despite what is happening around you, in turn love is what you will receive, thus eliminating the need to forgive.
The law of attraction states that you receive that which you send out, so if you project only forgiveness and love, you will only attract others that do the same and so ultimately you will not encounter behavior that warrants your forgiveness. But all of this cannot be until you learn first to forgive yourself.
We can change how we think in the present moment in order to prevent our past traumas from hurting us. To do this we must learn to live beyond blame, shame and judgment.
Most people, at some level, feel ashamed just for being alive, because, after all, they are naked, and all they have ever heard is that that is not a good thing. The more someone tries to put on some spiffy coverings, whether religious righteousness or even being sexually alluring or politically powerful, it doesn't matter. Much of the gyrations of the false personality are designed to try to present itself as not being naked.
Children remind adults, especially those who are relatively as-yet unsullied, that it is possible to be naked but not be ashamed. It is very difficult for children to grow up in this world and hold their innocence. The spiritual path involves taking on the shame, becoming conscious of it, and beginning to make new choices. That includes releasing the old imprinting, recognizing the nakedness, and finding peace about it. The ultimate statement of that is, "I am perfect in my imperfections; I love myself unconditionally; at the same time, yes, I am naked in a great number of ways, and that includes having numerous faults."
Again, a paradox: when a person totally accepts his faults, he has much more leverage to change. Those who are in the throes of shame are terrified that if there was love, acceptance and tolerance, then everyone would just be terribly sinful--there would be no motivation to change anything, and, oh, the terrible things people would do then when their so-called animal nature took over! However, when you are naked, unashamed, but also know it, then instead of splitting off from yourself to make a judgment about it, which is quite draining, you can simply see, "Well, this habit here is not adding to my happiness; I think I will work on changing that." Since you are not divided in half, you have more wherewithal to make a change. If you are innocent and conscious at the same time and, let's say, you spoke out of pique--you were irritated or angry in the moment--and you are present with yourself, you get instant feedback that "that didn't feel good."
It's not moral in the sense that there is a judgment of what is appropriate or inappropriate behavior; it doesn't come from the intellect or from a judgment. It is simply a direct experience, because when you are one with yourself, you are one with others, and your thoughtless words, in hurting others, hurt yourself. So you instantly realize that that is not something you want. You may be aware, "Oh, I overreacted because I was tired, or I was sad about this other thing," but you immediately know that you no longer want to take it out on another person, because that does not feel good. So there is a direct feedback system and, therefore, no need for shame.
When you strip yourselves without being ashamed, when you take off your clothes and lay them at your feet like little children and trample on them, then you will become children of the Living One, and you will have no more fear.
When we are able to shed the cloaks that we set up to hide our own spiritual or moral imperfections then we will realize that there was no sense in trying to hide them and fearing them in the first place...
We are not "everything," but neither are we "nothing." Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox's extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed. Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to "blame" for our errors - neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else.
The spirituality of imperfection speaks to those who seek meaning in the absurd, peace within the chaos, light within the darkness, joy within the suffering - without denying the reality and even the necessity of absurdity, chaos, darkness, and suffering. This is not a spirituality for the saints or the gods, but for people who suffer from what the philosopher-psychologist William James called "torn-to-pieces-hood" (his trenchant translation of the German
Zerrissenheit). We have all known that experience, for to be human is to feel at times divided, fractured, pulled in a dozen directions and to yearn for serenity, for some healing of our "torn-to-pieces-hood."
When we accept our humanness and exercise our responsibility for making our own choices — for example, choosing what we do when we are angry, lonely, or sad — we are involved in a spiritual process. Our spirituality must be based on a vision that attends to our whole self and honors our whole experience, while at the same time acknowledges that we are accountable in the present for our own feelings, beliefs, and behaviors.
Spirituality is the healing process of “making whole.” Spirituality helps us first to see and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the core of our human be-ing.
Accepting our human limitation brings us inner peace. What a relief it is to put an end to the fight within ourselves. Also, as we find the permission to be the imperfect beings that we are, we become able to let others be who they are.
To deny or disown any part of our experience leaves us dangerously incomplete and especially vulnerable to our shame. The lifeblood of shame is secrecy, fed by the dark fear of being found out. To grow toward wholeness in the context of our family home, we have to open all the doors and windows to let in air and light. Then for us at last, healing will begin.
“You and I are children of mud, earthy and moist,” Jane Smiley writes in A Thousand Acres. “We’re not all fire and light — no matter how much we wish otherwise.” Facing this truth, we reach another turning point:
It is in the acceptance of all that was and is that our spirits become whole.
Health is a state of mind that recognizes the history of life, which includes moments of great delight and moments of deep sorrow. When we see all these parts of our being as connected, we come to terms with where we come from, who we are and where we’re going. Health is a whole.
The journey to love, acceptance and strong self-esteem requires courage, strength and faith. It also requires gratitude and forgiveness.
In Neale Donald Walsch's 'Friendship with God', he states that "gratitude is the fastest form of healing."
The truth of this phrase is one that must be experienced (as is the case with all things if we are to achieve full integration).
It requires that we be grateful for everything that comes into our lives. It requires that we be grateful for the annoyances, the frustrations, the pain, the anger, the disappointment, and the sadness, with as much soulful acceptance as we are grateful for the joy and love and delight we receive. As soon as we can view a situation from a place of gratitude, all the drama and chaos melts away into acceptance. And only from a place of acceptance can we hope to come to forgiveness. Gratitude is key in all things if we are to find the path to living in joy.
Forgiveness is a less tangible concept. It, unfortunately, gets tangled up with the ego and one's need to be right, or one's need to seek justice or revenge, or even one's need to stay miserable. It also carries with it a load of dramatic religious baggage. It comes wrapped up in concepts of God and saints and holiness. When asked to practice forgiveness, people often think it is something beyond our spiritual capabilities. It is not. In fact, it is vital to our spiritual health and growth. We must free ourselves of these preconceived notions before we will be able to experience the profound freedom that comes with forgiving. Forgiveness is a very tricky thing because, like all healing, it must first begin within. Self-forgiveness is the starting point. We cannot give to others what we do not have ourselves. We can't give love if we have self-hate, we can't give joy if we have self-loathing, we can't forgive others if we haven't forgiven ourselves.
Forgiveness often takes much longer to find than gratitude. First of all, we often believe that forgiveness of a certain behavior equals validation of that behavior. If these two things remain connected, forgiveness becomes impossible. We must be able to separate the two concepts. When we forgive, it is not about validating the act, but about letting go of the power that act has in our lives. This is particularly important when it is our own act that we must forgive. Those people who understand the necessity of taking responsibility for their choices and actions are always harder on themselves than on anyone else. We often hold ourselves accountable to a much higher standard. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can become damaging when we are unable to forgive ourselves for what we perceive to be our transgressions.
The path of gratitude and forgiveness is a much smoother one when we learn to stay more in the moment and not wander into the nether regions of the past or the unknown of the future. Nothing keeps us more grounded in nonforgiveness than holding on to past behavior or events. You can't change the past, yours or anyone else's. You can, however, learn from the past. It has many, many lessons. To forget the past is to put our Now in peril, because we will be doomed to relearn the same lessons over and over. Learning from the past is essential. Living in the past is fatal. The Now moment is the only one we really have. It is the only place we have any control. It is the only place from which we can create. Regrets of the past and fear of the future are our greatest enemies. We must be present, aware and awake in the Now moment, or we are not living our lives to the fullest.
Traveling any path is about putting one step in front of the other. If we worry about where our last step was, we will miss the step we are taking, which could mean stepping where we should not. If we look too far at the many steps we have ahead, then we will become fearful, and may stop taking steps at all. Never was this concept so apparent to me as when I recently participated in a firewalk. Much of the preparation for walking the fire deals with the act of moving forward, through fear of the future, through fears the past has laden us with. One step in front of the other. The step into the fire is no different than the last step taken; it continues to move you forward. But stepping into the fire proves that we can move through the veil of limitations and boundaries we convince ourselves are impossible to overcome. Nonforgiveness is one of those unnecessary limitations we place on ourselves that keep us rooted, and make it impossible to take the step into the void. But once you make that commitment, you have no choice but to keep going forward, and suddenly you find yourself able to fly, seeing a whole new world, filled with unimaginable possibilities. This is the power of the firewalk; this is the power of forgiveness.
We all have spiritual wounds; places in ourselves that have been hurt so badly, or beaten down so far that they are now hidden away, fearful of coming into the sunshine.
We have the power to change our lives; to change how we take things in; to replace self-hatred with self-love, pain with joy, feelings of loathing with the reality of knowing our own beauty. A large part of that path is forgiveness.
Wounds can only be healed in the light. They need air and acknowledgment and awareness in order to fund the healing power we all have inside ourselves. Walking the path of gratitude, forgiveness, and living in the present moment is a life-altering, life-affirming and celebratory journey. I highly recommend it.
