Wounded Healers

I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

     George Patton

Every morning, we receive an email message from the Henri Nouwen Society, taken from the vast writings of the late scholar and theologian Henri Nouwen.   This week the Society’s series about tending and caring for our own wounds has been especially meaningful to and significant to us.  Based on many of the conversations we have had with others, Nouwen’s words resonate very deeply with us.  As we reflect on the stories of so many of the people we encounter we are reminded about the multitude of wounds –especially spiritual and emotional – that we humans carry.

Nouwen, author of the classic, The Wounded Healer, has written this:

Nobody escapes being wounded.  We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.   The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?”  When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have every morning we become wounded healers. 

We connect with those who are at a place where many of their wounds have progressed greatly toward healing.  Many of these people are ready to offer themselves and their wounds to help bring healing to someone else.  They have learned from their brokenness and are able to use the lessons from that brokenness to encourage and inspire others.   They haven’t found their true purpose.  Suffering and pain doesn’t seem to make any sense, from our limited human understanding.  But when we have worked through and acknowledged our own pain and brokenness we are much better equipped to offer ourselves and all that we are to help others.  

Nouwen continues: 

To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering.  Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain.  A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds.  When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience.  Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person’s attention to ourselves.  We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings.  That is healing. 

One friend who has suffered a devastating, nearly debilitating loss has for months been diligently working through her pain.  Her grief and anger at times has been overwhelming.   But she has decided that she needs to use it – to redeem it – to help others in similar situations.  She has begun to write a book about it.  What she has written already is powerful and profound.  In writing, she is continuing to heal herself and most certainly will give inspiration for the healing of others. 

But another friend, also consumed with grief and loss, has not been able to work through his pain.   Unlike our first friend, he cannot accept the reality of his “new normal”.  He cannot work through his feelings, his brokenness, and consequently has simply given up trying.  His life has been a living hell.  He constantly relives, retells, his painful story.  He is not able to move on and it grieves us deeply to know that we cannot do anything about it.  All we can do is listen.  Walk with him, even when so any others are too weary to make that journey with him anymore.   Pray.  And hope that somehow, there can be peace and redemption someday.

Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care.  As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away.   But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others.  When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing.   Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.

Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash