Your Strength as a Wounded Healer

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
~ Rumi

Have you ever wondered why stuff happens to you? Why you’ve had to suffer, and endure the things you’ve gone through?

I have no good answers for the WHY, but I do have some advice based on having suffered and endured on my own journey.

Don’t let that suffering be wasted. Don’t waste it on vengeance or anger or being stuck as a victim. Don’t get stuck in your story. Don’t become the object of suffering and the receptacle for pain.

You have a choice. And whenever you have choice, power, in that moment, resides in you and that power to choose.

So, this is my advice, based on my own pain and suffering…

Use your wounds to grow. Use your path of suffering and pain as a force to transform you. Make your suffering MEAN something. Take everything that you are, everything that you have, everything you have endured and work that suffering and pain into wisdom.

After that, the road will fork.

You can take the first road. That road allows you to take your inner wisdom and strength as a shining light and courage within you that helps propel you forward in the world. No-one else might ever learn of the suffering that transformed you, but in that place of transformation you will strive and thrive and become a success at whatever calls you BECAUSE of that guiding energy and force within you. You’ll know that you can rely on yourself, you’ll know that you can all on that strength. You’ll trust your resilience and your ability to endure and overcome. That suffering will no longer define you – instead, in a strange way, it will have liberated you.

For some of you, though, you’ll feel the calling of that second road.

That’s the Path of the Healer.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Your feet will be shuffling onto that path, cautiously walking that path, that heart-drawn path, and you’ll be so very aware of the suffering and the brokenness that has happened in your life. I know, you’ll be looking back over your shoulder and thinking ‘What right do I have to be here? I’m wounded.’ And then you’ll think that maybe you should turn around and go back…

My friend, I just want to embrace you. I want to cheer you on. I want to sit down beside you, offer you a deep refreshing drink from my water bottle and whisper something in your ear.

There’s a secret power in being a wounded healer. You’ll be able to identify those who are ready to invite the light into their wounds. You’ll be able to hear their pain. Feel their anguish. Identify with them, as both and equal and a teacher. And most importantly, you’ll be able to help them to step out of that dance they do with their pain and into a place of using that pain for transformation.

You’ll be able to look them in the eye and say ‘I know you. I see you. I understand you. Because I have my own wound. We walk this path together.’

Wounds can heal. The scars they leave behind make us stronger. They are a tangible reminder that none of us are perfect, and that life is a hard road, with many obstacles which we shall seek to overcome.

That you are further along the path, still upright, wiser… well, that gives hope to others. Your compassion and understanding, having walked that difficult road yourself, becomes a powerful force for helping others to transform.

Please, if you’ve held yourself back BECAUSE of your wounding, your scars, your history, your imperfections, I ask you to reconsider.

Let me share with you the story of two of my clients who were weight-loss coaches. One of them was a young girl who’d excelled at everything she’d ever tried. She was an exercise physiologist and nutritionalist, an elite athlete, and a stunning beauty. The other was a middle-aged overweight housewife. Who had once been morbidly obese. Who was still holding a few pounds. And who, bless her, had little fashion sense.

One of them is still an outstandingly successful weight-loss coach.

The woman who was once morbidly obese, who has lost over half her body weight and maintained that loss, is now successfully leading many other men and women with life-long weight issues back to a place of health and balance. She can look you in the eye and know that you are binge-eating frozen cheesecake through your tears in the dead of night. She knows the shame, the anguish, the self-loathing, the total lack of self-worth. She’s been there. She’s walked that path and she still walks that path. She knows that path well, and she’s learning more all the time. And you’ll trust her because of that. She truly has your back because she IS you, in a way.

The young elite athlete? She changed her focus and now she rehabs injured athletes and corporate-type individuals with a burning need to succeed and with strong competitive instincts. She trains winners. She trains go-getters. Because that is who she is, and the mindset and values with whom she most relates. She knows what it is to push herself, to feel completely driven, to give herself to her goals one hundred percent. She knows what it is to be eaten up by self-induced stress. To get completely out of balance and to burn out or injure yourself through over-training. To have no social or family life because your world has become too narrow. Or that you need that narrowness in order to reach a goal, and for some people, that the goal is what matters. She also knows how it important it is to be sustainable, after having been so unsustainable herself. She knows the beauty and the thrill of that control and that desire to win. She’s incredibly successful now, and so are her clients. She’s getting incredible results.

Both of them are.

And both of them are wounded healers, walking their talk and sharing their passion, their wisdom and their light.

Healers come in all forms. Yes, there are traditional healers. Doctors, naturopaths, counsellors, nurses, massage therapists – the list goes on. But healers are also teachers. They are mothers, fathers, writers, cab drivers, hairdressers, tax accountants, musicians, waitresses, gardeners. They share their compassion, their advice, their support, their wisdom and their lessons in so many, many ways.

Don’t tell me that you’re somehow LESS because you are imperfect.

Tell me how you can help others be MORE because of your imperfection and the knowledge that has been gained on your journey.

Your wounding is what makes you whole. It’s what makes you beautiful and precious and valuable. It’s what makes you real.

I have faith in you.

Go do this, if it’s calling you. We need more big, open scarred-up hearts, souls and minds in the world. It’s time.