Wounded Healer
“To be a conscious person in this world, to be aware of all the suffering and the beauty, means to have your heart broken over and over again.”—Sharon Salzberg, InwardOutward.org, “Daily Quote,” May 31, 2018.
Caravaggio
Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practices. Those in Christian and psychological traditions will recognize this Buddhist belief we share as the Christian and Jungian teaching of the wounded healer.
The best healers are those who have experienced and know the most about suffering. We see this daily in our small group grief recovery group, Walking the Mourner’s Path. Three or four of us are the facilitators holding the group together. The real healers are the group members who try to live through the death of a loved one and begin to empathize with what the others in the group are feeling.
The same is true for those in 12-step recovery groups.
When we talk with spiritual friends who are suffering, we listen and listen and listen. At some point, they will mention someone else who is suffering and who helped or reached out to them. This is our subtle clue to tell them that perhaps, at some future date, they can do the same for someone else. It is the old native American message of having walked in someone else’s moccasins that gives us compassion for that person when we have a hint of what their life is like.
Christianity teaches us that we, like Thomas, are healed by the scars of the wounds of Christ.
Sometimes, the only resurrection we ever see in tremendous suffering is developing an awareness of what it is like for others who are also in distress.
We have a choice: bitterness for the suffering or an understanding of compassion for others who also struggle.
Five disciplines tell us this same message about the wounded healer. I know there must also be other traditions involved in sending this message.
For me, when several disciplines intersect, this is a sign of truth.
