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We Each have a Wound or Two …


My wound …

I must be bad that you leave me alone so much

therefore I am alone

and therefore I will live detached

for fear that trying to attach brings back the aloneness again

in so many familiar ways from my childhood

Therefore it is better and more self-protective

and best to regulate my being and my emotions

by maintaining an alone stance …

be  distant from people who could and probably would only hurt me again.

 

His wound …

I must be stupid or else you would pay attention to me, hear me,

and accept my ideas or suggestions

 

Her wound …

She has the wound of compulsively care-giving, co-dependency,

And comes across like preoccupied and anxiously attached.

 

Wounds dance especially in couple relationships and with the partner I love!

For I noticed that after the honey moon was over,

in the form of so many fights,

only proves that I cannot trust even my lover.

 

We each have a wound or two.

Wife shouts: “you have a lot of problems!!!!!

Husband defends: ” No! My shrink told me just one or two!!!!”

 

Wounds are …

attachment injuries

undifferentiation

childhood schemas

unfinished business

primary and secondary emotions

bio-emotional patterns

 

Wounds are perceptions or felt realities or felt memories and responses

They are born because of threats of separation, insecurity, un-safety

and other feelings / experiences of un-attachment

and loss and alone, and even death.

Wounds have emotional components .. but they are much more than emotions

Wound present in the form of fight of flight / freeze

We each contribute to the dance of wounds!

 

Wounds born in family of origin,

There are sibling revelry wounds;

Wounds can be ethnic or gender wounds.

 

We can differentiate childhood wounds from later life events wounds

like sexual or physical abuse, or depression.

But there will still be a deeper childhood wound….early development wound.

Wounds are my self-created identity, as I watched you watching me,

and what I thought you were thinking of me.

 

Wounds are the drivers … that move us in familiar ways:

wounds are very familiar, old habits,

almost like security blankets…

even if we cannot or dare not yet name and claim them.

 

The wounds of childhood dance in love relationships

the “there and then” dances in the “here and now”

a straight forward continuation in adulthood.

We are wired for love and survival and security:

We will fight for this right to live in love.

But we are probably wired a bit faultily,

 

Therefore, we can assess and discover wounds in my present couple relationships

OR

in my childhood family of origin beginnings.

Both work towards healing.

 

Either we name and claim them

Or else my partner will be naming them for me:

Wounds can be named…… like “not good enough”, “alone”, “bad”,

We each have our name for the wound…..

Our own feeling, our own familiarity

Our own wound word.

 

Each person’s wound is unique even if two people use the same wound word

Because we each lived the wounding times of childhood in our own way.

two siblings, with the same parents,

will have very different wounds

perhaps due to sibling rivalry

or that parents and parenting have changed over the years difference

 

Indeed, we need to NAME the wound … MY WOUND WORD …

in order to CLAIM the wound

and we need to CLAIM the wound

in order to TAME the wound

and thus find my own HEALING WORD

 

There is no need to spend too much energy of BLAMING others for my wound

we can even get angry at parents for our wound, for awhile

but we are all human in this life journey together

and our parents had their wounds from their family of origin …

and their parents before them, and … and  …..

 

indeed, we need to see our parents as wounded people

who could not love us as we needed to be loved, and touched, and held secure.

 

Yes we need to look at our childhood

and ask stories of how I was when I was a  baby, child, youth

and listen for the wound words and felt memories therein

 

My wound word is “alone because I am bad”

and my healing word is “I am good enough!”

 

Wounds are much more than emotions

we need courage, thoughtfulness  and mindfulness,

sensate and touch re-wiring,

to look into the eyes of our attachment figures and see a new healing, if possible

or to look into ourselves and find a new healing word and sensation

or to look into the eyes of God and life and see the world in a different way

 

And then healing the wounds,

or is it repair

or resolution

or comforting and soothing

What do my wounds demand?

And what would bring thoughtfulness to this driving force.

Written By: Dr. Martin Rovers