gentle reminder from my elders this morning, “Remember to speak from the scar, not the wound” -@DrBlackDeer, Twitter
As an emotional fire sign, who can turn into a fire-breathing dragon in seconds flat, I needed to read this tweet this morning. We’ve all experienced so much emotional lashing out in the last few years, haven’t we? And there are a lot of people and institutions that have some terribly bloody wounds right now. These wounds need to be healed and to be integrated and to be understood before any healthy lessons can be gleaned from the experiences that created the wounds.
The best lessons come from the places and the people who have done the work and taken the time to heal. The best lessons come from people who have had the wisdom to do a lot of self-awareness, introspection, and self-care to heal the wounds, before assuming they have anything to truly teach about a particular situation. The most sound wisdom comes from a calm, serene, compassionate, peaceful part of others and of ourselves, and not from a brash, emotional, reactive state. Asking ourselves the question, “Am I reacting or am I responding?” gives us real clarity in any situation that has any kind of emotional charge.
In an emergency room, it’s much easier to talk about how I got a certain scar that is now mostly healed over, than to explain how I got a throbbing, full of pain, bleeding gash. In fact, in that situation of a fresh wound, talking about it is relatively pointless. The immediate action is to take pertinent steps to heal the wound and stop the bleeding. There will be plenty of time to talk about it later.
I keep hoping that 2023 will be that restful, reflective, “healing the wounds” kind of a year that it seems that we collectively need, in order to move on with clarity and purpose. Scars can be quite beautiful when they serve as reminders of healed wounds and wise lessons obtained from those wounds. The only thing that a fresh, throbbing, bleeding, gash needs is immediate, personal attention, and a quiet, clean, safe place to start the healing process.
In the beginning of this year, it seems to be a fine time to take a pause to lick our wounds. Healing is a timely, personal process that must happen, before that healing can be shared as wisdom which will be truly helpful to others. When we give our wounds the chance (and we don’t keep picking at the scabs), and the space, and the time to heal, they quickly become the healed over scars of our experiences. And then it follows: “Speak from the scar, not from the wound.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.