Getting to know our wound and our triggers : some insights into wounding and healing

I love the ancient myth of the Centaur, Chiron. Chiron gets wounded one day by a poison arrow left lying around while visiting in the cave of Hercules which contains the blood shed by the Nine Headed Hydra in the midst of the fight to cut off his heads. From this piercing Chiron carries an unhealable wound in his achilles heel which I guess is a kind of metaphor for where we all get wounded by what Shakespeare called ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” As a result Chiron becomes well versed in the nature of wounds as well as the pain and poisons they leave inside as well as the practices needed to lovingly tend the wound. All kinds of beings come to him for advice and so he becomes known as the Wounded Healer. We all have Chiron in our astrology charts and psyche some where but some of us suffer deeper challenges of this kind.

The myth of Chiron is a profound metaphor for any of us who suffer from deep psychic injuries, these may actually be wounds we carried for our parents, due to natural sensitivity or we may be carrying ancestral wounds too that never got dealt with, were buried or got passed down. There are also collective wounds we suffer from especially those to the inner child like part of us that Christ spoke about in some of his teachings where he said the words, “unless you become like a little child you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”. To me, when I got into recovery and started to read the work of John Bradshaw on the wounded child and the wonder or soul child, this all made sense to me. It also resonated when I learned of Carl Jung’s story and his discovery of the buried creative, solar, child like part of himself after his break with Freud, prior to the outbreak of the First World War. Jung has his Sun in Leo which is said to rule the inner child in some astrological systems or the solar like self deep inside of us which has a deep spiritual connection.

Sadly our super serious heroic egoic society often has us shutting down this part of us and we forget how much young children suffered in days of old when they were not treated in a way to nurture their inner sense of self or natural joie de vivre, (not in all cases) but I am thinking here particularly of the war torn generation born 1900 to 1930 who lived through the impact of two world wars as well as the depression. It also calls to mind the fact of the strict Protestant Work Ethic and our binding to the wheel of industrialisation from the late 19th century onwards, an age of Iron and technology that is currently leading to such burning up on our planet. Leo is a fire sign and Pluto passed through it as Hitler undertook his dark campaign of mass genocide. Add to this the over running of more ‘primitive’ childlike spiritually attuned cultures and you get a picture into the level of wounding so many of us are carrying or witnessing play out right now all around the globe, cut off from nurturing roots in the deep dark feminine.

Wounds we carry to our sense of self can run deep for many of us. We may have struggled to learn healthy narcissism (something also ruled by the Sun and Leo). I am always amazed to see those who prove their own narcissism calling out others as narcissists, as my therapist often says to me all of us are on the spectrum of narcissism somewhere. At the healthy end we have a good sense of ourselves as worthy though not ‘special’ rather just human beings with inherent strengths and weaknesses like everyone one else. On the negative end we hide that humanity and our flaws out of a fear of vulnerability.

Some of us may have been overpowered by abuse from a parent or parents on either physical or psychic levels and that leaves what is known as a ‘narcissistic injury’ that may flare up when its touched or set off. The anger expressed will often veer over into rage and what lies hidden is the buried grief or sense of vulnerability and powerlessness underlying the wound. The person claims strength and strong defences but is not as willing to admit to vulnerabilities that may have left them in danger when young.

It was something I began to think about a lot today after a chat with my nephew who is being demonised for expressing anger and upset with a very painful situation while being shown next to no empathy. That said the caring for our own wound lies in knowing well our triggers or narcissistic hot spots, those places where we didn’t get valued, validated or affirmed for being who we are, or where we carry deep abandonment or attachment scars.

The last thing we need to do is get stuck in our ‘woundology’ or what Eckhardt Tolle calls ‘the pain body’ the best we can hope for is to know when its being triggered and why, asking for a time out or choosing to skip involvement with those who would shame dump or make us scapegoats. I relate to being scapegoated as does my nephew..its bound to happen to the softest amongst us at times when we flare up in ways more toned down souls see as ‘over the top’, addicts are particularly vulnerable in this way as long as our deeper pain is being hidden with numbing agents. Things burst out of the unconscious when substances lower our defences and then all hell can break loose, then its not too long before we are wearing the mantle of ‘wounded’ or defective one.

Getting a handle on our triggers takes time. Learning not to shame ourselves for developmental arrests or deficits, realising its all grist for the mill of maturing and deepening requires of us we hold and contain and get to know our pain intimately and find coping skills as well as survival and thriving strategies. It also involves learning much about self love, self soothing and healthy psychic boundaries.

If you have wounds or psychic injuries and sensitivities then its better just to own up. Its also good to know that as the Buddha said despite our wounds and the personas we adopt to cover them over there always remains a part of us that is healthy deep down inside, an authentic part known as our True Self. I believe we also have an eternal or wise mind self or an inner loving parent that can develop when we get more attachment support from outer figures such as therapists or recovery buddies who are undergoing their own healing.

And in time as Chiron showed our wounds become a source of so much more than just pain, when we have the courage to stay with them and be in the dark pit the majority of our society would rather we avoid we actually grow and nurture seeds of wisdom, love, compassion and understanding. The fire of our justified anger bursts open their casings as our tears water them to eventually bring about new seeds of life and we find the healing gift then. We may even act as a wounded healer for others, a source of support for those still fighting their way to break free of the dark personal and collective power of the pain body or woundology. What an amazing gift? What better use of the wound? ; love, tolerance, wisdom and deep empathy as well as a slowing down and deepening that might just fill so much of the inner emptiness which drives us in a materalistic culture cut off from feeling roots in the positive feminine.