There is a purpose in trauma, but it’s not about glorifying anything that should not have happened in the first place. It’s so sad that trauma that every single one of us bears some level of trauma. We’ll all bear trauma in this life, so the purpose in trauma is to face the shame because it ought not be feared.
“Easy for you to say,” and I hear you.
Before we face our trauma, our scars look grotesque, and they make us feel nauseous. They disable us. They cause us to look for peace in substances and harmful practices—these only make our trauma worse.
There is one thing, and one thing only, that stands in our way, sorry two. We, ourselves, need the boldness to enter the arena of our own suffering—but know this, FACING our pain is easier than we think—if the second dynamic is in play.
The second dynamic is another person who will hold you as they listen to you and validate your experience. You certainly know the experience of those who did not hold you, who did not listen to you, who did not validate your experience—because they were the source of further trauma for you.
Rather than amend the pain, they increased the pain, and your biggest challenge is to trust again. The worst thing is to trust someone who looks trustworthy, who then betrays that trust all over again, and actually destroys your agency for vulnerability. You can feel beyond trusting anyone ever again.
But no matter what betrayals you’ve suffered, there is sufficient hope of resilience in you to trust one particular kind of person; that person is the wounded healer.
Wait for them to arrive on your doorstep; do not seek them out. Many will promise to be this person, and they many come with an agenda.
It’s those who arrive in your life that have no agenda who are trustworthy.
The reason the wounded healer will be a source of life to you is that they’ve been there right where you’re at now. They’ll never betray your trust, because a wounded healer helped them, and once you’ve been helped by a wounded healer you know the pattern of the holy work wounded healers do.
They ‘travel with’ you in your journey of sharing the shame within your pain. Their empathy is implicit and somehow in the simple act of listening, holding, and caring presence, they demonstrate to you—perhaps for the first time you’ve experienced—that they’re safe. It’s as if magic happens. You process your pain as you’re met by their presence.
The most beautiful part is what comes next. You see what they did, you note how much it helped you, you feel healed beyond where you ever thought you’d get to. Suddenly you’re living a life you always dreamed was possible, yet didn’t dare to hope for.
Then you want to pay it forward, because, at that very moment, you come to realise the holy calling on YOUR life—you, too, have become a wounded healer.
You see, your scars are beauty for others. Only the scarred can see this gift that you carry—the capacity to hold, to listen, to validate, and to offer answers without speaking many words, other than sharing your own story.
Your experiences no matter how painful are life to others, and in sharing all this, there’s even more healing, for them and for you.
We learn in all this that scars can be beautiful, but only when we de-shame ourselves through sharing our pain in the presence of caring others.
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