As tensions, uncertainty, and devastation deepen throughout the world, it may also exacerbate your own personal sense of vulnerability. We are all burdened by our insecurities, our worries, our private pain and witnessing the world’s pain may contribute uncomfortably to our own.
To be human is to be wounded and increasingly our wounds are wounding, if not breaking, the life support capacities of the Earth. Some wounds are superficial, the worst lie festering in our unconscious. What we are unconscious to, what we suppress, we remain attached to, directed by.
The world cannot be healed until we awaken to our festering wounds. You cannot be healed until you face what has fractured your original sense of self and the hidden wounds. You must reveal what lies hidden. To leave the old path of disconnect, you must journey inwards where wholeness awaits.
You are crossing a threshold between the old path you have been following, and the new path that beckons you forth. It is a confusing stage. You are not alone. Your yearning, those quiet whispers from within invite you to discover your own authentic path. Are you listening?
In my darkest of times, when feeling broken, stuck, confused, filled by dark emotions, I heard whispers within calling me into the dark unknown. I am scared of the dark. Yet the pain of being on the surface was greater than my fear of my darkness. So my journey began.
Every step along the way I doubted myself; my strength, my courage to confront the painful truths, my adaptations that had become wounding. The sadness of a life less lived, the wounds that led to harmful actions, limited thinking, broken relations. I had lived unconsciously, unhappily to the beat of my wounds.
In embracing your wounds and letting them be, or go, you are committing to the inner work of deep change. It is never easy, it cannot be just handed to you, only fought for, time and again. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “You must change your life, it must happen over and over again”.
You need to step fully, wholly into this threshold to free yourself from the grip, the domination of the limiting patterns and beliefs that are causing so much suffering. You cannot continue to invest in the old path, your limiting ways of being in this broken world that threatens to suffocate you.
When you step into your new path, you recognise that your wounds must be your teachers. The great Persian mystic, Rumi, instructed his readers: “The wound is the place where the Light enters you”. Embracing your wounds is to shed light into both your darkness and the potential of wholeness.
To break free of the pain, if not the suffering you have endured for years, you need to be honest, compassionate with how you arrived at this point of change. It requires honesty, courage, and perseverance. The choice is yours; you can either awaken or you can remain asleep.
You cannot journey from the darkness of the old ways to the light of the new without embracing your souls’ invitations. You are called by the mystery within to breathe into this journey, to enlighten your darkness. If you do, you will be liberated to be all that you can be.
It is not, however just about coming into wholesome relationship with the inner and outer darkness. There is much more to becoming the whole of you, an aligned, joyful, loving sense of self connected to your soul and the Divine. Your wholeness beckons. Are you listening?
Becoming whole requires you to acknowledge and integrate all that you are, the good stuff, the painful and limiting aspects. It requires developing and nourishing the faith and trust in your totality. To bring all your parts into a single harmonious whole self. The Wisdom of Wholeness Program offers the opportunity to do this, are you ready?
Peter R White PhD
Sydney, Australia 2023