In her book Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini (Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini: The Transformative Power of Saturn, Chiron, and Uranus), Barbara Hand Clow writes that during a painful event, two of the following three roles are activated:
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being the one who is wounded,
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being the one who wounds, and
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being the wounded one who heals.
The role that is not activated remains in the shadow. This is extremely important to understand, because contents in the psychic shadow manifest in a deeply unconscious way, “attacking us from behind” and undermining our good intentions. The path of individuation (the awakening of kundalini) is a path toward inner wholeness, and it is precisely then that the integration of the shadow becomes especially important.
As a starting point, it is helpful to examine the possible combinations in the case described above:
(1) to wound and to be wounded;
(2) to be wounded and to heal;
(3) to wound and to heal, without oneself being wounded.
These three combinations correspond to three different psychic shadows. Among them, the shadow of the “wounded healer”—the one who is himself wounded and heals the wounds of others—is to be the one who wounds.
For a large group of people, to which we therapists also belong, it is characteristic that when we were children and felt hurt by our parents’ behavior, we did not become angry with them. On an unconscious level, we sensed that they behaved as they did not because they were bad, but because they were unhappy and confused. Unconsciously, we stepped into the role of their healers, trying to give them the love we felt they lacked. Thus, in the shadow of the small child we once were, there remained anger and the desire to show them what they were actually doing to us.
In this regard, Barbara Hand Clow writes:
“Your shadow side is to deeply wound the one who caused you all this pain.”
This is the shadow that must be seen, validated, and for which appropriate ways of expression must be sought. Otherwise, the world is forced to split into two halves in order to embody the part we have rejected. It is as if life itself enters into a conspiracy to force us out of the vicious circle in which we heal the one who wounds us. And so it constantly presents us with situations in which others are aggressive toward us and abusive—humiliating us, crushing us, pressing us against the wall, insulting us, and shouting at us.
As Barbara Clow says, this happens in order to show us that just as we unconsciously take pleasure in our own masochism, others take no less pleasure in their sadistic role. They are the sadists in our lives not for any other reason than that we, as sufferers, need someone to play the role of the abuser for us.
As long as a person suppresses the desire to show others what they are actually doing to them, unexpressed anger accumulates and, if it does not find a healthy way to be expressed outwardly, it leads to a dark masochism in which there is no exit from the endless circle of suffering.
And yet an exit does exist. The problem is that it passes through the rejected part.
To be a wounded healer who understands others by constantly forgiving them is not good either for oneself or for them. It is vitally important to be able to say “no” to what is unhealthy, even if that initially means that it may hurt even more. When we do so, we realize that the drama was in our mind, and that we greatly exaggerated the pain we imagined we would cause the other. What actually happens in practice is simply that we end a relationship in which we are treated badly.
This simple act, however, can for some people be the most difficult thing in the world.
In such cases, it is good to accept that in addition to helping others, they themselves also need help. Then they can ask themselves a few simple questions. Was what they were doing to help the other truly the right thing, given that the other did not change as a result? If the other did change for the better, then this article does not apply to them. But if the other did not change, and they continue to remain in the same relationship and do the same things, this is a clear sign that they must do something different. They already know what that is.
The most important thing in this situation is to make sure that the knife with which the operation will be performed is clean. This is the purity of the sword from the story of the samurai. After all, when we go in for surgery, we are not angry that we are being cut and that it hurts. The only thing we want is for the surgeon to do the job properly. This applies no less to the human soul. On an unconscious level, we ourselves seek out relationships in which we suffer, because everything that wounds us is connected to those things from which it is time to free ourselves—by understanding, by gaining wisdom, and by developing strength.
This strength is called love beyond duality, the love that makes us whole.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
