By Brandon Alter:
So here’s the deal, my loves: we are all a little broken.
We all have deep, painful, festering wounds. That is literally the point of being human: learning how to heal. So just because you had it rough doesn’t mean you get to walk around this world making it rough for other people. If you are one of those people who is letting yourself off the hook for your bad behavior just because you had a rough childhood, you are part of the problem. I would hope that because of our pain we become more sensitive to the pain of others, and because we know how annihilating trauma can be, we would go out of our way to make sure we do not inflict that on anyone else.
As far as I’m concerned, you are not allowed to use your pain and suffering as a platform to sell your shit or get your way. You’re not allowed to use your wounds to make people feel sorry for you.
That is what is known as sorcery. And when you practice sorcery, whether it’s intentional or completely unconscious, you are gonna fuck yourself up in the end.
I’m not saying we aren’t allowed to make mistakes. I’m not saying that we won’t get triggered and say things we regret. But we need to be accountable. And we need to stop giving ourselves a get-out-of-jail-free pass just because we are victims of abuse or prejudice or pathetically insufficient upbringings.
Let me say this a kinder way . . .
Your wounding is the portal to your personal power NOT your actual power.
If you are using your wounds to maneuver yourself in the world, you are BECOMING ADDICTED TO YOUR BROKENNESS.
Whereas true freedom comes from walking through the threshold of pain and suffering and picking up the warriorship that waits on the other side. That is the medicine of the wounded healer. Not that we become overly attached to our wound, but that we become entirely identified through our healing of it.
