The Wounded Healer = Bodhisattva

Matterhorn

I had believed that climbing to the top of the mountain was to win, to come out on top, to survive. Before I understood there was a journey, I was simply the survivor of my life. Was this not better than becoming the victim of life? I disdained the victim, believing that to have survived was simply the better position to take. The simple truth of the survivor is that they move through life as a victim too.

And thus a terrible spin is born out of this simple reaction to the traumatic elements of our lives that would have us striving to be on top so as to dominate our fears, or becoming so overwhelmed by our fears that we blame everyone and everything for our problem. In either case, it becomes almost impossible to speak from our hearts.

The survivor/victim are two sides of the same spinning coin. The survivor sees themself as the hero in the mythology of the trial in which they believe they survived. Grandiosity, a puffed up ego, and need to prove themselves are some of their foibles. The victim believes that their experience is beyond their control and that other people, institutions and circumstances are to blame. Their lot is resentment and hopelessness. 

In Natural Dreamwork, we see the presence in the dreams of the boy or girl as not about gender but as representations that hold specific energies related to our essential innocence, the purity of soul. Perhaps what is sacrificed at the altar of the hero, is the girl/relational/innocence. And, perhaps what is laid at the altar of the victim is the boy/autonomy/innocence. Many of us humans live either in one of these extremes or embody elements of both depending upon the situation and our trauma identified reaction to it. Either way it amounts to a loss of soul self. 

Perhaps it is through trauma and our unique response to it, that our yin and yang becomes out of balance. To have too much yang as the survivor has equated for me as bravado, a certain fearlessness, that while admirable to some, was devoid of true feeling and led to very self destructive and self centered behaviors. It could carry me forward into a fairly high functioning life, but without the yin, there is no acknowledgment of the pain or vulnerability.

The loss of the girl/boy is the loss of our own sweet, trembling vulnerability that steps forward through the fear of the unknown to be in relationship with that unknown in our own acceptance of our powerlessness over it. It is the loss of the co-creator in us, that part of ourselves where the wounded healer lives.

Akashagarbha (see notes below)

When we embark on the spiritual journey, part of the journey is the work we do when we enter into the “dark night of the soul”. That place deep in all of us where all of the

unacknowledged feelings live. What does it mean to be the wounded healer? I believe that the wounded healer is the true Bodhisattva that exists in each of us. In the truest sense, the wounded healer is one who has descended into the depths of themself, faced their shadow, and accepted and welcomed a power greater than themself. The healing that comes from this journey, transforms the wounded one. It is not that their wound is removed, but that it is integrated into the larger context of their experience in a way that allows them to be with others in their woundedness. As the Bodhisattva, they then return to carry this message of healing and hope to others.

For me it has meant an acknowledgment of no matter what has happened or how far down the scale I have gone, I can see how my experience may benefit others. I must engage world-side but from the place of knowing my own struggle, from the place of humility for the larger struggle which we all face and the powerlessness we feel.

To bring the yin and yang of trauma into balance allows us to see it for what it is...the inevitable suffering that tempers the soul, that fills us to the brim with the full breadth and depth of the human experience which blossoms into the joy of living. There is great joy that is born out of coming to terms with our trauma without regrets, recriminations or pride, without closing the door on our feelings. We can make the necessary amends to ourselves and to others in the true spirit of forgiveness. From this place, we can know the meaning of the words that are embodied in this great teaching: “forgive them, for they know not what they do”, we can begin to understand truly the humility of living what the girl/boy, our soul, has to offer us.

How can we stand up and speak from our heart, from the vulnerability and fierceness of our balanced girl/boy, yin/yang self? Can we take action from this place? We can become the wounded healer. Each and everyone of us has this capacity within us. To drop the survivor/victim spin is to open to the humility and knowledge of the love that is here now, even in the midst of the suffering. As wounded healers, this is what we have to offer the world. We can stand with others as they come to terms with suffering and as they find the joy of living.

My dreams have returned me to the mountain. I entered the mountain and my molecules mixed with the mountain. A huge earth being pulled me out of the mountain and I returned, the girl/boy, with all my passion for living in the world. I do not have to conquer the mountain, the mountain is in me!

The dreams will help each of us sort out what this is for us. They will show us how our Bodhisattva wants to manifest in the world. Attend to your dreams, consort with them! They have much to teach you.

Out of the Mountain, Laura Smith

9 x 12 (image is 6 x 8) Scored Acrylic Wash on Paper

From a dream where I see a girl and boy (4-5 yrs old) riding their tricycles. They ride into the side of a mountain and disappear inside. I run into the mountain too. My molecules mix with theirs, then we pop out and do it again. A huge man made of the earth pulls me out of the mountain. I can't stay hidden in the mountain. My work is to let him bring me back into the world with the boy/girl brought together in me.

Additional notes on artwork:

Akashagarbha (Bodhisattva) image, ground minderal pigment on cotton, is from Situ’s set of Eight Great Bodhisattvas, Kham Province, Eastern Tibet; 18th century; ground mineral pigment on cotton; Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection, L176.1.1

Considered one of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhist traditions, Akashagarbha’s name can be translated to mean “boundless treasury of space,” implying that his wisdom is as vast as the cosmos. Akashagarbha is seen here with a fish as his vehicle and appears androgynous, much like the female version of Avalokiteshvara, Guanyin.