TREASURED WOUNDS
Consider the paradox in the phrase, “treasured wound.” Why would a wound be treasured? What could be valuable about it? Besides being the perfect excuse to justify present shortcomings, it is the IDENTIFICATION with the story that blurs the distinction between the Aware Witness we really are, and the “little me” personality we imagine ourselves to be. Who would I be without my story? What meaning would my life have without this treasured wound?
This is no idle question. In preparing for the freedom that forgiveness promises, are you ready for that freedom? Are you ready and willing to be someone and something other than that limiting story?
Leonard Laskow
Who would you be
without your “cherished wounds”?
Excerpt from the book: For Giving Love
On a more subtle level, think about the “juice” we get from negativity — from gossip, from commiserating friends, from secret fantasies of revenge or retribution. Why do people watch reality TV shows about dysfunctional people? Why do they listen to opposing political commentators that make them furious? Why do some of us “love to hate”?
Are we willing to release these habitual perception and energy patterns? Are we ready to have well-being and peace of mind?
Treasured wounds can take other forms as well, such as attachment to long-departed loved ones — or wrongs done generations ago. We may still be carrying that banner for “our people” — whoever those people might be.
There is no judgment about any of these attachments. As part of the human condition (i.e., human conditioning), we learn as children when we hurt ourselves and start crying that we can get attention from those big, powerful folks — and maybe even use that wound to get what we want. However, as part of human evolution — individual and collective — we eventually learn that staying weak and helpless ultimately has no enduring benefit.
Forgiveness frees us
from attachment to the past
Excerpt from the book: For Giving Love
Let’s consider a few more habits, qualities, traits, and ways of being that keep us in the illusion of separation.
Guilt
Guilt might originate with something harmful you’ve done, but it can readily rigidify into anger turned inward. It may seem odd to associate guilt with anger, but consider that when one is caught, there is anger at being caught. Since there was likely a perpetration, you don’t feel right having this anger, so it gets turned inward.
Shame
Shame goes even deeper than guilt because rather than it being about something you did, shame is about who you are. Guilt might say, “I did something bad.” Shame says, “I’m a bad person.” All the more reason to shift to the Game of Awakening so that we recognize the being we truly are.
Self-Pity
This desire to bewail one’s own condition thinly disguises a desire to punish oneself — which is often really a desire to hurt or punish someone else by punishing oneself. This is closely related to the martyr who suffers to obtain sympathy.
Fear
When we fear for our own safety or well-being, we go into protection mode. We are reluctant to confront anything — a situation we feel has hurt us or the potential hurt of uncovering a perpetration. Fear is accompanied by the experience of contraction and separation. While the flash of fear that warns us of an immediate danger is biologically necessary for survival, if we habitually experience chronic fear and anxiety, we project conditions and situations from the past onto the future.
Doubt
Shakespeare called doubt the greatest traitor of them all. Doubt shakes our self-confidence and our faith in the unseen, which is, as we are learning, where our essential nature resides.
Do you notice something that all of these limiting ways of behaving have in common? They are all about the past. Eckhart Tolle says, in the present there are no problems, just what is. Freedom is about being in the present. When we free ourselves from the past through forgiveness, we are present as presence. Life is new to us, moment by moment.
