“When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else. But we must also listen to the wounded child inside of us. Sometimes, the wounded child in us needs all our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention. If you are mindful, you will hear their voice calling for help. At that moment, instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
There is a wounded child inside of me, deep and sometimes frightening. I’ve had fear and anxiety in my life for as long as I can remember and before I had words. As many people know, it’s a part of me; it will always be there.
I first encountered the idea of the wounded child reading Thomas Merton and then again in decades of therapy.
Over time, I understood that the fear inside of me often came from that child, not the reality of what was happening in my life. I learned the wounded child is in many of us. When I feel fear as I did last week, I know now to stop and think – some call it meditation and ask if the danger and fear I feel is coming from something outside of me or whether it has triggered something profound inside of me, something I might not remember or have words for.
Pain is inevitable in life; suffering can be a choice. Terror and fear of the future are often not reality. They are infectious, and people quickly pass them along to one another. I don’t let that happen to me if I can help it, and usually, I can. The wounded child needs my attention.
As Hanh and others suggest, when I feel that fear, I try to speak to that wounded child – you know him or her, they are not rare or exclusive to me – and tell him he is all right, he is not in danger anymore, whatever is happening to me outside need not spur panic or crippling anxiety.
I can deal with the issues I face in the real world calmly and clearly, without panic, but with thought and perspective. I ask the question the gurus always suggest: “Am I okay right now, and if I am, then I don’t need to feel panic or terror.”
There is no reason for that right now. Today, I am fine—better than fine.
I will deal with reality when it comes, and I am very good at that; I’ve done it all my life, and so have the wounded children in their way. And I will never spread or enable panic to others. Panic, like hatred, solves nothing and saves no one.
Fear is not a guide for me in life; grace, faith, and listening are what now work for me. I talk to the wounded child often, but he has calmed down, as I have, and gotten the attention he deserves. So have I, his father, perhaps my real one.
The truth lies in history and the complex story of humanity.
Spiritual upheavals are a part of democratic life and human life.
They are not unique to our time.
I recall my life in the 60s when leader after leader was gunned down and killed; we thought our country was hopelessly divided and coming apart, ugly battles in the streets, worse than now.
It was frightening, but as has often happened in our history, and more than once (think of the Civil War, the vicious battles over immigrants), it healed in parts and moved on to different crises and divisions. And then back to the same ones. That’s what happens in diverse countries. We will never be free of these populist revolutions. They never seem to last.
It can be disturbing, even frightening, but it isn’t the fear that the wounded and helpless child felt that shaped our psyches and consciousness and that I sense is exploding all around us. Contrary to the hysteria, we are not powerless and never hopeless. Whatever the future brings, it will not be what the pundits say it will be. It never is.
Sadly, we have few authentic and empathic leaders to guide us; they are all in the fray. Healing leaders do emerge; it just takes a lot of chaos before we are ready to hear them.
When I talk to the wounded child, I know I am often frightened in a profound, even terrifying way. The injured child most often has no words and no way of knowing that they can be safe and deal with life in better and more secure ways.
Today, I’m devoting my life to my wounded child, my lifelong companion.
That will be a painful process in some ways, but it will often lead to a feeling of peace and liberation. Yes, I am safe in the certainty that I am older and wiser now. I understand that today, I am not in danger. I love my life, and I’ll take things as they come. They are rarely as bad as people tell me they are.
I’ll find time for silence and reflection, go back, put aside whatever is roiling me outside, tenderly embrace the wounded child, and tell him he is safe. I will always remember that I am talking to myself as well.
I’ll be back, I expect, for some Flower Art, I’ll otherwise be silent today.
