Written by Belinda Morris, Energy Coach
Belinda Morris is an ‘Energy Coach’ with 15 years’ experience who uses a combination of energy therapies such as holistic Kinesiology and Qigong to help clients navigate their lives with more curiosity, clarity, and compassion.
“Why am I back here?! I thought I’d dealt with this!” How many times have you uttered these words when the self-worth wound you thought you’d healed suddenly becomes a gaping, bleeding mess again?
For years and years, you’ve invested your life energy in healing this wound. The shame of rejection, the grief of abandonment, the resentful rage of betrayal…
You’ve logged hours and hours in therapy. Somatically ‘released’ every nook and cranny. Journalled like crazy and written letters and letters to burn.
You’ve done the inner child healing, the tie-cutting visualisations. You’ve performed rituals and exorcisms. Smoked yourself out with sage, bathed in oils, meditated with crystals, and pleaded with the archangels.
You’ve researched narcissists, read up on boundaries, learned the five love languages, studied the four agreements, you have the courage to be disliked and a set of atomic habits to boot.
And yet, your wound has the audacity to resurface! How dare it!
The cycle of healing
Time and again, I’ve witnessed the palpable exasperation that comes from the inability to heal a wound ‘once and for all.’
Fuelled by frustration, impatience and an ‘I will not be defeated’ determination, you might have found yourself in this endless cycle of ‘healing’:
Phase 1: The Edward scissor hands approach
You start your healing with ‘all-in’ gusto.
“I’ll chop away here, there, and everywhere using multiple modalities at the same time. If I throw everything at it, something is bound to work.”
Phase 2: The Sherlock Holmes approach
You refine your healing with obsessive attention to detail.
“I’ll observe everything that I’m feeling, thinking, and experiencing for clues. I’ll scour over every inch of my childhood, investigating every lead until I solve the riddle of the wound.”
Phase 3: The Groundhog Day approach
Through exhaustion and despondency, you stop trying to heal the wound.
“I’ll relinquish control and just live the suffering repeatedly until I’m dead inside.”
Phase 4: The Gordon Ramsay arousal
After a period of relative peace, the wound is re-triggered, catapulting you into a frenzy of foul-mouthed self-abuse, inciting you to re-start your healing cycle again at Phase 1.
“This wound is still here because I’m a lazy, undisciplined, and incompetent failure. Edward! Fire up the scissors!”
At first glance this cycle appears to be vicious. But is it?
What if the cycle is only vicious because you’re denying it’s right to be a cycle?
Your deep existential self-worth wound is not a linear project to be completed. It’s not necessarily rational. Or predictable.
It’s unpredictable, organic, messy, and cyclical. It’s just like you. Presuming you’re a human.
When you insist that your wound be ‘healed once and for all,’ when you demand ‘closure’, what you’re really doing is calling for eradication. And this simply doesn’t work in the natural world.
Your expectations cause most of your suffering
After persistently dealing with the ‘unhealable’ wound there comes a time when the suffering is not necessarily coming from the wound itself, but rather from your sense of powerlessness in your inability to heal it.
When you see a wound resurface, you’re no longer only dealing with the pain of the wound, you’re also dealing with the pain of its reoccurrence. Your judgement of yourself for being ‘weak’. Your exhaustion from having to endure the pain. Your criticism of yourself as a failure. Your frustration in feeling stuck. Your hopelessness in being unable to see an end to the pain.
All of it is perfectly understandable. And adding salt to the wound.
Embracing the cycle
The recommendation for breaking this cycle is usually to let go of trying to control outcomes and expectations. To simply ‘surrender.’ But this typically results in ‘trying’ to ‘not try,’ trapping you in the paradoxical prison of ‘working on’ not working on it.
In other words, even surrendering becomes a ‘strategy’ to control healing.
What if you took the radical approach of embracing the cycle of healing? What if tending your wound is a part of your life’s evolutionary journey? What if your wound is integral to your ever-increasing empowerment?
The instinct to relieve pain and suffering is universal. No one wants it. And yet, it is a part of life. It is part of the human condition. If you simply accepted it as it is, without bemoaning its existence, resenting its appearance, and doing your best in all manner of mainstream and alternative ways to eradicate it, you might, just might, find yourself moving through it. Savouring it even. Knowing that it brings deep wisdom and builds unwavering confidence in yourself. It develops resilience, strength, and stability in ways far beyond what a positive affirmation could ever do.
Respect your suffering and appreciate the power in your wound
What really makes you want to be a better person or a better version of yourself? Sure, it’d be great to be self-motivated enough to unleash your full human potential over a nice cup of tea on a quiet afternoon. But truthfully, suffering is more likely to be a useful stimulus for your change and growth.
Suffering, the sense of utter powerlessness to something, ignites your search for power. Enduring the pain of your wound stimulates your quest for healing. Feeling frustrated by your own powerlessness builds the resolve you need to let go of victimhood.
Think about your deepest wound and most painful suffering:
What did your suffering ignite in you? What fire did it light? What quest did it set off? How did it prompt you to seek more? To demand more for yourself? To claim more power, health, energy, love, connection, peace, joy, or passion?
Your wound is your door to healing. Your sense of powerlessness is your invitation to empowerment. Your most vexing question, often asked in desperation, is the activation of a mind-blowing and life-changing answer.
And the cycle of healing is a veritable gold mine of self-enrichment
Your suffering is your journey to self-sufficiency – it is your quest to acknowledge that your wound is your medicine and to recognise that you are your own remedy.
Your wound is perfectly designed to promote your empowerment. To prompt you to gather skills, knowledge, and wisdom. To awaken your gifts and talents. To build trust in yourself. Through the phases of healing, you’re learning, resourcing, growing, and cultivating yourself. Edward, Sherlock, Groundhog and Gordon all have their place. They bring beautiful gifts at every turn.
Pain and suffering are not fun or desirable. But they exist. The more you release resistance to your suffering and consciously decide to ‘work with your wound’ you’ll see the resurfacing of a wound, not as a failure to heal, but as an invitation to uplevel. To participate in another round of deepening wisdom, expansive growth, and reclamation of power.
And here’s the absolute kicker. When you recognise the beauty of your wound and appreciate the self-sufficiency you now enjoy, you’ll realise that the gift of your wound has much to offer the world. It can benefit and inspire others on their quest for healing. Your own expression of self-sufficient power becomes the beautiful contribution you make to the whole. So the next time you’re tempted to moan ‘I thought I’d dealt with this’ why not play with: ‘I didn’t realise there was more gold to discover and more gifts to give’.
Belinda Morris, Energy Coach
Belinda Morris is an ‘Energy Coach’ with 15 years’ experience who uses a combination of energy therapies such as holistic Kinesiology and Qigong to help clients navigate their lives with more curiosity, clarity, and compassion. Belinda spent a decade in the corporate world consulting to global companies on behavioral change before a health crisis led to a complete life and career transformation. Belinda founded Essence Radiance with a mission to help ‘Journeyers’ re-connect with their essence, nurture their true nature live their purpose.
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