Sacred Wound and Existential Dilemmas

This paper aims to explore what Jean Houston (1987) calls “The Sacred which enters into the Wounding” in correspondence with the idea that “in the early years, as afterwards, being truly seen and heard is equivalent to being loved.” Evans (2002, p.61). Within this exploration I will look at the nature of the wounding which serves the journey towards self-realisation while holding the psychosynthesis context that when we are born into the world we incarnate spirit into matter and in this process we separate from the divine wholeness. The experience of separation and limitation that results from being split off at the point of incarnation from the Self/greater whole/Oneness is the origin of existential wounding- the existential separation is the original/existential wounding. Just born into this world we are unconscious to this separation because we have no concept of ourself as a Self or a separate Self.
Psychosynthesis sees our life engaged on a journey of the soul from where we came in the beginning. This journey is about about becoming increasingly conscious to ourself as a spiritual being connected with all things, whilst going all the way we also have to become fully aware of our separation so we move from our unconscious state to an awakened state.
The baby would experience this as oneness with the mother while they are gazing into each others eyes. The connection can be called the ‘I-Self connection’ (Firman&Gila 1997, p.71-87) and is described as a sense of Being- a spontaneity for life, a sense of being held and loved for who we are- a deep sense of aliveness (child of Self/Soul). Powell (2004, p.20/21) writes: “Self, or essential Being is intuited, (unconsciously), in the loving gaze of the mother who becomes the mirroring object. In this ‘holding environment’, the emerging ego organisation forms a unit with the mother’s ego. The infant is unable to differentiate between itself and mother and therefore sees itself reflected in the eyes of the Other and believes this to be itself.” As we develop we become more and more conscious of our separation from the wholeness and the loss of pure Being. Evans (2002, p.63/64) speaks about how we suffer the existential wounding when we become conscious to the fact of our separation from this wonderful sense of Being. She explains that the child does not have the psychic structures or ego container to be able to bear the experience of this original separation that makes us mortal and limited human beings- i.e. we will die, we cannot be omnipotent gods, we are not ideal beings; the existential experience of terror, death and loss is also a symptom of a separation of the unconscious into a somatic (body related) and psychic (mind-soul related) nature. This happens when we take on the structures of space and time in order to be in this world. As a result we suffer grief and rage from the loss of the sense of Being and Oneness. However, while as children we need to be protected from harsh realities by empathic and loving parents or care givers, we are not mirrored in our natural feelings and spontaneous responses to experiences of suffering and we dissociate. This is part of another kind of wounding-the neurotic/narcissistic wounding.
When the ‘I-Self connection’ gets ruptured this gives rise to the neurotic wounding, in other words the neurotic wounding arises out of the traumatic experiences of childhood. These experiences influence our developing Self as babies and children and create the image of who we are in our mind as well as the behaviour patterns that we build in order to survive the world we live in. We suffer wounding from our environment- our parents or guardians love us and do the best they can besides being individuals with their own unconscious wounding that they reflect on us. They don’t mirror our wounds and so we split off from them/ repress them. Our true, spontaneous responses are not received and they go underground into our unconscious. If the child expresses authentic feelings because it acts spontaneously or because it can’t stop himself/herself, he/she experiences acute shame. Miller (1990, p.68) stresses: “If we are disappointed by someone, for instance, and are not permitted to acknowledge our rage, we are not conscious of being furious ourselves but of the other person as being angry with us.” When the child is not mirrored in their authentic feelings like joy, anger or hurt, then the child develops a false Self which is adaptive to the world. The young child takes in the projections or absence of the caretakers and this gives rise to feelings of badness and shame. The shame covers the wound as the false or adaptive Self that we built in order to survive is building the defences. Our authentic or true Self, where we are connected to pure Being, goes underground and splits off.
In Psychosynthesis we discover how and why we have put trust into the false Self and lost the sense of faith in us. In the process of this understanding we return to the roots of the problem, the fact that we are experiencing ourselves as being in a state of separation from the Divine. This is not necessarily a happy experience- it is an existential crisis/dilemma that is usually deeply painful, a personal experience of not being able to go on with Self “like this” after having been living life in an adaptive way. I might be well developed, operating well in the world as a powerful individual and yet I experience life becoming less and less meaningful; my family, friends, career and hobbies do not interest or bring the same pleasure as before. Here the sacred enters in as the existential dilemma invites to go beyond individuality towards the whole with more unitive spheres of meaning and value. Firman&Gila (1997, p.190) describe this as follows: ”The person has it all, but none of it satisfies a need for deeper meaning and purpose in life. This has also been called the existential vacuum by Viktor Frankl (1967) and the existential neurosis by S.R. Maddi (1967), and amounts to an invitation to reorient oneself to the transpersonal dimension...this reorientation toward the transpersonal can also reveal indications of the earlier wounding underlying the split between the two dimensions; the fear of letting go of one’s worldly identity; anxiety about losing control; a defensive, cynical attitude toward higher human potential; pain from abusive experiences with church, theology, or clergy; or a strong attachment to the concrete, tangible, and material- morphophilia. This earlier wounding can be addressed in counseling and psychotherapy, while a relationship with the transpersonal might be developed via spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation, and by engaging new external unifying centres that can reflect and support this growing connection to the transpersonal (spiritual communities, religious reading, retreats, etc.).”
Our wounding becomes sacred when we have developed enough of an inner container (ego-container) to experience at the level of Soul that our suffering is not just due to unempathic care as babies and young children or to traumatic circumstances which shattered, disrupted, broke the ‘I-Self connection’, the loving bond with the other which connects us to Self through the flow of empathy, love and will. We become aware that human suffering is about the terror of death and loss. Evans (2002, p.65) writes: “Existentially, these neurotic patterns we develop are coping mechanisms to protect us against the more existential and fearful experience of Death, Loss and Abandonment, Meaninglessness, Freedom, Responsibility- inherent in being born. Confronting these can bring us to the fear of non-being, an experience which we feel to be worse than death itself.” and Woodman (1982, p.51) points out:”Fear of abandonment is no different at twenty-five years than it is at twenty-five days. Nothingness is always nothingness.” There are human experiences of non-being which we need to confront in order to open to the transpersonal at a deeper level. However, we need to have a level of conscious ‘I’ before we can do this. By the time the person reaches later life as an adult he or she will have developed a powerful ‘false’ or ‘adaptive’ Self. This Self or shell will defend against authentic experience of pain and shame at all costs. But this will mean being cut off from the core personality and spontaneity. The identity of the person will be held in survivor type personalities (subpersonalities) such as ‘The Hero’, ‘The Striver’ or ‘The Clown’ which serve to protect and uphold the adaptive part in the world. Any crack in this identity will mean the person experiences feelings of low self esteem, worthlessness and personal defectiveness and inadequacy. When this crack appears the dilemma will be about whether the person can make the deeper choice to touch the deeper existential rage, grief and shame that connects to the authentic and sacred human, universal experience, or will they retreat into the place of victim and blame. The question is: can I face the threat of non-being? In therapy these dilemmas will come to surface and need to be faced. Something happens- either triggered by an external situation such as getting sacked, or it can be internal- the Self calls and the person becomes disoriented and confused. This is where we enter the sacred wound- suffer it in the soul. Houston (1997, p.105) says:“Wounding involves a painful excursion into pathos, wherein the anguish is enormous and the suffering cracks the boundaries of what you thought you could bear. and yet, the wounding pathos of your own local story may contain the seeds of healing and transformation. The recognition of this truth is not new. In the Greek tragedies, the gods force themselves into human consciousness at the time of pathos. It is only at this time of wounding that the protagonist grows into a larger sense of what life is all about and is able to act accordingly. The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time.”
Through accepting who we are, we open to a sense of ‘more than’ and as we become more conscious of our personality we respond to the call of the deeper Self, which was underground, and realign ourselves with the core of our inner being from where we are evolving and our Self is emerging.
Engaging with our new life we now do what our parents failed to do, we listen to and watch our ‘Inner Child’, parenting and mirroring our ‘child of soul’, feeding it with the love it is so hungry for. This seems to have so many possibilities and is no matter of right or wrong nor to be seen in black and white. We do not blame our parents but accept that every individual has a unique world of meaning.
When the ‘soul child’ suffers being in this world the wounding is not measurable for others. In order to survive we have to develop defences. This is an aspect of our existential wounding. The defences the child builds up to survive the less than perfect circumstances can never be fully known in the process of becoming more Self aware. In order to be loved the ‘child of history’ overshadows the ‘soul child’, the mask that we build and wear to belong in the world we live in. Everyone has his or her own unique story and the story of the ‘soul child’ usually remains untold until we find ourselves in an existential dilemma. Psychosynthesis sees this crisis as the invitation to move through experience of our shame and pain to a greater sense of wholeness. This is the journey of the soul. The qualities of the Self, which are love and will, move us from within and cause us to show our true Self behind the mask and this painful process brings about the existential dilemma. Trying so hard to be seen for what we really are and born with our unique sense of Being sometimes our wounding can take us there. In this way the wounding becomes sacred- it takes us to a deeper sense of Self and connection with our Being. Miller (2006, p.39) reminds us:
“There are those with great gifts, often precisely the most gifted, who do suffer from severe depression. For one is free from it only when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of one’s own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.”
Our ‘Inner Child’ shines through all of our more or less integrated subpersonalities we are living in and which are striving to align with our ‘Core Personality’. By way of example we could imagine the little girl that grows up feeling that to be loved she must be a successful sportswoman may become so identified with this part of herself that she falls into depression at the twilight of her career. Her promise to her parents betrayed her and needs to be redeemed and experienced so she can get in touch with her ‘Inner Child’ and let the ‘soul child’ tell its untold story. To disidentify from the subpersonality she became so identified with, would serve to build her own external unifying centre, to mirror and feed the soul child with what the parents failed to do. Miller (1990, p.86) describes the dilemma of a patient’s process of this unfolding understanding:
“But the gain does not come until much later. At first the patient suffers greatly from the discovery that he has been conforming all his life for the sake of what has turned out to be merely the illusion of concern for him on the part of others. Once it becomes clear to him that he has been clinging to the smiling masks of others, he realizes the extent of his loneliness. Now that the masks have been removed on both sides, he no longer has to make an effort to behave as expected and gains more and more freedom as a result.”
Facing the building of personality in early childhood we see through the eyes of the ‘child of history’, the child who had to adapt to its environment when it wasn’t held or mirrored. This can feel endless if we do not let go of our survival patterns, in denial of the shame and hurt that led to the loss of spontaneity and joy. Depending on how willing we are to release the grief and despair we open to soul and meaning. From a spiritual perspective we know that things don’t come into existence for no reason and that there is a deeper purpose which we are unfolding to. Hence “the sacred which enters into the wounding.” (Houston 1987)
The dilemma which enters into our existence is about whether we can allow ourselves to suffer the pain of separation in order to discover a deeper sense of being real. Before the surrender and release we tend to resist and cling on to our old thoughts and belief systems. Love and Will bring us into Being to be seen as we truly are in time and space, in the here and now, and that is connected.
I have aimed to demonstrate with examples of literature by J.Evans, J.Firman& A.Gila, J.Houston, A.Miller, C.Powell and M.Woodman how encountering feelings of non-being is the threat that splits our ‘Inner Child’ into two parts while it is trying to survive the world it is living in and in which it is learning to become aware of itself. I have attempted to show how becoming aware of this formation connects us back to this wounding which is what becomes sacred as it leaves the level of the lower unconscious through the existential dilemma of the individual. This is what tells me there is no low without a high and everything is inseparably connected, this is the sacred. Our nature wants to evolve and be conscious, and the sacred will find its way. All we need to do is live our lives our own unique way and we ascend. The individual returns to the centre of his/her core.