5 Signs You Are a Wounded Healer
Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested.Whoever sees clearly what is diseased in himselfbegins to gallop on the way. There is nothing worsethan thinking you are well enough. ~Rumi
Perhaps I should just admit until this moment when I was doing research in order to clear my own thoughts, that I didn’t really pay attention to the fact that the wounded healer was out of Carl Jung’s personality archetypes. The only thing I could think of was the pain I had gone through and how to use that pain for a good cause. Healing others.
As I sat here trying to understand why I am drawn to help people…yet crave my own space and alone time, I was thinking about how easy it is to use people like me. Empaths, highly sensitive folks, and wounded healers. And how on every test, quiz, or question about the thing you dislike the most, I always say the same thing. Lying and manipulation are the things that will ignite my anger, as well as fuel my desire to do better for those who come to me.
“They”, whoever they are, say that you choose your own path in life long before you realize it. Perhaps even in the womb. Sometimes this is really too much to bear, and the first time someone told me I wanted this life, well, I thought I wanted to slap them. << Just a little. Maybe use my Cher moment. Anyway, I don’t want to pretend that I am not human and above those thoughts because that would not be true and I can’t stand fake personalities. I am human. Raised by a father who used anger to keep us quiet and in place; however, he only practiced what had been taught before him. In the days of “I’ll beat your ass”, this was just the norm. I know you get me. I feel like you are nodding your head.
I feel deep pain, hurt, and other thoughts as they radiate off those I work with. One thing is for sure, that I as help others, I know that I am helping myself and perhaps even telling them things I wish I had known years ago.
I don’t work with large groups of people because hell, that energy is scary to me. Trust me when I say that my page growth has been said to be “slow” by many, but over 125,000 seems huge to someone who started off with an avatar, a drawing of an elf actually, as me and a name that I liked from D & D. I admit who I am now and I have stepped into my role as healer, so I want to help you see if you, perhaps, are one as well.
5 Signs You Are a Wounded Healer:
- Your “part-time” job of helping people has taken over your life. I will never forget the day I posted that I would help people with illness issues because I was very good at getting to the root cause. I received so many personal messages that night that I couldn’t believe it. I almost made myself ill from trying to help so many at one time, so I had to take a break from it because it became a 24/7 thing…and I was doing it for free at the time. I realized that I wanted to help people, but that I had to get more specific and I had to turn it into a business so that I wasn’t being used. I also had to learn how to set boundaries because some of these people were downright rude…and I knew them.
- When you are criticized by those you help, it hurts. Sometimes, you can’t help all the people. Especially if they don’t help themselves. Like not even a little bit. I remember the first time a girl messaged me and told me my advice didn’t work. I knew her, yes. Her words were angry and I felt the lie there, so I dug a bit deeper. Had she done the nutrition piece to the plan I sent her (for free, again, btw). No, she had not. Had she taken the supplements at the exact times and used them as I noted. No. She had not. Had she upped her water intake? Nope. Not even a little. And was she taking her prescribed medicine on time? Nope. It was erratic. But she was mad at me. Well, I’ll be damned. That was the day I decided to stop helping people who didn’t want to be helped.
- You might always be working on yourself in order to walk your talk. I remember the first day I realized I had made it through 200 hours of Vinyasa Yoga Teacher training. It was an amazing feeling, but I knew that I needed to learn more, so I continued by signing up for yoga for arthritis and pain. I also completed sports nutrition certification, and many other advanced classes just for my own personal growth. I knew that the times I had gone through really helped me build up my desire to help others, so the areas that I struggled the most with, were the ones I took classes in so that I could help others. I created an online platform based off my knowledge.
- You know that things take time, work, and dedication. Growth, change, and becoming a better human being are not things that can happen overnight. There are set-backs, liars, users of your gifts, and people who will try to stop you at every turn. The bottom line is this, what is your why? Your why can’t be taken or used by them no matter how hard they try. They just don’t have your gift of healing and they might fake it, but they really can’t offer what you can to the world. Keep going. You are on the right path.
- You feel better knowing that you helped just one person. There are many factors in helping others. They are going to get out of it what they put in it, and sometimes, they are going to want that change so much that they follow all of your advice and they will come back to you and recognize the help you have given them. That is also something that makes you feel shy and bashful at the same time, but nevertheless, you appreciate the work that has been recognized. Take the compliment. That is your calling. Be grateful that you can do the things you do and that through your painful experiences, you have helped even one person.
I appreciate each and every one of you who have crossed my path. If you are interested in working on a few of your wounds using a guide, feel free to read more about The Empath’s Journaling Workbook.
Other resources you might like to read:
- How I used my Empath Abilities to Heal
- Boundary Setting and the Empath
- How creating Self-Compassion Opens the Door to Healing
Spread awesomeness:
Thank you so much for this article. from a wounded healer to another, it made me realize many things about myself i couldn’t have fully recognized alone.
a long while ago, i had a dream of centaur who i met in a forest. without any words spoken, he began to teach me of things that were super revealing of my inner self. but unfortunately when i woke up, i couldn’t remember anything he said. but i knew it was profound.
but recently i’ve been feeling very drained by trying to help everyone i care about, and it’s driven me to a pit of hopelessness, because i felt like i wasn’t doing enough.
then randomly, i remembered my dream of the centaur, how kind he was. he offered help when i didn’t even ask for it.
and so i did my research and realized it was chiron, the wounded healer archetype. and suddenly, everything made sense.
he was giving me the advice i’ve been giving other people, and my unconscious self was trying to tell me i needed to look out for myself too to be able to fully help other people.
thank you aimee for this insightful article.