The Wound

Help me understand this wound.

For eight years or so, I’ve been walking a path (unknowingly at first) - a path to discover this black hole-of-a-wound that resides deep in my mind, my body, heart and soul.

I’m not wanted.
I don’t belong.
I’m not good enough.
My name, my nose, my ears, my hairy body…my hair itself…my clothes…

My religion.

Ugly, weird, unwanted.

Desperate…

Desperate to be chosen, to belong…to do things the “right” way. That’s what I was taught, from a young age. In kindergarten, I was sure I had committed a sin for which Jehovah (YHWH), God, would not forgive me. I would be destroyed in Armageddon - in my little heart, I feared my life was already over. At five years old.

All because, I had been a terrible little thing, and shown my private parts (or intended to) to some other kids, also five-year-olds in the back of the classroom. I hid that “terrible” secret - from my parents, from everyone.

Years of ostracism…no birthday parties, no Valentines, no holidays whatsoever - but instead sent off to the library to sit by myself. Not for something I understood or believed in. But because my parents brought me up in that world. With those beliefs.

“Stand up!” the kids would whisper-shout to me - when I didn’t stand for the flag salute.

But that was against my religion.

A belief-system in which you are not safe, not safe, from birth. You, me - sinners deserving death because of what “Adam & Eve” did so long ago. Death sentence from birth. Ostracized and cut off from God - from birth.

I sought belonging at school, and eventually learned to “fit in”. I learned how to shrink myself, to hide the “shameful” parts, so I could be accepted, and be safe. To be wanted…but not really.

God

By the time I was 17, I was an atheist - at least, I didn’t believe in anything. But then I found myself asking “What’s the point of life? To live 70-80 years and then die?”

“Why are we here?”

I also found myself disillusioned with my “belonging”, with my friends and community that turned out to be a false belonging, for various reasons including my own lack of integrity and lack of self. And eventually I started reading the Bible, actually reading it. From Genesis. All those years growing up in a Christian religion, but never reading or understanding it’s source.

And…desperately wanting meaning, desperately seeking connection to the “spiritual”, desperately wanting a father who loved me deeply and affectionately…wanting belonging…desperately…

I turned 180 and sunk deep, deep, deeeeeep. Into that religion. Whole-heartedly. God (Jehovah) was my best friend. But our relationship was rooted in things like shame, guilt, sin, and control.

But for someone like me, so desperate to be loved, to be wanted, to belong, to be “good”…it was paradise.

I was part of a “brotherhood”, I had a future, I was forgiven, I was clean.

I was finally “good”…or at least, good enough.

Love

These are just the beginning traces of the “Wound” - and the tip of the iceberg for the periods they represent.

I know and see this wound, like never before. Anger, hatred, disgust, shame - all these beautiful things have come up since understanding and being able to see how this wound shaped me, and how it subtly, but irresistibly, shaped my entire life.

So have peace, gratitude, love and freedom - these have come up too, upon truly discovering and understanding this wound.

I suppose it’s only human to want to belong, to want to be loved… And it’s only right and healthy to experience shame and regret…to feel like a fool over our past and present.

It’s when those natural human states and experiences are fed…overfed…over and over. Until they develop into monsters and grow so much that they become a collapsing star, a black hole that consumes everything else.

So…

Now it’s time. To feed, and give attention to the Self. To learn truly, how to love oneself. In new ways, and not just in shallow, surface ways. To become whole, through healing and love and wisdom that blossoms from within, and to stop seeking to fill that deep hole…that wound.

To truly accept…in my mind, body, heart and soul…the following message:

You, I, We - belong here. We matter. I matter. You matter.

We’re safe and loved, even if we don’t share the same religion. Regardless of sexual orientation, gender, education-level, physical appearance - we are beautiful beings, and we are never alone…even if it feels like that.

It’s okay to make mistakes, to do and be “ugly”, to be weird, to be “too much”. We are different expressions of the vastly diverse and infinite universe, and of that from which our physical universe originates.

When we learn to love ourselves, we can then truly love others…more fully, and not out of desperation. But with wholeness of self, wholeness of heart.

With love, Uriel

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