Real

Authentic Sharings of a Wounded Healer

Despite myself, I have at least partially held on to the myth that I should have my shit together as a counselor—whatever it means to have one’s shit together. The truth is that I became a counselor because I most certainly did not have my shit together, and some helpers and counselors listened to me with compassion, which helped me. Sometimes they helped me get my shit together. More often they helped me to hate myself less, accept myself more, stop fighting myself so much, and even love myself sometimes. Perhaps most importantly, they helped me connect with my real, human, messy, shit-not-together self.

So this is the place from which I write to you now. My shit is not together. What I mean by that in this moment is that it takes a life-sucking amount of energy for me to try to keep up with societal standards (income, home, relationships, career, image, etc.). And I think there are some good reasons for that--reasons that don’t start with my shortcomings.

We live in a sick society, as the current state of things here in the US, but also globally, reveal. This country is in the death thows of a culture ridden with the cancers of capitalism, patriarchy, bigotry, ecocide, denial, addiction, spiritual poverty, wealth disparity, and hyper-individualism…to name a few. So not only can I not find the energy to keep up—my soul does not want to.

The dilemma, however, is the tremendous longing to belong and the instinct to survive in the face of my actual values, which contradict survival and belonging inside the systems of this culture. Because my soul does not value wealth, status, fame, power over, environmental destruction, war, synthetic living, surface appearance, the imbalances of doing over being, conquering over honoring, competition over collaboration. My soul values peace, the natural world, communities of depth and compassion, holistic growth, creativity, play, adventure, love, and authenticity.

And many times over, I have forsaken my soul. I can say this with compassion right now. I grew up saturated in messages that my emotional and inner life didn’t matter, that I did not really have a self or soul, that I should strive towards certain perceptions in others’ eyes, and that my body and the Earth are objects. And as I write, because I write and share this, I reject those messages wholeheartedly. So I reclaim and remember exiled elements of my wholeness.

Thus, I can say that I am struggling to “function”, depressed, anxious, grieving because of the rift I have lived in disconnection from my true self. Because my soul knows that my body and this Earth are sacred, mysterious, mystical and worthy of love, honoring and protection. Because my soul knows that it exists even as my ego has retreated from successive traumas, losses, isolation, and culturally propogated lies. Because the more I strive to be what I am not, the more I fail and lose access to the vitality of a real self.

I don’t know if my real self will be noticed, honored, loved, or accepted by others. I don’t know if she can “make it” in this modern culture. Not knowing those things have helped drive her underground. But she is suffocating there, and I think I will not survive without freeing her. My body is sick. Many relationships have fallen apart—as they should have, because a wounded self maintained them. I am deeply fortunate to do work, as a counselor, that is truly meaningful to me—but the business side of it is a hell of a struggle. And even the aspects of it that I love—connecting in real, deep, heartfelt, and sometimes healing ways with people who are willing to be vulnerable—is compromised as I compromise my own soul.

So please, if you meet me or work with me, do not assume my shit is together. I am as messy a human as any, and I only came to this work from a soul-calling and through the kindness of others. When I listen to you, strive to hear your soul and your real self, respond with care and an intention to connect you with your true self, that is real. Those are the only ways I really have my shit together. And in writing this and telling the truth. With love.