No More Woundology

In her book, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, best-selling author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss, talks about the power that lies in being wounded.

“One day, in passing, I introduced a friend of mine to two gentlemen I was talking with,” says Myss in her book. “Within two minutes, my friend managed to let these men know that she was an incest survivor. Her admission had nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation we’d been having, and in a flash I realized that she was using her wounds as leverage. She had gotten to the point that she defined herself by a negative experience.”

Once Myss became attuned to this phenomenon, which she dubbed woundology, she saw it everywhere. “In workshops and in daily life I saw that, rather than working to get beyond their wounds, people were using them as social currency,” says Myss. “They were confusing the therapeutic value of self-expression with permission to manipulate others with their wounds. Who would want to leave that behind? Health never commands so much clout!”

Have you ever noticed how we lead with what’s wrong?  People ask how you are, and you tell them about your latest illness or injury or “horrible” experience.  They immediately respond with their latest injury or problem.

I get this everyday from my mom.  She delights in telling me about the latest physical ailments that have been visited upon her or my dad.  She tells me about every little thing that has gone wrong.  These stories usually start with, “Oh, yesterday, we had a horrible experience.” These “horrible” experiences can range from getting a phone call that awakens them to having a deer in their backyard that’s having trouble figuring out how to get back out over the fence to getting bad service in a restaurant.

Of course, I speak fluent woundology too (most everyone does).

I speak it less than I used to though.  Many years ago, I stopped saying, “I’m depressed” or “I’m bipolar” or “I have an eating disorder.”  I began giving up the labels that were essentially badges for my wounds.

But I didn’t give up woundology completely.  Now, I’ve decided to reject the language.

Why do I need to tell someone about how my sinuses are stuffed up because of something blooming in my yard?  Who needs to know about my ankle pain?  My financial mess?  My struggles with food?  Etc.  Etc.  Etc.

There’s always something good going on.  My new intention is to ALWAYS find something good to say when people ask, “How are you?”

And if someone speaks woundology to me, I’ll listen, smiling and nodding, the way people who can’t understand a language do when they don’t have a clue what someone is saying to them.  I will not respond in kind.

It’s resolves like this, I’m convinced, that are going to make it possible for me to finally stick with this experiment.  Think about it.  If we’re talking about bad things, what is the law of attraction going to bring to us?  Bad things, of course.

Woundology puts us on a vibrational match with more wounds.  Who wants that?

I sure don’t.  So I’m talking about the good stuff!