The Healed Healer

It has been a very full past few days-- including two days at Silver Bay. Every moment feels incredibly jam-packed and rich.  I want to sit still and unpack every bit, to understand myself more clearly, and to understand this world I find myself within.  But this is hard work, for when I do sit in silence I discover amongst the joy and excitement, that there are also the strands of tension- fear, jealousy, anxiety, desire.  I discover the shadow, which I would rather suppress.  Maybe this is why we avoid the stillness, why waiting seems interminable, why inner work is so often dismissed-- for to welcome silence is to engage in an encounter with the buried self.

And yet, it is necessary to unpack all of it, to notice and to see, to hold it and embrace it, and ultimately to let go and surrender. Tonight I read this line in The Inward Arc, by Frances Vaughn-- "Healing happens more easily through us when we allow it to happen in us." By healing, she means the movement toward wholeness, and provides a model of the "healed healer".

As I prepare for the next stage in my journey- the practicum portion of my training, where I will be meeting with people one-on-one to offer spiritual direction- I understand how essential it is to keep doing my own inner work, and to restore my spirit over and over again through contemplative practice. To do any less than this is unethical.  To serve from a place that is not whole is to be untrue to both myself and others.

And so I ask my beloved God and loving source of strength for the courage I need for the journey, to heal the little ghosts and demons that play in the shadows, to restore the wholeness of my being, and to offer through me a shared peace and presence with others.  Amen.