Archive - September 2025

Wounding, healing and wholeness

‘Wounding, healing and wholeness’ feels especially relevant to a world that I experience as increasingly fractured and polarised, and presented so often as black and white, characterised by schisms. The meaning I create out of wounding is inevitably negative and narrow. It evokes pain. However, as I sat with the enquiry, I realised that my reflection was broadening out into wondering whether there’s any sense in which wounding might be positive. What if I adopted a stance of both greater compassion and greater self-compassion? If we think of wounding in terms of damage or pain, it’s interesting to consider the antidote as healing – and interesting to look at healing from a few different perspectives. Wounding can cause alienation, separation and isolation – a route to possibly more wounding. Does healing necessarily mean wholeness – and what does wholeness mean, anyway?