When Pain Becomes Identity: How 'Woundology' Keeps Us Stuck

Don't let your suffering become you.

I have always had a hard time holding space for people who use victim-based language. This is not to be confused with people sharing their pain or suffering or the very real stage of healing where we require our pain and stories to be witnessed and validated… I mean the people who talk about how the world happens “to” them… who are stuck in their pain and suffering. They are perpetual victims of the world and always see the way life and people have let them down… it’s almost as if they’re addicted to it… (more on that below.)

The reason it bothers me is because it’s often used as a way to unconsciously garner empathy. It’s a manipulative way of communicating to “hook” into others. We learn that communicating from our wounds creates a form of power over others. “I’m more wounded than you.” “I’ve been through more than you.” “I’ve suffered more than you.”

Often, we use it as a way to justify our stuckness. We can’t heal the pain because we’re benefiting from living in it. This, of course, sounds like a twisted mind-fuck. “So I live in my wounds and my suffering because I get something from it?”

Yep. And maybe that something is perceived safety… maybe I get to push people away because I overshare and sabotage closeness and vulnerability.

It’s wild because the language presents as powerlessness, yet it is an inverse way of sourcing power. It tries to create a perceived hierarchy where it places others seemingly “above” us, yet we are, through the use of language, actually moving the chess pieces above, acting as if we don’t even have any pieces still left on the board. 

Now, here’s the thing:

This isn’t evil. This often isn’t intentionally happening (unless it’s truly a covert/vulnerable narcissist). 

But when we live in our wounds and our suffering, we give away our power. We become a syphon for our own life force. We are living in scarcity and fear. And the traumas that send us there are valid… it’s actually an appropriate adaptive response to feeling powerless. It’s a way to keep us stuck because we don’t trust others, and likely the world. In nervous system talk, we are essentially in functional freeze and also flight — away from possibility, hope, and giving ourselves permission to take up space.

Caroline Myss, one of my favourite spiritual teachers, calls this way of being “woundology." She says that “when we define ourselves by our wounds, we burden and lose our physical and spiritual energy and open ourselves to the risk of illness.”

This makes sense… in the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, the cumulative stress in childhood increases the risk of autoimmune diseases.

After listening to Caroline Myss again recently, I discovered something shocking…. I had become woundology. I had been leading with and leaning into my wounds. I had been sharing my suffering… and no matter where the conversation started, I would skillfully direct it towards my pain.

DAMN. WTF. I had become what I was so averse to. 

I was using my wounds to keep me safe by keeping me from moving on, getting bigger and stepping more into my purpose. I recognized this as I listened to a podcast I had done in the last three months where I thought to myself (having never listened to an episode before!)….”OMG. I’m so tired of this story I keep telling about cov1d and the pandemic. I’m tired of it holding me back because I tell the story of how it holds me back.”

At what point would enough loss be enough? At what point would atonement be reached?

When we are living from our wound, we’re creating a trauma triangle… and we are often both the victim or the saviour… but never the oppressor. Convenient, right?

I made the choice, then and there, as the awareness emerged into my conscious awareness, that I would never allow something or someone to hold me back from healing. NO ONE EVER NEEDS TO GIVE YOU CLOSURE. 

It’s something you create. It’s something I create.

Create the love.

The mission. The integrity of how we want to be remembered. 

I made a rule when I was thirty-two that I would always live at my highest level of knowledge. Once I learned something, I must change. 

What do you know that you don’t live?

If you’re holding on to something or someone, what is holding on to them holding you back from?

Go do those things.

Go become that person.

Go live that life.

Honour your wounds and your traumas, but don’t live in them.

Much love,

Mark

P.S. No one is coming to save us. No government, no system… no nothing. So, create that dream and business NOW. If you’re ready, I’m running a weekend workshop in LA in December to give you clarity on your mission and HOW to step into it. Get more details here.