Daily Meditation: Listening With Our Wounds

Thursday July 10, 2014 Listening With Our Wounds To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering.  Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain.  A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds.  When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience.  Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves.  We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings.  That is healing.   Comment on this Daily Meditation. Read and reflect on "Can You Drink the Cup?"  with us this summer. Click here for details.   Visit our website for inspiration, resources, news, events, community.     Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc. Photo by V. Dobson.

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