“…if only you knew who you were, if only you knew what was in store for you, you would smile a lot more…”
Anonymous guru

Part I

The shamanic traditions are very clear on a very real paradox,
Unless the shaman is wounded in some serious way, how can he find the empathy within him/her to offer true guidance and reveal the path of healing to the sufferer?
David Cumes, is a beloved physician, in his writings, he vividly explores and explains the paradox of ‘the wounded healer’, how that most medical doctors are ‘wounded healers’ due to their rigorous and inhuman training, in order to qualify.

I am not a medical doctor, I hold a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition, but, I must confess, I too am I ‘wounded healer’. Oh, my odyssey gets better and better with time, as time is sometimes, not always, a great healer, but, being a perfectionist, I still feel I have a looooooong way to go…, a very, very long way… One day many years ago, I was counseling a 16-year old young woman who had just tragically lost her father. She listened respectfully to my erudite prating, but, suddenly, she asked me:
“Doctor, did you loose your father when you were 16, and were you a girl at the time?”
The stunning, but very profound question, humbled me, brought a few tears to my visage and shut me up. Why? Because, of course, I had not walked a mile in her shoes, and never would. Oh, my training had provided me with all the ‘right’ and ‘clever’ answers, and yes, they are, of course, academically correct, and valid, but, how, how, could I possibly look into the eyes of that child and candidly tell her she should listen to me, as I knew the way out… Hogwash!

Continued in part II