“PHYSICAL WOUNDS ARE HARD TO MISS, BUT EMOTIONAL WOUNDS ARE SELDOM VISIB LE. THIS IS WHY THEY MUST BE LOOKED AT AND ACKNOWLEDGED IF WE ARE EVER TO HEAL.”; Mark Nepo, Book of Awakening, 12/17.

Mark Nepo gives us a key to the healing of humanity in these 2 sentences. Yes, emotional wounds may seem invisible, yet when a person is willing to look with love and compassion at another when they are sharing their emotional wounding, this very act of compassion is the beginning of the healing of the emotional wound.

However, if one is to look with love and compassion at the emotional wounding of another, they must be willing to be vulnerable.  For in looking at another’s emotional wounds, we are also willing to look at our own emotional wounds and this requires great courage.  Great Courage is required because we must open the door to our own unhealed emotional wounds. The opening of this door means we have ignited our courage and are willing to heal so that we can be truly who we are.

In this very act of courageous willingness, we are healing one another. We are healing one another as we look with love at another from a place of deep knowing and a willingness to  simply “be present” to their pain. Often all one needs in order to heal these emotional wounds is another willing to open their eyes, heart and soul to the pain of someone in their midst; in this shared bond, the greatest love is created and in this love, we are healed.

So, the next time someone courageously shares some pain from a wound, DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR WISDOM. Do not tell them what they need to do or why they should not feel that way. Instead give them your love in the form of a willingness to be present. In this willingness, you do not need to know what to say. In fact, if you are not sure what to say, simply say: “ I am here with you, and I don’t know what to say but I want to understand your pain, please tell me more.”

Yes, Dionne Warwick( singer) and Hal David( lyricist) and Burt Bacharach( composer),  you were right when you created this song from the 60’s, the world does need Love and the world needs it in the form of compassion expressed from the heart and the eyes and not as wisdom from the mouth. We have enough wisdom, we now need the love that is fueled by wisdom but expressed with very little words except:  I am here.