walking wounded

They sling uninformed arrows from empty quivers.

They find fault in everyone else but themselves.

They sting others quickly to prevent themselves from being stung.

They tend to see themselves repeatedly as the victim of someone else’s crime.

They fail to see kindness, compassion or joy. Or if they do see something even lightly tinged with grace, it is quickly taken over by a heavy grievance against someone or something.

So they walk and they wound. They tend to endlessly pick at and pester others, they control, complain, argue and hurt those around them.

Hurt people hurt people

The walking wounded don’t want your pity. But they can’t stop others from empathizing with them and meeting them where they’re at.

What to do when you encounter a walking wounded 

1. Don’t take it personally. It really is them and not you.

2. Have empathy because they are simply a result of their set of conditions. They have been wounded.

3. As a form of self-care, distance yourself from their judgment.

4. Then, when you lash out to hurt someone, look, and notice the seed of your own hurt.

5. Be grateful for the beauty and grace that is around you. 

6. And, when things get a little dark, light a candle and read some poetry.

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Everything is waiting for you.

By David Whyte