Holes in the Psyche & holes in the Soul
Both the Psyche and the soul are made of materials invisible to the naked (mortal) eye, yet, they can still be wounded. Some of the injuries stem from life events, experiences in the womb and at birth, due to early attachment failures and throughout our life.
These events leave a mark both on both Psyche and Soul (also on the physical-nervous level, but that’s a topic for another post).
The soul level is connected to additional information and wounds from the life experiences of others – wounds we hold onto, echo, or are mixed with from our ancestors, from the collective and cultural dimensions.
What is the difference between a wound and a hole?
In general – Wounds heal, or at least close naturally.
Perhaps they need time, and perhaps
favorable conditions for their healing, but eventually they become a memory, sometimes creating scars and a limited movement but they close.
A crucial part of what enables this
healing process is the restoration of the intercellular matrix.
Physiological wound healing
Let us use the healing processes of a physiological wound as an analogy (and maybe more than that):
In short, in a physical injury to a living tissue, the blood vessels contract and blood clots to form – a temporary stopper for blood flow.
Then an inflammatory process begins, aimed at preventing infection and clearing broken cell and pathogen residues.
At the third stage of healing, the intercellular matrix is rebuilt, and blood vessels in the injured area begin to grow into it, to nourish it (this is the stage where you see pale pink tissue).
At the end, new skin cells are built and the wound is fully healed to the degree possible.
What happens if the wound is so big that this third stage is not possible?
When that happens, it is impossible to rebuild the intercellular matrix – a gap remains. The new cells cannot fill it because they have nowhere to anchor to and no blood vessels to nourish them.
No matter what is done to the wound and how much it is nourished, where there is no matrix, the nourishment will go to waste, will be lost and forgotten.
Holes in the Psyche, holes in the Soul.
Let us now return to the soul and psyche – they too have a matrix that holds their substance.
Many of our wounds, including psychological and spiritual ones, heal on their own. It may take time,
sometimes with periods of weakness, but eventually we recover. Even relatively large wounds may heal, such as the loss or death of a loved one – Eventually, we rise from the mourning.
The natural healing process is possible only when the wounding did not destroy too much of the matrix.
Some wounds however, tear big holes in the matrix, creating “black holes”.
Where the matrix is not there to accumulate new experiences and memory, time alone does not help anymore. Nor do the usual conditions required for lesser healing.
Something in the soul or psyche fails to return to its place, to return home. Good experiences, experiences that
could have settled in the wound and helped it to recover, do not take hold and
fall into the black hole.
Even “good therapy sessions” find it difficult to leave a long-term imprint.
What is required for healing of holes?
In short – The restoration of a matrix that can hold the psyche or soul tissue.
Here there is a fundamental difference between the soul and the psyche.
The thing that best heals the psyche matrix is presence.
A presence that does not try to change or solve, is non-judgmental and yet close. Naturally, this kind of presence healing takes time.
Often, I have unconsciously tried to bypass the presence process through energetic/healing therapy, through touch and other modalities.
The effect tended no to last as the holes I was trying to fill with them lacked too much matrix.
What best heals the soul?
Acknowledging what is (and was).
In order to restore the soul matrix, we must acknowledge whatever happened/felt/experienced that was too difficult to be in touch with, the events (our own and/or those we got entangled with) that tore away a
part of our soul.
Often it is not the story itself, but the agreement to acknowledge that in a certain place and time a piece of our soul was torn.
This recognition paves the way to different ways to return the missing piece to its place (Shamanic soul shards retrieval, family constellation, many other energetic healing modalities…).
When a soul mass returns to its place, the soul matrix is restored.
The Life energy can again flow through the wounded place and accumulate there.
This can happen in one session, in one moment, leading to a sense of witnessing
“magic” or “miracle”.
Many times I tried to bypass this layer and offer my presence or a body-mind intervention that did not help for a long time because the hole was in the layer of my soul.
Complex cases
In very complex cases, the injuries or the way we grew up leave large and parallel holes in the psyche and soul.
This condition requires us to maneuver skillfully, to be in touch with what is needed in each moment, to be able to hold a deep presence together with radical acknowledgement…
This is why therapy is an art,
Even with 20 years of experience I often miss a step or much more than a step.
Good intentions
Good intentions do not prevent us from offering a solution the system is not ready for or that is not right for it.
Good intentions are not necessarily comforting when we fail, when we offer a solution instead of empathy or empathy instead of a practical solution.
Good intentions however, do have value – They may lead us to look deeper within, to understand what confuses us in this situation.
This allows us to ask helpful questions such as:
♥ What blind spot did I hit here? What is the origin of this blind spot that just showed with my client, my partner, my children or my parents?
♥ Is it a personal, an inter-generational, cultural, collective, all of the above?
♥ In which layers lies our own unhealed injuries, our own holes?
We are all wounded healers.
This type of questions brings us closer to our own wounds and holes, to a better understanding what we can safely hold for our clients and where we need more of our own healing to hold a safe, present, loving, compassionate and conscious healing space for our clients.
The unhealed wounds and the holes that are in our Shadow triggers us the most.
The choice to welcome them, actively look for healing and reintegrating with them, may well be one of the most meaningful choices of our professional and personal lives.
The Shadow Constellations road
This road is often a frightening one, significant parts of it go through the thick of the forest, the abyss, the depths of the sea…
At the same time, it is one of the most meaningful paths in my life, a path I strive to follow.
I hope that you will take this path too (click below).
Your thoughts and comments on this post are most welcome <3
Nir