Wound Care: Zen wisdom from the Man in Black - Heather McIver, L.Ac.

I was flipping randomly through The Autobiography of Johnny Cash when I came across this paragraph on page 182:

That’s not exactly what my doctor and counselor had in mind. It turned out that  I was the one in charge of caring for my wound. I had to swab it out--stick a Q-tip a couple of inches into my belly to clean it and drain it--and then change the dressing. I got used to it after a while and gradually the wound began closing up. Over the next four or five weeks it went from four inches down to three, then two, and finally it became a single round hole that looked like it would never close, but it did.

Johnny is referring to some physical injury that resulted in his admission to the Betty Ford Center. But of course he is also referring to the deep emotional wound that led to his profound self-hatred and drug addiction.  We have all had some kind of deep wound that we have had to learn to care for one way or another. For some of us, it’s clearly physical, for others, it’s clearly emotional, and for some it becomes a marriage between the two, manifesting in chronic pain or degenerative disease. Either way, Johnny’s words leave us with three important lessons about healing.

First, it is up to each of us to steward our own healing. As much as we would like someone to just make it better, the most any doctor can do is to give us some good tools and a good head start. We have to be willing to “be in charge of our wounds.”

Second, there is a delicate balance between action and inaction. Ignore a gaping wound, and it will either fester and grow or you will bleed to death.  But maybe more of us err in the opposite direction. Sometimes we give our wounds too much attention--obsessively peering at them, picking them apart until all the protective scabs are gone and we are even more vulnerable. Too much cleansing of a wound will prevent the tissue from growing back together. Better to give your wound some basic attention: acknowledge that it’s there, swab away the debris, and then replace the dressing and go about your day.

Third, wounds do eventually heal.  Johnny says, “(it) looked like it would never close.”  In the midst of healing, it is sometimes difficult to see any progress. We may feel as though we will be scarred forever.  Sometimes it takes reflection over time to realize that the pain isn’t as great as it once one. But it’s important to remember that we may never be exactly the same as we were before the insult. The experience of the wound transforms us, and life may never look exactly the same as it had before. But this is how evolution works. We are stressed. We adapt. In the end, we know healing has occurred when we can look at our reflection in the mirror and say, “I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant I couldn’t be here now.”