For those who are finding this of interest, I would like to say that the questions following are deeply introspective type questions. I have found that asking these kinds of questions, helps me to get to know myself and the areas I need to change and repent in. CHAPTER ONE LIFE IS WOUNDED In the first chapter he discusses how life is wounded and states "There is an inextricable connection between our pain and our false gods." Woundedness begins at birth and continues throughout life. "In today's troubled world, many children are growing up unbonded." He describes the wounded life scenerio through examples of it, starting with birth. What happens to children when they face pain? Many times they cannot fight; other times they can't take flight. Then they have no alternative but to freeze. Many of us carry the frozen pain of our hurt childhood with us into adult life. Perhaps it was the pain of an aloof parent, a divorce, the death of somebody close to us, serious sickness, or a traumatizing failure. Whatever the circumstances, long ago feelings may have been frozen in our heart. Today, when we are faced with adult pain, we still may freeze. He says that like footprints on fresh cement, pain and hurt in childhood leave their mark. "The continuing effect of pain on our lives is influenced by the intensity of the pain at the time of the trauma, by the stage of development of the central nervous system, and by the amount of **support** available to the person during the pain." He describes pain as a complex issue, stating that when there is hurt, there is also anger. When there is anger, there is shame and guilt. When there is shame and guilt, there is fear, humiliation, rejection and depression. So once a person has been hurt, the "freezing in the heart" involves more than one feeling. It is like a potpourri of many different emotions all forming together as one. He goes into how we began developing a false self and states "Some traumas take place before a child is even able to respond consciously. They contribute profoundly to the heart's accumulation of hurts. Later, children are taught to stuff their feelings. "Don't cry, be a man" "Don;t feel sad because we are moving, look at the bright side." So a child learns to swallow his feelings (which is his real self) and develops a smiling "fake-it-til-you-make-it **false** self to **cover up** the hurt self. In some sense all of us have a hurt core. It is a place no one knows about but you. It is a place that, at three o'clock in the morning, may slip out in a dream. It is a place that causes you to overreact, inexplicably to certain circumstances. "Instead of exploring that "last frontier" of our psyche, we have developed a powerful coping self, a false self, which we wear like a mask wherever we go. We don't let anyone see behind it, and we don't dare look behind it ourselves. Worst of all, we transfer it on to our children." "As I find the courage to explore my own real self, feeling its pain and confronting its causes, I learn that I am more able to help others remove their own masks and get in touch with their frozen pain. Only as I explore my own heart can I reach into the hearts of my friends, family, and patients" (comment: removing the mote from your own eye, so you can see better how to remove the mote in your brothers) Although our problems are different, the common denominator is that we are hurt." We repeat past pain in order to achieve some sense of mastery over it. Connected to this reality is the tactic of passing pain on to those who, perhaps are less strong than we are. If parents don't work out their woundedness, they inevitably pass their pain on to their children. We parents have held back in facing our pain, and as a result we have reard children who are now forced to deal with our past instead of finding their own hearts. Many of us never learned to face ourselves because we spent our lives working through our parent's and grandparent's issues. Hurt people hurt themselves and those they love. People have the ability to project their own hurt, inferior parts onto someone else whom they perceive as inferior. As they attack the weakness of the other, they feel better about themselves. We see the same dynamic in male/female relationships. I can split my inadequacy off onto my wife. I can say "You stupid woman!" But in actual fact she could (and should) retort, "Hey, David, thats your stupid part being projected onto me. Take it, I don't want it." He talks about codependency saying that their hurt is hidden inside, and everybody else's problem becomes their problem. "In order to avoid dealing with personal pain, the codependent focuses on someone else's problem." This focus on other people's problems can reach the status of a psuedo god. For instance, a woman whose husband leaves her for another woman and whose daughter is a drug addict. If she is not dealing with her own hurt, the problem with her husband and daughter can become overwhelming and become all she focuses on, thereby becoming her god. "The end result of worshipping puesdo gods, which are not more than projected images of ourselves, is that we fuse with them and they become part of us. Since, by definition, God is all-knowing and all-powerful, once we have taken on godhood ourselves, we have to carry the burden of seeking to know everything and being in total control. That means trying to fight every battle, win every argument, and take charge of every situation. What an enormous, impossible and futile responsibility. Tired and burnt out, we find ourselves living defensively, wreaking havoc on our own lives, destroying our families and living below the potential that God has ordained for us." QUESTIONS: 1. Do you remember times, when a child that you were hurt and could not respond (or express) to that hurt? What about painful events that happened while you were a child, a death in the family, an alcoholic parent. Have you dealt with these issues? Was anybody there for you to help you work through the pain? Or is it still frozen in your heart? 2. This question can be viewed both by you as an adult and if a parent, how you deal with your children. Are you stifling your children's feelings? (were you stifled as a child in these ways) Making them stuff what is real and adopt what is not real? How many times do you tell them to "stop crying" without taking the time to be with them in their hurt. In other words, talking to them about what is hurting them. 3. Have you ever wondered why you react the way you do in certain circumstances? What things make you angry? What things make you sad? What irritates you? I found that answering these questions, and then meditating on where the original source of the hurt was, is essential in my personal overcoming and repenting. 4. Can you see the way you project aspects of yourself onto others? Are you codependent, focusing more on other people's problems than your own? Wanting to solve others problems, but not getting to the root of your own?