Writing to Save My Life

Confessions of a Wounded Man

“The great illusion of leadership is to think that a [person] can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” - Henri Nouwen, author of the The Wounded Healer

I’m Bleeding All Over the Place Here

One of the pieces of advice I was given when I first started as a pastor was, “Preach from your scars, not your wounds.” The idea behind it is that if you are a leader in a congregation, it’s your job to care for the people—not their job to care for you. When you preach from your scars, it shows that you are healing or healed. But when you preach from your wounds, it reveals how damaged you still are. You need help. You are weak. And no one wants to see that in a leader. Just keep that shit to yourself and get back to work, pretending like everything is okay.

When I first heard that advice, it seemed pretty sound. In a world where “hurt people hurt people,” who needs a hurting spiritual leader—or any leader, for that matter—bleeding all over the place? How can a wounded person be useful, right?

But after George Floyd was murdered, I was slammed with the realization that some of us live in a reality where, if we had to wait for our wounds to heal before we took action or spoke up, we would never say or do a damn thing. We know our lives are a relay race. Many of us don’t get time to rest or heal before we’re wounded again—or before an old wound is reopened because we had to get back to work too soon. Our hope is just to keep moving long enough—despite everything coming at us—so we can pass something, anything, on to those who come after us.

I’ve been around long enough to know that this affects people from all walks of life. But as a Black person, I see it acutely in our community. Psychologically speaking, we’re not that different from our ancestors who worked in the fields, never got a break, and were punished for being tired or underproducing—basically for not being machines. And because the impressions of that system became our undesired legacy, many of us come from families that could only leave us wounds in their wills and exhaustion as our biggest inheritance.

You don’t have to know much about our history in this country to understand that if one of our ancestors had said to an overseer, “Sir, my preference is to pick cotton from my scars and not my wounds. So, I’ll get back to work after I’m healed,” that would’ve likely been the last thing they said. And if it wasn’t, they’d be back out in the field with even more wounds. Wounds that got passed down to us—if not physically, then psychically.

But not just us. You think the only people harmed by these systems are those who participated under threat? Absolutely not. There’s a reason Yehoshua and every awakened Master taught the inviolable law of reciprocity. It’s because this Law declares that whatever we give or withhold from others will return to us—magnified.

In other words, no matter which side of the oppression cycle you're on, you’re getting effed up. Ever looked into the mental health stats of prison guards? They’re effed up. Police? Effed up. Many politicians who create harmful policies? Also effed up. Because to keep someone else down, you have to be down there with them—even if that’s not how it looks on the surface.

So while the advice to “preach from your scars, not your wounds” might be good for some people, it’s trash advice for those who’ve been taught by this society that their value is only in what they can produce or consume. That’s one of the main lessons I learned before I resigned from being a pastor. I tried to keep myself from bleeding all over the place, but I didn’t have time to heal before another wound showed up. So I had to give myself what the system couldn’t—or wouldn’t—give me: a break, for as long as I needed it.

How many of you know what that’s like? How many times have you pushed yourself past exhaustion because the systems around you told you that being wounded, tired, or anything less than a completely agreeable automaton meant you weren’t fully committed—and therefore replaceable? And when I say “systems,” I don’t just mean government. I mean schools, churches, and—most importantly—family systems. Every system that says, “You must show up conditionally, or else.”

I bet more than a few of you can relate. Because that has been the American way for as long as this country has existed. “How we do things ‘round here” is a pervasive mind-virus that has infected and affected almost every facet of this nation. Slavery has always been America’s biggest industry, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in bondage by poverty or the fear of losing your wealth—the mindset is the same: bleed everything dry. Whether it’s people, planet, or promise.

I’ve seen this my whole life, and I’ve put in a lot of work to stay conscious enough not to quietly surrender to this BS. And that’s why I’ve walked away from so many things.

Writing to Save My Life

Ever since I started writing on Substack, I’ve been writing like a man on death row—which is exactly how I like it. I literally write at least 20 hours a week as if my life depends on it—because to me, it does.

I’m writing to heal.

Like I said earlier, many of us are living lives that amount to chronic wound management. From the day we come into this world until we bleed out, life is wounding us. And many of us don’t know any better. Or we can’t imagine a way out. Or we don’t feel like we have the means to leave the environments doing the wounding.

And when the people doing the most damage are the very ones who claim to love us? We often don’t realize there’s another option. That we can walk away. That we can move toward healing. Well, I say, “EFF THAT.”

I’ve always been what people where I’m from would call “slow.” And I’m not ashamed of that. I was “stupid smart”—very intelligent in many areas, but some things (mostly relational things) took me a while. But once I learn, I shift quickly.

Over the past couple decades, I’ve gotten a real education on how little wounds here and there can mess you up over time—just as much as near-fatal blows. Coming from more aggressive environments where I built up some psychic calluses, I couldn’t even feel what was happening to me in the quieter spaces I’m in now—until it was almost too late.

But thank God I woke back up.

Now, I’m using my writing to cauterize my wounds. I’m done bleeding out for people—especially people who don’t even realize they’re doing harm.

Every time I name what I’ve experienced, I can feel myself getting stronger. I’m rebuilding my capacity to hold energy, to focus, to show up clearly—so that when people encounter me, they know exactly who’s in the room. Of course, like with any change, there will be people who don’t understand what I’m expressing. People who may no longer resonate with what I’m putting out.

To them, all I can say is: thanks.

If I’ve learned one thing in this life, it’s that no one owes you anything. And even if they do, there’s no guarantee they’ll pay. So you might as well take the lesson as quickly as you can and let go of any illusion of control you thought you had.

At the end of the day, I let myself get wounded—and I have to allow myself to be healed.

Even when Yehoshua appeared to be helping people, he would ask them first, “Do you want to be healed?” And when they were, he said, “Your faith has healed you.” In many ways, that made him a catalyst for healing.

And that’s what writing is for me.

So, yes. I want to be healed. And, every keystroke is an act of faith.

When I start typing, I am saying yes to my healing. Yes to my wholeness.

That’s what I’m working toward. That’s why I write so much. And why so much of it is so long. I don’t want to take any shortcuts in my healing.

But just know this, when I get back to 100%—

I will be someone not to be effed with in the best of ways. And if I have your back, know that you won’t be effed with either as long as I am breathing.