control of everything in their lives. To heal, the wounded healer has to stop “playing God” and turn their life over to the care of a higher authority.
By choosing to surrender the egoic self to a higher authority in the name of the Divine, by ritualistically “retrieving the soul” or “calling one’s spirit back” a symbolic ego death can occur and physical death of the body is avoided.
The reason psychic death can feel like a real death is because of the amount of terror involved in not knowing what will happen after a wounded healer stops trying to control everything. Unfortunately, wounded healers often unconsciously or consciously choose to end their lives because dieing often means to stop the pain and suffering.
The Serenity Prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous is the opening prayer at recovery group meetings and is a very helpful tool for wounded healers to use in letting go and beginning the healing process:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen”.
Also helpful are the first, second and third steps in a 12-step recovery program which are:
1. We admitted we were powerless over (fill in the blank) and that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater then ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
However the wounded healer eventually finds a higher authority (God, Divine, Allah, Goddess, Shiva, Creator, Govinda, etc.), it is through surrendering control – a symbolic death of the ego – and finding a new faith in self, others and God, that is the most