Perhaps it is because I am a parent and believe it is a very difficult job, that most parents try their very best to nurture, guide, and push on the small of the back of their child towards growth and adulthood. However, being the imperfect and fallible creatures they (and we) are, children will not get everything they need from their parents and adults in their life, or worse they will be actively hurt, wounded, neglected, abandoned and even abused.

All children will have “Primary Wounds.”  Think of these wounds as potholes. Some will be shallow, where you can see it’s dimensions easily. Others might be deeper with jagged edges, while others might be profoundly cavernous – where you can’t see or sense the bottom.

It is my clinical belief that a significant piece of therapy is to know your Primary Wounds. To know them is to revisit them, to know their topography, to become quite familiar to and with them.

The journey of knowing them can be a painful, even traumatic one. If traumatic it may take getting close and then stepping away from these wounds – back and forth, back and forth – to know and tolerate the journey. Be careful and even protective of re-traumatizing yourself.

As you come to know your primary wounds, you will know your legacy better, even intricately and ultimately know yourself better. This knowledge can help you better understand your emotional and behavioral responses.

The intimate knowledge of your Primary Wounds, of the potholes on your personal self-named street, will help you navigate around these potholes, or the need to slowly, with attentiveness and curiosity, drive over them. By courageously driving your street , with all of its potholes, you will hopefully get somewhere you want to go, with a life that reflects more of the wishes, desires and passions of the now.