When the soul is wounded, time changes shape. A moment from long ago can still pulse inside the chest. What appears to be sadness without cause may be the return of something old—unfinished, unspoken, and still alive. The psyche, with its own rhythm and memory, does not forget what has shaped it. The wound becomes a spiral, drawing us back to the place where something essential went missing.
In mythic imagination, the wound is not something to escape. It is a source of knowledge. Stories that have lasted for centuries speak of injuries that do not heal. The Fisher King bleeds, and his land becomes barren. The pain of the king mirrors the drought in the kingdom. Not because he failed, but because the wound was left unnamed. When the wound is not witnessed, it spreads.
In the deep language of the soul, the wound is sacred. Not because it feels holy, but because it marks the place where something meaningful wants to break through. When we feel lost or drained of purpose, it may be the soul’s way of saying it can no longer carry the life being lived. Energy fades when the inner life has been exiled. Suffering, in this view, is a signal, not a sentence.
The old stories do not offer quick relief. They point toward ritual, initiation, and descent. The journey is not toward happiness, but toward wholeness. Suffering is not a mistake to be corrected but a threshold to be crossed. The soul does not grow through avoidance. It grows by leaning in, by allowing the ache to speak.
James Hollis has written that suffering often arrives when the soul needs us to grow larger than we thought possible. It presses us into a deeper life. Not through ambition or will, but through surrender to the unknown. What feels like confusion may be the beginning of reformation. Something in the old structure no longer fits, and the psyche refuses to pretend otherwise.
Healing does not mean returning to who we were before. It means becoming someone who can carry the story differently. To carry the past with dignity is a different task than forgetting. The wound, once honored, can become a vessel—something that holds wisdom and allows water to return to the dry places.
The soul does not follow the straight line. It wanders, spirals, and circles back. A dream from last night may speak to a wound from childhood. A sudden sadness may be a visit from an ancestor whose grief still lives in the blood. These are not theories. They are experiences felt in the body, in the breath, in the quiet space after loss.
When we are closest to the wound, we are often closest to the sacred. That is where the old gods used to speak—in places of brokenness, of hunger, of longing. The voice is rarely loud. It arrives in symbols, in memories, in strange coincidences. It asks for listening, not solving. It asks to be carried, not corrected.
To walk with the wound is to walk with the ancestors. They too knew despair, silence, and exile. They too waited at thresholds, listening for a sign. The soul is ancient, and it remembers. When the time is right, the inner life begins to sing again. Not because the pain is gone, but because it has been given a place to rest.
In this way, what was once unbearable becomes the path. Not through the hero’s triumph, but through the soul’s unfolding. What dries up begins to soften. What was hidden begins to hum. The wound remains, but the story changes. And somewhere beneath it all, the soul remembers why it came here.
Madeline – Soulful Nuggets Team
This blog is a reflection on the course ‘Introduction to Jungian Psychology‘ taught by James Hollis .
