The Wound Is the Place Where the Light Enters You
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”
What are your first thoughts when you read this quote?
This is one of my favorite quotes of all time, from Sufi poet Rumi.
It's a well-worn piece of wisdom I return to time and time again and often share with my clients – because it has the power to completely shift our perspective on even the most painful and stubborn of challenges.
If you’re reading this, you’re most likely on a transformative journey of some kind — a Hero’s Journey towards actualizing your greatest vision for your life.
And the thing is, on every Hero’s Journey, there is an ‘impossible obstacle.
A painful pattern that just seems to keep repeating, over and over again, no matter what we do, or try.
This happens with our finances too, and our relationship with money.
That pattern can look like a number of things:
~It can look like relying on credit cards to bridge the gap between our income and our expenses, because our income is not high enough to cover what we feel we need.
~It can look like working really, really hard — and still not having a prudent reserve saving.
~It can look like trying to follow a budget but never staying within the boundaries.
~Or it can be that we try to have money conversations with our partner, but it continues to go down a path of murkiness, frustration, or disconnect… and we just end up feeling stuck and deflated.
So, what’s the familiar pattern for you when it comes to money?
Is there a money story you find yourself telling that you can’t seem to shift?
Or a stressful money situation that you find yourself experiencing again and again?
Let’s dig a little deeper into your money psychology.
Chances are, if you’ve run into the same old roadblock with money, you might get caught in the idea that something is wrong. Or that you have to “fix it.”
And if you’ve been in this pattern for a very long time, it might be difficult to believe that something else is possible, or to even imagine what a new outcome could look like.
It might feel painful, hopeless, or exhausting.
And the scariest part?
You fear that you’ll never have the experiences you truly want.
And today, there is a new perspective I’d like to share with you — because it has the power to completely transform the way you see the pattern.
This is where Rumi’s powerful words come in:
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”
What if your challenge is actually inviting you to heal a money pattern passed down by your family?
What if your wound is the very pathway to actualizing your financial destiny?
When we can understand that our most painful pattern is where we are meant to experience the greatest transformation, something amazing happens.
Our resistance to the pattern softens. And we can embrace the idea that the wound is our personal invitation to grow, to heal, and to become who we are meant to be.
This simple shift in perspective can help you access a whole new level of determination and perseverance to create a new outcome — to know that it’s not only possible, but it’s the very design of your Hero’s Journey.
Even if you don’t know what the new outcome looks like.
Consider this: your current challenge with money is the sacred place where the light can come in.
What is the light?
How does the healing occur?
It starts with our understanding this:
Our most distressing patterns typically come from some kind of trauma in our past.
It could be in our own personal history, or our parents’ past, or even their parents’ past.
In the latter cases, something got passed down the family line to us — a belief or a model of how to relate to money, or an unresolved situation or conflict with money.
Getting to the root of our wounds is where the light can finally pour in, and transform our experience in the process.
I’ll give you an example.
For a long time, I felt like I had a pattern with lovers: I was the one who was able to make the income, and for whatever reason, they underearned.
I remember when my fiancé and I first moved in together. We had just moved to Santa Monica, where the cost of living is high, and I had to pay more for our lifestyle.
It felt so painful! I kept asking myself, “Why am I always the one who has to hold it all financially?”
When we’re in the pattern, we’re really in it. It can feel like we have blinders on.
And this is what happens inside the wound — at first, there is no light!
We can’t see outside of our current situation.
But this is where the healing power actually is.
If we can access a new vision, we will be able to access a new expression of the pattern.
So my partner and I began our “vision quest” around this issue.
Together, we started a larger conversation, and we began to explore: What could it look like beyond this pattern?
And through continuous conversations with my lover, being really honest about how I felt and how he felt, discussing our vision for his income and my income, and what our lives could look like — we both started to feel where the pain was.
And we decided to let the light in.
We let the light in through communication, through love, through connection, through vision.
And our lives are completely different now!
His income eventually tripled. We’ve now bought a home together. And now he contributes a lot more than I do!
It’s been an incredible transformation.
And yet, when I was initially stuck in the pattern, it was deeply painful.
I didn’t know how to get out of the pattern, other than going to tools that I have, of connection, intimacy, honesty, nonviolent communication techniques, and mapping out a vision — no matter how far beyond the pattern it seemed.
At the time, it seemed impossible or crazy.
That’s how it can feel inside of the wound!
We feel it’s impossible to get on the other side of it.
Yet, from my own experience and that of my clients — I can tell you with full confidence: There is another side to it.
But it takes a certain kind of stance to let the light in, and to allow it to move us in the direction of our financial destiny.
If you’re running into a sticky pattern in your relationship with money, consider it your invitation to let the light in.
I even love imagining a light coming in, pouring through the top of the head, and beaming through our heart and into the world.
When we let the light in, to heal our mind, to heal our thoughts, and to heal our beliefs, we start to radiate this light through our hearts and out into the world as money stewards.
We become a beacon of light for others who may have money patterns that they feel are difficult to overcome.
We become leaders for a new way of doing money that is filled with inspiration, magic, and true financial fulfillment.
If you want to learn how to get to the root cause that holds you back from experiencing your financial potential, I want to hear from you.
Schedule your complimentary Financial Discovery Session, and discover what’s possible for you and your financial future.