The symbolic meaning of wounds
03/04/2023
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Once a week, content to keep up to date in its evolution.
Think about the last time you hurt yourself... Maybe you dropped something on your foot, or cut yourself while cooking or "tripped". Maybe you were bitten by an insect on a beautiful day outdoors or came home with a sunburn... Did you know that all these scenarios contain meaning, messages about our thoughts, feelings and behaviors?
In the DSSI training, students learn about symbolism not only in dreams but also in everyday situations. When analyzing an injury, illness or even an "accident", several factors must be taken into account. First of all, we can look at the general setting: the time and place, what our thoughts or emotions were at the time of the injury. Depending on whether we hurt ourselves at the office during the work day or while out with friends at night, the interpretation will be different. Of course, we can always improve our safety in concrete ways, such as improving certain standards at work or equipping ourselves differently for different types of activities. However, even so, we can always understand the deeper meaning of an injury, what it brings us in terms of information on a symbolic level.
Here is an example based on the testimony of a DSSI student, who recently injured his calf during a group martial arts class. The fact that we get injured while exercising is related to our willpower, our drive. Because the injury occurred in a group setting, it is related to how the student relates to others and exchanges in a group setting. This is different from an injury during an individual activity, for example, which would indicate a tendency to push oneself individually.
Each part of the body also has its own symbolism. Some of these are probably intuitively known or can be understood, such as the connection of the throat with communication, our hands representing the way we give and receive, and the heart symbolizing the driving aspect of our life energy (the heart actually performing the function of a pump) which can also be related to the way we love. The Source Code dictionary is a fantastic resource for discovering the deeper meaning of signs and symbols. But even without this dictionary, if we don't know the meaning of something - in this case, a body part - it can be helpful to research it online. We can then take what we have learned about its physical properties and apply it as a symbol, a state of consciousness existing within us.
The muscles of the upper leg are some of the largest and strongest in the body, so they are related to power and strength in the way we move forward. The calf, on the other hand, relates to propulsion - it literally pushes us forward when we take a step (this is the movement the student was doing when he tore his calf muscle). So while the legs generally represent how we move forward in action, the calves specifically represent our initial energy in that action. The calf muscles are also important for balance, posture and stability.
Even the left and right sides have specific meanings: the left side is related to the inner world and the right side to the outer world. In this case, it is the right leg that was injured, so it is a concrete, physical action, as opposed to a more figurative inner progression.
When the injury occurred, the students were standing in a circle - strengthening the bond with the group - around the teacher who had just explained a technique. She turned to our student and asked him to help her demonstrate. The student recalls that "at that point, I threw myself at her enthusiastically - too much so - and I got hurt. I wanted to do a good job in the eyes of my teacher, with whom I have a very good relationship and whom I admire, but also in front of the other students."
Here we can understand the student a little better in terms of memories: the experiences, thoughts and emotions that he carries within him, even unconsciously. Part of his being was in contact with memories of seeking approval, feeling of belonging and needing recognition. Sometimes this strong need pushes the student to take action too impulsively and too energetically. This can destabilize their progress and, paradoxically, end up blocking it.
If we can consider injuries as messages about the parts of ourselves that we need to work on, then the severity of an injury suffered corresponds to the urgency and intensity of the memories stored within. A simple scratch would indicate the existence of a small percentage to which the injured person must be attentive, as a small reminder to recalibrate their energy and attitude. In this case, although the injury could have been much more serious, the muscle tear disabled the student enough to realize the need to take stock and see what needed to be changed.
Having to go through the gradual recovery process with acceptance and patience brought to light other things to understand. "More than one of my training partners pointed out that my body insisted on resting," the student admits. "And I'm someone who always wants to do 'whatever it takes.' Having to do things more slowly also made me realize how often I rush through things."
Being injured can also, surprisingly, lead us to acknowledge or appreciate what we were previously unaware of, as the injury brings about a "forced" internalization compared to the overly emissive movement that leads to the injury. The student had to rely heavily on his training partners right after his injury, "I felt really well taken care of… it brought me closer together with this particular group" the student says. "In fact it helped me realize that it is Ok to rely on others, and it also felt good to share my feelings of gratitude."
The next time you find yourself with an injury, you may feel frustrated and think, "It's just one of those things that happens"... But look beyond that 🙂 . Accept it as an opportunity to reflect on all aspects of what happened, as well as the thoughts and feelings it brings up in you. Why did life create a limitation? Then you can work on transforming what is necessary to develop your qualities and improve yourself as a person, without dramatizing and doing your best internally and practically...
The definition and meaning of symbols - what we call symbolic language - is one of the cornerstones of understanding the functioning of human consciousness. This language is essentially revealed through dreams, which we patiently learn to decode, in order to understand the messages that are delivered to us to guide us in our projects, our choices, our decisions, our actions, our words...
The UCM Teaching and Research Center has published the Dictionary The Source Code, a fascinating, essential and fundamental reference, through which it becomes possible to learn and understand, in an autonomous way, the signals of our unconscious, the keys of our memories...
Thus, it becomes "easy" - more and more with time - to shed light on our dark and hidden zones, the regions buried within us that can only be discovered if we truly decide to walk towards them.
But in the deep desire to know oneself spiritually, there is sometimes a widespread tendency to "just see the invisible", i.e. to be interested only in what happens in the inner world, with the logical consequence of moving away from the concrete presence of daily life, to become weary of the surrounding reality, even to reject it. We fly away. One goes away. Finally, we get lost. Because it is possible to lose oneself in the abstract... Because one only listens to oneself. We are sometimes only interested in ourselves and our "evolution". And one can forget the others.
One of the explanations for this is that we have lost the ability to listen. Listening attentively to every moment of our lives. Listening consciously. Just as there is symbolic language, there is also the symbolic listening, alive in every interaction, every exchange, every gesture. In every silence even...
Here is a particularly vivid example from a teacher's testimony: during a class assembly, a student suddenly complained of severe discomfort during a health class.
- Sir, I don't want to go to this class anymore, it disgusts me, and the lady doesn't understand anything, she doesn't listen to me. Everything disgusts me, it makes me want to vomit!
Strong words, a raw language, almost brutal; a tense face, drawn, scornful, grimacing...
- What did you talk about, José?
- It was that sex education, that disgusting thing, the male apparatus. It disgusts me!
When we learn that José does not eat at the same table as his father, even to the point of going without meals, that they do not speak to each other, that he does not receive pocket money, that he is one of many children born to several mothers, we begin to understand why the male reproductive system disgusts him and why he no longer wants to attend sex education classes.
In this first stage of accompaniment of a young person in disarray, struggling with life, symbolic listening is of primary importance. It is a matter of detecting the memories at stake, finding the roots of the malaise, understanding through the heart what kind of destiny has been activated...
We certainly have a particularly evocative example here, almost "obvious", and yet... If we reflect well, with honesty, on our day yesterday, our past week, our days as a whole - are we listening well?
You don't need to analyze a case of abuse to find symbols; they are everywhere... Like images that help us understand what others experience in their inner world:
But this can be positive too, of course:
When you practice symbolic listening, it's like opening your eyes to a new world. Everything takes on a meaning that we may never have suspected. And thanks to its friend the law of resonance, they form a top-level guidance duo capable of teaching us as much about others as about ourselves.
This is what symbolic listening is all about: hearing that behind a disgust, there is suffering... that behind the winter cold, there may be the beginning of a depression... behind the flowers, there are feelings that are perhaps never said, or received...
And you, are you listening well to life?
Memories are codes in our thoughts, emotions and actions that have been recorded from the past and influence the way we think, feel and act today. It is also important to know that these codes also influence our future, hence the importance of rectifying them if they are not programmed in a positive way.
Memories are created on all levels - spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical. Memories are recorded since our birth and even before. Thus, all the experiences and emotions, both positive and negative, that we have lived through are recorded in our memories, our inner hard drive.
The positive memories help us to manifest the qualities we have developed, to live and to concretize the beautiful work we have done in the past and that we transpose in the present.
Negative memories show us what we have accumulated through our negative experiences in our thoughts and actions, which we need to work on, clean up and transform in order to evolve on all levels. Otherwise, the same difficult patterns will tend to repeat themselves in our lives.
We can understand our memories with the help of symbolic language (because everything is a symbol), meditation, the law of resonance (we attract everything we are, in the positive, but also the negative) and of course, through our dreams. Learning to interpret our dreams is a very advanced, even avant-garde way to understand our memories, who we are, what we are becoming, and what we need to rectify to become a better person. Dreams are the portal to the unconscious where we can access the memories of this life that we have forgotten, or are not aware of, and through symbolic language we can analyze and transform our memories.
It is important to see our memories in terms of percentages. Because if, for example, we are shown in our dreams that we have a feeling of superiority, that we seek social recognition, or that we have too much need to please, it does not mean that we are only that. We have to see it as a percentage that needs to be transformed to keep improving 🙂
Sometimes we may wonder why we had a difficult childhood, why we have difficulties in our relationship or in our family. Memories play an essential role in our current life and give us information that tells us what we need to learn. For example, if we have been harsh and hurtful with a spouse in the past, then through the Law of Karma, we will experience the difficulties we have caused the other person to go through, to learn what that feels like and not repeat that behavior.
We do not have to receive the lesson in the exact form, but it can be through different situations and with different people in our personal lives. For example, if we were unfaithful to our spouse in a past life, then we can experience that same pattern in this life, or another, to learn the importance of fidelity and the harmful consequences it brings.
But there are also wonderful experiences that we can have on a personal level, like a loving and caring family, a balanced intimacy that are the result of positive memories and that sow beautiful things for our future.
Another area of life where people ask "why" is work. Why a difficult boss? Why the lack of recognition at work? Why is there sometimes inequity or too much ambition, competition? Etc... This shows that in our memories we carry % where we were (or created) what we encounter, where there was favoritism, abuse of power, ego games, etc.
But no matter what situation you are in, you are there to learn. We learn to be kind, patient, respectful, not to seek recognition and praise in work... We learn the true meaning of work, which is to develop qualities and virtues. And when we stop rebelling or positioning ourselves as victims, we improve, we move on to the next stage and new learning and opportunities open up.
When we are able to show up well at work and have a healthy environment, respect others and are respected and given great opportunities to grow, we live out the positive memories we have built.
Some people are very comfortable in social life and have no fear of public speaking; while others have difficulty being comfortable. Again, this is all due to the memories that one has recorded over many lifetimes.
If a person has experienced humiliation, judgment and rejection at the social level, he or she will tend to run away from society, not to have confidence in him or herself, to feel inferior and be afraid to express his or her opinion, etc. And understanding this can help us to have more compassion and better accompany the person in the overcoming of oneself and in the rediscovery of one's deep qualities.
We record memories at all levels of our life and every day... Through these memories, we live the life we ourselves have created. Since the purpose of life is to develop Qualities and Virtues, it becomes essential to understand our memories and the impact they have on our present life.
We can rectify our past mistakes by analyzing them, by applying the law of resonance, and especially by having the Will to change our internal and external patterns that make us go around in circles, or that bring negative situations. Memories show us our own reflection and once we understand them, we understand their impact and we have the power to change our lives for the better.
Know that it is never too late to choose to work on ourselves, on our memories, to find our deepest strengths and our full potential.
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