Wounded and Becoming Whole: Two Books That Changed How I See Healing

Exploring "The Wounded Healer" by Henri Nouwen and "The Healing Path" by James Finley

I credit Richard Rohr with bringing me back to my spiritual life. I was raised in a Christian environment that fed me stories and sermons about sin, which led me to believe that something was wrong with me. Discovering Father Rohr's work, particularly his Franciscan perspective on Christianity, has allowed me to redefine my spirituality and relationship with God. It has helped me unlearn the exclusionary teachings of my childhood and relearn that living a spiritual life is about inclusion, acceptance, and love. Rohr's work has truly changed my life.

In previous articles, I mentioned that I used to view healing as an all-or-nothing concept. I believed that if I still experienced pain and suffering, then I wasn't truly healed and needed to do more "work." However, through Father Rohr's teachings, I have come to understand that this is not true at all. We will always carry the scars from our internal and external battles, and these experiences are part of fully embracing our humanity.

This teaching has drawn me to the two books I want to discuss today. Some books don’t just teach you something new; they transform how you perceive your own story. That’s what "The Wounded Healer" by Henri Nouwen and "The Healing Path" by James Finley accomplished for me.

Both books explore, in different ways, how healing isn’t about fixing ourselves but about sharing space with what hurts—both in ourselves and in others. These are not easy reads, not because of their language, but because they deeply encourage us to listen—not just to their words, but also to our own wounds.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

The Wounded Healer

In "The Wounded Healer" by Henri Nouwen, we learn that healing begins with presence. The wounded healer is not someone who leads by strength but rather someone who leads through shared experience. When we tap into our common humanity, we realize that we all experience hurt from something or someone in our lives. Those who can confront their own pain and bring compassion into their lives will be able to help others heal.

This idea is captured beautifully in the following quote:

"Thinking about martyrdom can be an escape unless we realize that real martyrdom means a witness that starts with the willingness to cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, and to make one's own painful and joyful experiences available as sources of clarification and understanding.

Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in their own heart and even losing their precious peace of mind? In short, "Who can take away suffering without entering it?"

It is an illusion to think that a person can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there."

In this journey, we will likely confront our own loneliness. For me, loneliness is something that often surfaces. However, according to Nouwen, loneliness is a universal wound everyone experiences. It is not something to be eliminated; rather, it is something to be understood and embraced as a means of connection to all humanity. To be truly present for others, we must first learn to be at home in our own solitude.

Nouwen states it like this:

"Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief. But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence. The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for those who can tolerate its sweet pain."

True presence involves entering another person's pain without attempting to fix it. We are not "Heroic Helpers." Instead of trying to save others, we witness their pain, share it, and create a space for it.

I'll end this section with one last quote from Nouwen:

"No [individual] can save anyone. We can only offer ourselves guides to fearful people. Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in this guidance that the first signs of hope become visible. This is so because a shared pain is no longer paralyzing, but mobilizing, when it is understood to be a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope."

Reading Nouwen helped me realize I don’t have to carry someone else’s pain to be with them in it. I don’t have to explain, solve, or shrink it. I simply have to make room—in myself—to hold it. This shifted how I show up in conversations. It also softened how I see my own wounds: not as obstacles to overcome before helping others, but as the very path that lets me understand them.

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The Healing Path

If "The Wounded Healer" invites us to meet others in their pain, "The Healing Path" invites us to meet ourselves in ours — slowly, gently, and with the guidance of love. James Finley writes not as a detached spiritual teacher but as someone who has walked through trauma, survived it, and been shaped by it. A former monk and a survivor of childhood abuse, Finley doesn't offer a tidy theology. Instead, he offers presence — a deeply compassionate witness to the long, mysterious process of healing.

In his work, Nouwen discusses the importance of entering another person's loneliness. Conversely, Finley emphasizes the necessity of allowing God to enter our own loneliness—not as just a concept but as a tangible experience of love that unfolds moment by moment.

The following passage from Finley illustrates this gradual journey through darkness, encouraging us to humbly and patiently follow the light:

"The challenge lies in the extent to which the intensity of traumatizing events can close off our experiential access to God's sustaining presence. The grace lies in the ways in which the light of God's presence begins to shine ever so meekly in the darkness in which we have lost our way. The grace deepens as we learn to follow the light out of the darkness, leading us on and on, as we fall back again and again into the darkness, only to rise up again and again to follow the light into the light."

This book isn’t about overcoming pain but recognizing that healing often comes in subtle, hidden ways. Finley guides readers into contemplative space — not through rigid steps but through a tone of sacred permission. His words create a spiritual atmosphere that affirms that our wounds, trauma, and disorientation do not disqualify us from divine love — they often lead us to it.

He uses metaphors of descent, echoing the mystics. Healing is not an upward climb; it’s a slow falling into the truth that we were never alone, never unworthy, never outside of God’s embrace.

"It seems to me that this transformative process continues on throughout our lives. For as long as we are on this earth, we are children of the light finding our way through darkness."

What makes Finley’s writing so powerful is the tenderness with which he honours suffering. He doesn’t offer false hope, nor does he rush toward resurrection. Like Nouwen, he teaches that being present in our wounds is sacred work. But while Nouwen speaks to the call of holding space for others, Finley focuses inward — on the silent, interior work of letting grace do its slow healing.

"It is in experiencing and accepting how difficult it can be to free ourselves from our hurtful attitudes and ways of treating ourselves and others that we begin to understand that the healing path is not a linear process in which we can force our way beyond our wounded and wounding ways. Rather, it is a path along which we learn to circle back again and again to cultivate within ourselves a more merciful understanding of ourselves as we learn to see, love, and respect the still-confused and wounded aspects of ourselves.

Insofar as these wounded and wounding aspects of ourselves recognize that they are seen, loved, and respected in such a merciful way, they can feel safe enough to release the pain they carry into the more healed and whole aspects of ourselves."

A Way Forward

Together, "The Wounded Healer" and "The Healing Path" offer a layered vision of healing—one that honours both the call to serve others and the quiet invitation to heal ourselves. Nouwen speaks to the outer movement of ministry: how we walk alongside others in their brokenness, not as experts but as fellow travellers. Finley speaks to the inner movement of contemplation: how we come to trust that even in our most shattered places, we remain held by God.

While Nouwen encourages us to sit with others in their loneliness, Finley invites us to sit with our own. While Nouwen asks how we might show up in a hurting world, Finley wonders how we might allow ourselves to be shown — revealed, softened, returned — to the sacred core within.

Both teachers name suffering without sentimentality. They do not rush to fix, nor do they glorify pain. Instead, they point to a love that is spacious enough to hold it all. A love that meets us in the wound, not after it’s healed. A love that is — always — the beginning and the end of the path.

In a culture that often urges us to move on, get better, and be strong, "The Wounded Healer" and "The Healing Path" suggest something far more countercultural: that the way through pain is not to avoid it but to stay close to it—and to each other.

These books are not how-to manuals. They are invitations. Nouwen’s words call to those who feel called to help others but don’t know how to lead from their own vulnerability. Finley’s voice is for those who are searching for solid ground within — a deeper anchor that holds steady even as everything else falls apart.

Whether you’re in the middle of your own healing, walking beside someone else in theirs, or holding questions you don’t yet have answers to, these books offer something rare: the reminder that healing isn’t a destination — it’s a sacred path. And that even when the way is hidden, we are never walking it alone.

With warmth & gratitude,
Brooke.