Turning Wounds into Wisdom:

The Power of Transforming Pain into Strength

Pema Chödrön said it best: “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” Letting there be room is allowing for a space, a sacred space, where we can be fully present with our pain.

There’s a lesser known Hindu deity named Akhilandeshvari, or The Goddess of Never Not Broken.

 This Goddess embodies the ability to come together and fall apart, over and over again. She is the personification of healthy annihilation, the archetype of vicissitude. She breaks apart in order to come back together as a more powerful entity. Indeed, it is exactly because she is able to break apart that she is so powerful.

What a shift in perspective! True strength isn’t wholeness but the ability to adapt to the change that comes from falling apart and coming back together again, from wholeness to brokenness and back. This is the epitome of transforming pain into strength. Falling apart is what happens when we experience trauma. Coming back together again is the scar left behind. Adapting to the new way in which we are put back together again is honoring the sacred wound.

 Like Joseph Campbell wrote, “Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular.” It may take an entire lifetime to complete the healing of our sacred wounds, but the point is to begin the healing – and there are diamonds in the rough. Those who become wise always experience the most pain. Falling apart and adapting to coming back together again in novel ways is the epitome of wisdom. Facing the pain is like looking into the abyss. It’s like having a staring contest with our inner-most demons. But with enough practice, with enough polish, we can transform those demons into diamonds.

We can transform that abyss into a mirror that reflects infinite growth. “Think of the birth of the pearl,” writes Bill Plotkin, “the tiny grit of sand within the oyster creates an irritation the oyster seeks to eliminate by coating the grain with successive layers of lustrous deposits, ultimately producing the jewel.” Just as the grain within the oyster can be transformed into a pearl, the pain within the human can be transformed into strength.

There is a saying in Tibet, “Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.” At the end of the day, life is pain. We must learn to experience pain well. Indeed, there is an art to cultivating sacred wounds that only the happiest people know. Like the Buddha said, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” When we resist pain we create more pain, which is called suffering. When we can embrace pain with a warm, peaceful curiosity, we gain the ability to transform wounds into sacred wounds, and we limit our suffering.

Like Leslie Fieger ingeniously opined, “Any fool can run toward the light. It takes a master with courage to turn and face the darkness and shine his own light there.” Let us have the courage to turn and face our pain, to shine our own light there and see how many demons we can mold into diamonds, how many wounds we can transform into wisdom, and how much pain we can wrestle into strength, in order to become multifaceted beings with the power to heal the deeper wounds of the world.

the week that wasn't

the week - KHDA decided to come to visit us.As teacher leaders and school administrators, you need the skills and understanding of a "Teacher of the Year," the insights and abilities of a "Human Resources Director", the management and leadership skills of a "Chief Executive Officer", the resources and savvy of a " Successful Politician," and the nurture and courage of a "Loving Parent." Never before have educators and their leaders be held accountable for so much by so many. Measures and assessments come from state standards and tests, district evaluations, career ladders, state and national teacher certificates, and grade level and subject knowledge scores to name a few. With so much at stake, it is important to understand the nature of supervision and evaluation of instruction, to value and respect its place in education, and to accomplish its goals for the sake of the students. To do that we must know more than the specific criteria cited on an evaluation form; we must know what constitutes professionalism, effective planning and teaching, positive learning climate, and appropriate assessment. Then we need to be able to identify each one when it occurs and knows when a piece is missing. Our decisions must be informed by these findings in light of objective data and sound research.

Being Head

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When I became a head of the department, I was thrilled. From my early days in teaching, I had seen the appeal of being a team leader, able to communicate my enthusiasm for my subject not just to the students I taught but, through the rest of the department, to all those studying the subject across the school. I have to say this seemed far more attractive to me than the responsibilities of senior leaders, some of whom appeared to spend several days investigating who threw the first toilet roll on the school bus.

And I did enjoy being a head of the department. But I don't remember very much by way of preparation and support in advance of taking up the role; I think the view at that time was that if you had enough about you to get such a post, you had enough about you to work out how to do the job effectively.

I recognised early on that to do the role well you needed to work hard on relationships and communication. This was all about trying to get the best from each individual member of the team, respecting their different skills so that the impact of the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. A good team was composed of people with complementary skills, and when appointing a new team member it was important to consider what each candidate would bring to the group, not to gravitate naturally towards someone you recognised was like you.

There were administrative tasks, but I could see that the best departmental leaders were so much more than efficient and effective administrators; their skills lay in helping others to be the best they could. It was all about the success of the team and making their particular domain as strong as it could be.

The best heads of the department didn't even need to be the best teachers in the team – though they had to be good enough to be credible. What they were really good at was seeing the best in and getting the best from others. It wasn't about ego; they saw the true sense of the Harry S Truman quotation: "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit".

The best team leaders struck the right balance of support and challenge – helping and guiding the members of their departments but not afraid to hold them to account too, as they themselves should be supported and challenged by the senior leaders within the school.

They didn't over-protect their teams, defend them at all costs and fight their corner to the exclusion of all else. The best heads of department were committed specialists, with impressive expertise and passion for their subject, but they also had a wider perspective and could see the big picture of the students' whole educational experience. They didn't spend their time railing against the system and moaning about "the management", either. They used their communication and relationship-building skills to ensure their particular domain was an example of excellence, and this then gave them the credibility to lead change from that position – they were respected and listened to by the senior leaders because they were seen as successful middle leaders who were responsible for co-ordinating the achievements of strong teams across the school. I learnt from these positive examples, rather than having any formal training, I think.

 But I did try to spot talent, identify potential in aspiring team members and help them to clarify their vision of the kind of leaders they wanted to be, and then to make that a reality.

Once I had the "right people in the right seats on the bus", as Jim Collins puts it in his book Good to Great I tried hard to give them the right balance of support and challenge and to trust them to do their job, a job which has the greatest impact on the standard of teaching and learning across the school.