Are You Acting From Wisdom or From Wounds?

I’ve been thinking lately about wounds.  Not in a dramatic way, but more in the way they quietly show up when we’re not expecting them to.

Some are easy to name. A betrayal that reshaped how we trust. A relationship that taught us what abandonment feels like. A moment that quietly changed how safe we feel being seen.  Others are harder to spot. They live beneath the surface, woven into our reactions, our patterns, and the stories we tell ourselves.  But wounds do not simply disappear. Just like physical wounds, when they heal, they leave scars.

And this is where healing is often misunderstood.

Healing Doesn’t Mean the Wound Is Gone

“I’ve healed” is a phrase we use often, sometimes too quickly. Healing does not mean the experience never happened. It does not mean you will never feel tender there again. Healing means the open wound has closed, and what remains is a scar.

I know this in a very literal way, both physically and emotionally. I carry several physical scars from burning myself with boiling water and a beach club day in Mallorca that went very wrong. I can be clumsy, and those incidents left their mark on my skin. The wounds healed, but the scars remain. Sometimes they’re barely noticeable. Other times, they catch my eye and remind me of that moment.

I also carry emotional scars. I have been betrayed by people I loved and trusted more than once. Those wounds healed, too, but the scars they left are real. And just like physical scars, emotional ones can still be sensitive. A certain tone, behavior, or situation can trigger them unexpectedly.  When that happens, I try to pause and recognize what is actually being touched.  Is this the present moment, or is a scar being brushed?

When I notice a trigger has activated a scar, I intentionally move toward my wisdom rather than reacting from the wound. And sometimes, if I’m honest, going into my wisdom requires reopening the scar just enough to feel what is still there. I do that willingly to allow a deeper layer of healing to happen. Because wisdom is not avoidance. It’s honesty with compassion.  Scars are not signs that something went wrong. They are proof that healing happened and that growth is still unfolding.

A Jungian Perspective: When Wounds Live in the Unconscious

Carl Jung spoke of complexes, emotional imprints formed around past experiences that live in the unconscious. I think of them as old experiences that still want a voice.  These complexes are activated when something in the present echoes the past.  A healed wound that has not been fully integrated can still react.  This doesn’t mean you are unhealed. It means a scar has been touched.  The difference lies in consciousness.  In other words, I can act from the wound, or I can lean into the wisdom the scar has already given me.

When we act from a wound, we react automatically. We defend, withdraw, over-explain, control, or detach without fully understanding why.  When we act from wisdom, we can pause and say: This reaction belongs to an older story. I don’t have to let it lead.

Being triggered does not mean you are backsliding; it means something important is asking to be seen.  Triggers reveal where wisdom is still being shaped.  Jung believed consciousness, not perfection, is the goal of inner work. What remains unconscious will be lived out as fate. What is made conscious becomes choice.  The moment you can name the wound without acting from it, you have already shifted into wisdom.

Relationships: Where Healing Is Truly Tested

To truly understand how integrated your wounds are, examine your relationships.  When we are alone, it’s easier to believe we are healed. Solitude is predictable. Safe. Quiet.  Relationships are mirrors. Romantic partnerships, especially, tend to activate the very places that once hurt us.

For example:

Fear of abandonment = masked as independence

Some people avoid commitment not because they don’t want connection, but because they fear being left. Paradoxically, staying unattached feels safer than risking deep emotional investment. If you never fully commit, you never fully lose. What looks like independence may actually be a wound protecting itself.

Wounds say:
This feels dangerous. If I don’t attach, I can’t be left.

Wisdom says:
I recognize this fear. I know where it comes from, and I can stay present without abandoning myself or the connection.

Low self-worth or unhealed shame
When someone does not feel worthy of long-term love, commitment can feel like waiting to be “found out.” Closeness becomes threatening. They may unconsciously sabotage intimacy to avoid the pain of eventual rejection. This is not self-sabotage for its own sake. It is the psyche attempting to protect against shame.

Wounds say:
If I leave first, I won’t have to face being rejected.

Wisdom says:
I notice the urge to pull away. This belongs to an old belief about my worth, not the truth of who I am now.

I don’t see these patterns as flaws anymore. From a Jungian lens, they’re survival strategies. They formed when we needed them. Unconscious strategies developed to survive earlier emotional pain.  The work is not to judge them.  The work is to make them conscious.

Self-Awareness: The Bridge Between Wound and Wisdom

Self-awareness is the pause between trigger and reaction.  It is the breath before responding. The moment you ask: Is this response coming from the present, or from the past?  Jung taught that what we do not make conscious will shape our lives without our consent. Awareness restores choice.

Wisdom does not mean you will never feel activated. It means you won’t abandon yourself when you are.  It means honoring your scars without letting them dictate your decisions.  It means being willing, when necessary, to reopen them with care so deeper healing can occur.

Our wounds shaped us.
Our scars taught us.
Our awareness frees us.

And that is where real healing lives.