Healing

  -Dr. Mel Waldman

December 23, 2010

How do I heal?

The Darkness speaks to me through my dreams

and

traumatic memories;

my personal history is a guide to

understanding and redemption,

the solution or cure

hidden

in

the caves

of

my

unconscious.

How do I heal my patients?

I listen

to their Darkness;

their voices speak to me

in

whispers,

low rustling sounds,

or sighs,

in

shrieks

and

ululations;

with

power,

like trumpets blasting through Time and Space

and

Trauma;

they speak and reveal their unbearable

thoughts and emotions,

twisted and gnarled

memories

and

shattered souls

and

I listen.

My patients give me a cornucopia

of

gifts.

They feed me toxic

thoughts,

anguished memories,

and

seething

emotions

from the cauldron

of their

Darkness.

I

receive their anguish

and

contagious

pain

and

hold this

Hell,

a Wasteland of the dying soul,

inside my psyche

until they are ready to own their Darkness.

How do I heal?

I listen to my Darkness

and

speak to it,

welcoming it

into the

Light,

my illuminated, spiritual self;

and

I pray to Hashem, my G-d,

thanking Him for feeding my soul with love and beauty

and

asking Him for strength to cope

with

the inevitable tragedies of life,

and

I beseech Him to heal my loved ones, relatives and friends

and

all who come to me for help;

and sometimes,

like Jacob

I

wrestle with G-d,

for the evil in the world butchers my soul

and

I can’t comprehend why there is so much suffering;

I’m lost and thus,

 I

wrestle with Hashem.

How do I heal my patients?

I listen

to their Darkness

and struggle

to understand them;

I receive

their traumas

and

become a receptacle of unbearable thoughts, memories, and emotions

so they can

survive

and eventually thrive;

in the process

of

tikkun,

healing and repair,

we heal each other with Hashem’s assistance,

and with tikkun olam,

we repair

the world.

Dr. Mel Waldman, a psychologist, is also a poet and writer whose stories and poems have appeared in dozens of magazines including HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, POETICA, and AUDIENCE. He is a past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature. He is the author of 11 books including I AM A JEW, a collection of essays, memoir, short stories, poems, and plays about his exploration of his Jewish identity published by World Audience.  Recently, he became the Director of the Williamsburg Clinic of the Interborough Developmental and Consultation Center, one of four Brooklyn mental health clinics of IDCC, as well as a school based program, serving a diverse client population that includes the Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jewish community.