Nobody Escapes Being Wounded
Anthony Birch - January 19, 2026
Nobody Escapes Being Wounded
Your wounds don’t disqualify you. They prepare you.
“Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’ When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”
— Henri Nouwen
Eight years ago, my wife and I—five months into marriage—moved across the country to Washington, D.C. I had accepted a job in the U.S. Senate and thought this would be a fun adventure for our 22-year-old selves and our fledgling marriage.
I was right. It was a fun adventure.
It was also the catalyst for me realizing the depth of my wounds.
I can trace the beginning of this realization almost to the moment we arrived in D.C. I don’t know if we ever fully understand why the biggest inflection points in our lives are often sparked by seemingly unrelated events. But distance—from routines, familiar people, and familiar places—has a way of revealing what was already there.
Pretty much from day one of living there, I noticed a louder voice in my head—one I wasn’t quite as familiar with. This voice prodded me to feel anxious about things I never had before. It pushed me toward obsessive thinking, always searching for one more fact that might finally make me feel 100% assured.
Over the next seven months, the objects of my anxious obsession changed weekly and sometimes daily. Nothing I found provided relief.
I was searching for the thing that would reset me back to my “normal” state.
If you can relate, you know what this feels like—the RPMs of your brain constantly stuck in the red. And even I, who knows very little about vehicles, know that eventually something breaks.
One day, I found myself in prayer with God. I told Him how unfair all of this felt. How I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. How I didn’t even know what was actually going on.
How much of this was my fault?
How much of it was just my mind spiraling?
How much could I really change?
Then a suggestion formed in my mind—one that was not my own. It wasn’t the anxious voice I had grown used to hearing so loudly. It wasn’t my own logical reasoning. It arrived as a fully formed, gentle recommendation.
Maybe you should talk to someone?
That was it. No judgment. No diagnosis. No roadmap.
Just a loving suggestion.
A few weeks later, I found myself preparing for a “discovery call” with someone named Branden, a therapist and life coach I had been connected with. I picked up my phone, found his number in my email, took a deep breath, and called him.
Forty-five minutes later—all of which included me crying and telling this stranger everything that had been debilitating me for the last seven months—Branden said, “Wow, that’s a lot!”
I laugh-cried and responded with something like, “Yeah, it is!
So what’s wrong with me?
Am I broken? Is this too much? Am I sick in the head? Do I need to be institutionalized or arrested?
How do I fix this?”
Branden replied, “I don’t think anything is wrong with you or that you’re broken.”
I couldn’t believe it. This professional heard all of that and his expert opinion was that nothing was broken?
That day marked the beginning of my journey toward understanding that deep wounds are portals to deep healing.
My breakdown in Washington, D.C. became the moment I started taking responsibility for my wounds—and learning how to care for them.
Here’s what I believe now that I didn’t believe then.
Wounds don’t disqualify you.
Wounds don’t cancel you.
Wounds don’t ruin your plans.
Instead, your wounds are your unique qualification.
They affirm your humanity. They are the place—the portal—you can enter to become your most whole, creative, and loving self.
In other words, your wounds can become the plan for your life.
That’s what happened to me, and I know it to be true because I’ve lived it.
Your story is more useful than you think.
You’ve learned something that could benefit those around you.
You’ve gained insights that might unlock something for someone else.
Your wounds are your greatest catalyst for healing.
“The great illusion of leadership is to think that people can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.”
— Henri Nouwen
A closing word
This is why I do the work I do now.
At Arrowhead Advising, I coach people who carry real stories, real wounds, and real questions about their lives and leadership—not to fix them, but to help them listen to what their wounds are already trying to teach them.
If something in this story resonated with you—if you sense that your wounds may be inviting you into deeper healing or more meaningful work—I’d be honored to walk with you.
You don’t have to hide your wounds to move forward.
Often, they’re the very place “forward” begins.
