Quotes about Healing

We need rituals for all traumas and loss, whether it is betrayal or infidelity or violence or murder. Ritual helps us heal, and ritual helped me heal and become ready to consider the person who murdered Angela, his story, his pain.

Peace always comes to those who choose to forgive.

I would love to know who killed my father. So would my brother." Her next words stunned me and left me breathless. "We want to forgive them. We want to forgive, but we don't know who to forgive.

Forgiveness is not a choice you make for someone else; it is a choice you make for yourself.

Forgiveness is the way we return what has been taken from us and restore the love and kindness and trust that has been lost. With each act of forgiveness, whether small or great, we move toward wholeness. Forgiveness is nothing less than how we bring peace to ourselves and our world.

Healing does not mean reversing. Healing does not mean that what happened will never again cause us to hurt. It does not mean we will never miss those who have been lost to us or that which was taken from us. Healing means that our dignity is restored and we are able to move forward in our lives.

We do not need to succumb to the temptation to meet such a violation with retaliation. The only way to heal this hurt is to give voice to what ails us. It is only in this way that we can keep our pain and loss from taking root inside us. It is only in this way that we have a chance for freedom.

Only in restoring the web of connection can we find peace. I'm sure it is possible to heal in a mountaintop cave alone, but for most of us the quickest and deepest healing happens in the embrace of others.

Forgiveness among the members of older generations could open the door to healthy and supportive relationships among younger generations.

When we stay stuck in the unhappy story of what we have done we deny ourselves the gift of transformation. Learning from our past is not the same as being held hostage by the things we have done. At some stage we must let go of the past and begin again.

It is important to tell your story. It is equally important not to get trapped in your story. It is not what happened to us that matters but how what happened hurt us.

We choose to either walk the path of revenge and be bound to suffering, or take the path of forgiveness and be freed into healing.