33 Quotes on Healing and How There’s No Such Thing As “Healed”

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Excerpt: Just as pain is an ongoing, inevitable part of life—so, too, should healing be. Read our 33 quotes on healing and adopt an ongoing practice.

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Introduction: There’s No Such Thing As “Healed”

Here’s the thing about healing and helping others heal: I don’t think any of us are ever “healed.” I think healing is a forever ongoing process. One that requires constant energy, attention, and time. Furthermore, I don’t think any of us are free from hurt. The suffering of life—in some way, shape, or form—is enough to include us all many times over. And with life being as chaotic, unpredictable, and turbulent as it is—the hurt and the healing will forever be changing all the same.

Once we understand the dynamics of hurting and healing, we can appreciate the scope of the situation we’re in fully. All of us are hurting—some more than others. All of us desire healing—nobody wants to remain hurt. The hurt comes as a given with life—life is suffering. Healing does not come as a given—it must be sought out and applied to one’s self. And as an act of compassion for the other, as we heal from our hurt, we can share what we’ve learned with others—so that they can hurt less, too.

If we can remember to do this to the ones who are hurting the most, we can usually make a pretty remarkable impact. And one of the best ways to tell who is hurting the most is to pay attention to who is living a life most absent of love. Remember, just as hate is an indicator of pain and represents an absence of love—so, too, does indifference or withdrawal. Hate doesn’t always manifest as an outward expression—it can just as potently manifest as an inward one.

This is why it’s also important to remember that it’s nearly impossible to tell the extent to which one person is hurting compared to another because feelings can’t be objectively compared—and certainly aren’t equally expressed. This is why the best practice is to simply act with compassion, kindness, and care towards everybody you cross paths with—including yourself. From this standpoint, you’re sure not to miss anyone in your efforts.

And when you are confronted with an incredibly potent case of hate, remember, they are likely the ones who are hurting the most. And if we want to neutralize that hate, we can’t respond with impotent, questionable or uncertain love. We must respond with as much, if not more conviction in love. Which, as you’ll soon discover on your journey towards healing, can only be done in proportion to how much a person has healed and learned to love themself.

Just as pain is an ongoing, inevitable part of life—so, too, should healing be. Below, you will find our 33 quotes on healing that will inspire you adopt an ongoing practice of healing in your life. Because it is not just a single event or circumstance in our lives that we need to heal from. It is the forever unfolding set of events and circumstances that continuously will need our attention. Sending love and light to each of you. Enjoy.

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The List: 33 Quotes on Healing

“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.”

Buddha | See Picture Quote Version ➜

“An unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does. A healed person understands that the actions of others has absolutely nothing to do with them. Each day you get to decide which one you will be.”

Unknown

“Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.”

Lori Deschene

“Research teaches us that the capacity to reach out to others for help in dealing with fear and pain is the best single remedy for emotional injury.  Whether the person is struggling with the effects of combat, rape, or childhood injury, the best predictor of trauma resolution is good social support.”

Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.  All things break.  And all things can be mended.  Not with time, as they say, but with intention.  So go.  Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.  The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”

L. R. Knost

“When we’re in any kind of pain, we can use it to open our hearts to the reality that people are always suffering.  Pain is something everyone experiences.  We can use it to ground us in the fundamental truth of our being.  Pain gives us firsthand experience by which to be kind and generous to others.  It gives us direct access through our empathy to helping others.  We can use pain to activate compassion.  We’d like others not to experience pain, and we can extend ourselves to them.  We can contemplate the words, ‘May all beings be free of pain.’  Our direct experience of pain only makes our wish more potent.  It may even decrease our pain, because it increases our joy.  This becomes a wonderful meditation, to sit there and contemplate the relief of pain and suffering of everyone, of the whole world—not only because it changes our attitude toward our own pain, but also because it’s opening our mind of enlightenment.  This kind of prayer is always healing.”

Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind Into An Ally (Page 144) | More quotes from this book ➜

“Until you release the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex. But eventually it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open your wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories and make peace with them.”

Lyanla Vanzant

“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”

Unknown

“If you haven’t healed it, every time you think about a negative event from your past, your body produces the exact same chemicals in the body as when it happened. That means you relive the experience hundreds of times simply because you haven’t let it go.”

Unknown | See Picture Quote Version ➜

“do not look for healing

at the feet of those

who broke you”

Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 155) | More quotes from this book ➜

“It just occurred to me that many people are actually afraid to heal because their entire identity is centered around the trauma they’ve experienced. They have no idea who they are outside of trauma and that unknown can be terrifying.”

Unknown | See Picture Quote Version ➜

“You have the power to heal yourself and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless, but we’re not. We always have the power of our minds. Claim and conscious use your power.”

Louise Hay

“The first thing to remember is this: As long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 168) | More quotes from this book ➜

“One of the most challenging things I’ve had to learn is that healing must be intentional. There is no one gold day that comes and saves you from all your misery. Healing is a practice. You have to decide that it’s what you want to do and actively do it. You have to make a habit out of it. Once I learned that, I only looked back to see how far I came.”

Noors Kitchen | See Picture Quote Version ➜

“We never really get over our traumas, and as much as we heal, scars will remain.  That doesn’t mean we need to view those scars as reminders of our injuries; instead, we can see them as proof of our resilience.”

Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 30) | More quotes from this book ➜

“Those who think they will find solutions to all their problems by traveling far from home, perhaps as they stare at the Colosseum or some enormous moss-covered statue of Buddha, Emerson said, are bringing ruins to ruins. Wherever they go, whatever they do, their sad self comes along. A plane ticket or a pill or some plant medicine is a treadmill, not a shortcut. What you seek will come only if you sit and do the work, if you probe yourself with real self-awareness and patience.”

Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 245) | More quotes from this book ➜

“The reason why so many potential relationships fail is that people are broken yet still trying to date. Healing requires isolation, and most people haven’t conquered the battle of being alone.”

Unknown

“The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”

Unknown

“Care of the soul often means getting out of the way rather than doing something.”

Thomas Moore, Original Self | More quotes from this book ➜

“Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even though it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.“

Rebecca Ray

“If true peace and clarity are what you seek in this life—and by the way, they are what you deserve—know that you will find them nearby and not far away. Stick fast, as Emerson said. Turn into yourself. Stand in place. Stand in front of the mirror. Get to know your front porch. You were given one body when you were born—don’t try to be someone else, somewhere else. Get to know yourself. Build a life that you don’t need to escape from.”

Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 246) | More quotes from this book ➜

“Let yourself be sad, let yourself be a mess. But promise yourself that you’ll just try a little harder each day. That’s all you can do. Take it day by day. You’ll learn things about yourself you didn’t know, you’ll lean that all this time you maybe deserve more. A beautiful thing happens when you give your heart time to heal itself. You become you again. You find happiness again, and when you do, you know it’s because of how far you’ve come when you thought you’d lost all hope. And if that’s not something to look forward to then I don’t know what is.”

Unknown

“Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone.”

Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection | More quotes from this book ➜

“There’s a thing that worries me sometimes when you talk about creativity because it can have this kind of feel that it’s just nice, or warm, or pleasant—it’s not. It’s vital. It’s the way we heal each other. In singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say, ‘Hey, listen to me and I’ll listen to you,’ we’re starting a dialog. And when you do that this healing happens. And we come out of our corners. And we start to witness each other’s common humanity. We start to assert it. And when we do that? Really good things happen.”

Ethan Hawke, TED

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”

Alice Walker

“Whatever you’re feeling, be good to yourself. If you feel lost, be patient with yourself while you find your way. If you feel scared, be gentle with yourself while you find the strength to face your fear. If you feel hurt, be kind to yourself while you grieve and slowly heal. You can’t bully yourself into clarity, courage, or peace, and you can’t rush self-discovery or transformation. Some things simply take time, so take the pressure off and give yourself space to grow.”

Lori Deschene

“The harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.  The mind can never find the solution, nor can it afford to allow you to find the solution, because it is itself an intrinsic part of the ‘problem.’  Imagine a chief of police trying to find an arsonist when the arsonist is the chief of police.  You will not be free of that pain until you cease to derive your sense of self from identification with the mind, which is to say from ego.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 28) | More quotes from this book ➜

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