“I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But, I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 312)
Quotes about Trauma
“Grief isn’t meant to be silenced—to live in the body and be carried alone.”
Katherine, via Between Two Kingdoms (Page 308)
“At times, my heart feels so haunted that there’s no room for the living—for the possibility of new love, new loss.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 289)
“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you’re at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you’ve forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shadowing you breath for breath.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 190)
“Hurt people hurt people. But healed people heal people. Respect your feelings, and you’ll find your trauma. Respect your trauma and you’ll find your purpose. Respect your purpose and you’ll find your destiny. Respect your destiny and you’ll find your legacy.”
Rebecca Bardess, Twitter
“We don’t need to be so dramatic and hyperbolic about everything. Worrying rarely helps anything, and freaking out usually does more damage than good. We need to acknowledge that trauma is an individual experience for everyone, but let’s also be mindful of how often we oversimplify the degree of our traumas while underestimating our resilience. Nothing is the end of the world until it’s the end of the world, and then nothing will matter anyway.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 204)