Healing is not about moving on or “getting over it,” it’s about learning to make peace with our pain and finding purpose in our lives again.

There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.

Most survivors grew up too fast. Their vulnerable child-selves got lost in the need to protect and deaden themselves. Reclaiming the inner child is part of the healing process. Often the inner child holds information and feelings for the adult. Some of these feelings are painful; others are actually fun. The child holds the playfulness and innocence the adult has had to bury.

Dance like David did till your healing comes

Then again, he supposed the healing process, in contrast to trauma, was gentle and slow... The soft closing of a door, rather than a slam.- John

Healing was a terrifying and painful experience and my life was as full of struggle and heartache as it had always been. Several years after I started therapy, I began to feel happy. I was stunned. I hadn't realized that the point of all this work on myself was to feel good. I thought it was just one more struggle in a long line of struggles. It took a while before I got used to the idea that my life had changed, that I felt happy, that I was actually content. Learning to tolerate feeling good is one of the nicest parts of healing.