Seven years ago, I was going through a particularly crushing breakup when a friend offered advice that I hadn’t considered before. She told me I needed to work on my self-love.
I didn’t understand what she meant back then, but it opened a door.
We aren’t taught about emotional healing in traditional schools. It’s not something you learn about in most university classes. It’s rarely a topic of casual conversation or a TV show plot, and yet we all have wounds to heal. Once I started meditating, journaling, and reading books about personal development, I realized that I could level up in life. I could let go of limiting beliefs, and I could have the things I wanted, but I had to let go of what weighed me down first.
Healing and self-love sounded woo-woo to me back then, but now I know the truth: It’s selfish not to heal. It’s self-indulgent not to put in the work, rather than the opposite.
These quotes about healing beautifully illustrate that journey. I hope you love these as much as I do:
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi
“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Pain is a pesky part of being human, I’ve learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can’t be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don’t leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”
― Osho
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
― David Richo
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
― Marianne Williamson
“But pain’s like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There’s no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.”
― Katie Kacvinsky
“Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing.”
― Linda Hogan
“It is our wounds that create in us a desire to reach for miracles. The fulfillment of such miracles depends on whether we let our wounds pull us down or lift us up towards our dreams.”
― Jocelyn Soriano, Mend My Broken Heart
“You have the power to heal your life, 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 consciously use your power.”
― Louise L. Hay
“As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.”
― Maya Angelou
“It’s not forgetting that heals. It’s remembering.”
― Amy Greene, Bloodroot
“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
― Louise Hay
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GG says
Thanks for these quotes! The one by Maya Angelou is my favorite of these. In a way by sharing these quotes and your spiritual path, you are doing just that! Thanks for being positive and a healer in your own way. Forgiveness to those who may have given you pain (Marianne’s theme) is also very powerful to me as it can heal both in your personal life and for the world and humanity in the large scale. It is harder than it sounds and to those who truly forgive, you have my admiration and I aspire to do it. This is especially true when you find yourself now in control or in power where you could inflict it back. On the other hand, when you empower yourself and forgive yourself, you can forgive others more easily. I’ve seen that first hand!