Healing Hearts

I think so often we feel more equipped to help others to heal and offer than comfort than we do to deal with our own hurts.  One of my favourite poets Mary Oliver writes beautifully and reiterates Alice Seebold when she states "you save yourself or you remain unsaved."

Mary Oliver - The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice ‑
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do ‑
determined to save
the only life you could save.

“Wounding and healing are not opposites.
They’re part of the same thing.
It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others.
It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people.
It is our loneliness that helps us to to find other people
or to even know they’re alone with an illness.
I think I have served people perfectly
with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of. ” ~Rachel Naomi Remen~


"You can't punish yourself into change.
You can't whip yourself into shape.
 But you can love yourself into well-being.”
  ~ Susan Skye ~

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain."

~Kahlil Gibran~

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head,
but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair".
~Old Chinese Proverb~

"Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without words,

and never stops at all"

~Emily Dickenson~

"Be gentle with yourself, you need time to heal"

~Unknown~

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

~Anais Nin~

Try out this healing heart video below which utilises skills of meditation: -

And/or this one: -

"Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are." ~Rachel Naomi Remen~

"The most beautiful people we have know are those who have known defeat, known
suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep, loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." 
~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross~

"The road to healing is a rocky one, and you need to know that. There are times when every fibre in your body will scream out to give up. In these moments, God is right there with you, holding your head up, and carrying you when you cannot walk anymore. Even if you are holding on with your teeth, and your knuckles are red and bleeding, it is crucial that you still hold on. Don’t give up! You have too much to lose!"
~Corallie Buchanan~