Healing is a long-term practice...

Healing isn't a short term process. It's a long term practice. Because it's not just about healing the wound itself. It's also about retrieving what has been lost, integrating new parts, maturing in the places that the trauma obstructed. It's about developing into the truest version of yourself possible, after years of buired below the weight of adaptation and disguise. It's about catching up to yourself, after years on the run. Healing is a long term practice. - Jeff Brown

When a person finally feels safe enough to talk about their trauma openly- or even speak admissions privately to themselves- a bold and powerful moment is born. And in the midst of these initial breaths are the tender, courageous steps towards healing. Opening typically comes organically in nature, yet I have seen it rushed before its time. I have seen unseasonable temperatures press the fragile bud to break too early. When the air gently warms the supple heart, it will open in its own way. The heart knows when it feels safe and warm enough to unfurl. - Susan Frybort, Open Passages

It takes a powerful person to cry out, despite those who'd prefer the convenience of silence. It takes a fearless person to allow their sadness to come out from the tight box of cultural expectations to be expressed and processed. And it takes a world of strength for that same person to be true to their feelings, own their emotional territory, to walk into the very chaos of its outright messiness, and uncover the paragons of victgory and joy that were held by them, for such an aching long time, so quietly within. - Susan Frybort