As traumatised children we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves, as adults.

~ Alice Little

Art by Ruth Evans Art

Painting by Allison Adams

Freydoon Rassouli

Photo by Sarah Treanor

I will choose silence and space over chaos and conflict any day. If I find myself engaged in a never ending battle of wills with someone who tries to manufacture problems out of everything I do or say, distance is my solution. It’s the only solution I need. I refuse to allow anyone’s internal battle to become a war that I have to fight.

~ Kalen Dion
Art: Andrea Kowch

Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen
Art by Odilon Redon

May we stop seeing ourselves through the eyes of people that never saw us.

~ Shane Steele
Art: "Camouflage" - Cecelia Paredes

Our lives ask us to die and to be reborn every time we confront change – change within ourselves and change in the world. When we descend all the way down to the bottom of a loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self – the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.

~ Elizabeth Lesser
Art by Catrin Welz-Stein

When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.

~ Dr Jean Shinoda Bolen

You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you - a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.

~ Joseph Campbell

I find them fascinating, admirable even; those people who are sensitive enough to feel everything, but tough enough to endure it.

~ Daniel Saint
Art: Christian Schloe

Trauma happens and harms us. But I often wonder if the worst trauma is the second wave - when your story is misbelieved, mistrusted and maligned.
May your story find safe harbour in the presence of people who will honour both your vulnerability and resilience.

~ K. J. Ramsey - Photo by Sarah Treanor

If you go to thinking, take your heart with you. If you go to love, take your head with you. Love is empty without thinking, thinking hollow without love.

~ C. G. Jung - Art: Igor Morski

Only the wounded physician heals.

~ C. G. Jung

We are not meant to stay wounded. We are supposed to move through our tragedies and challenges and to help each other move through the many painful episodes of our lives. By remaining stuck in the power of our wounds, we block our own transformation. We overlook the greater gifts inherent in our wounds - the strength to overcome them and the lessons that we are meant to receive through them. Wounds are the means through which we enter the hearts of other people. They are meant to teach us to become compassionate and wise.

- Caroline Myss