60 empowering quotes about forgiveness & healing.

How do you handle forgiveness? Are you quick to forgive those who have wronged you? In your definition what does it mean to truly forgive someone? Or should I say, what does it mean to forgive yourself? I often hear that we should forgive others the way we would want God to forgive us, and if we can't forgive others; God won't forgive us. That's easier said than done.

You don't just walk up to the person who ripped your whole life apart and say, I forgive you because I want God to forgive me. You don't just get up and say, I'm going to forget a heinous act that gives me sleepless nights. Forgiveness is a process. Healing happens in stages. I remember being emotionally hurt by someone who should have known better. I still can't fathom how someone could be so crude toward another person.

Many of the persons who hurt us, know what they are doing, and they will never take responsibility for their actions. There are apologies that will never come, people will find ways to play the victim and justify their actions. Time doesn't always take the pain with it. It's something that you have to live with. Sometimes it makes you angry. Those memories don't die! Forgiveness doesn't mean that you choose to forget what transpired and move on with your life.

There are some things that you will never forget, but you must choose to bury the hurt, or you'll never be healed. When you've come to realize that you need to do this for yourself because you deserve a life that is better than the bitterness eating at your heart. You can no longer make room for resentment. It must be ushered out, so healing can enter in.

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.”
― Steve Maraboli

“When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.”
― Jon Krakauer

“The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. It is one of the great virtues to which we all should aspire. Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology. Is there any problem that could not be solved among people who possessed the humility and largeness of spirit and soul to do either -- or both -- when needed?”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
― Marvin J. Ashton

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
― Thomas Szasz

“A heart filled with anger has no room for love.”
― Joan Lunden

“When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear... When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.”
― Gerald G. Jampolsky

“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”
― Libba Bray

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
― Marianne Williamson

“I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, every day, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself "That's just fine". You have to forgive yourself so much until you don't even see those things anymore. Because that's what love is like.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
― David Richo

“Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it but also the father who wipes away the tears.”
― Criss Jami

“do not look for healing
at the feet of those
who broke you”
― Rupi Kaur

“To be rejected by someone doesn't mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn't mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only ONE person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurt so much because to you, that person's opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world, of God.”
― Jocelyn Soriano

“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 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

“This life is for loving, sharing, learning, smiling, caring, forgiving, laughing, hugging, helping, dancing, wondering, healing, and even more loving. I choose to live life this way. I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says, 'aw shit, he's up!”
― Steve Maraboli

“I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.”
― Wm. Paul Young

“I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.”
― Jennifer Elisabeth

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”
― Robert James Waller

“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.”
― Steve Goodier

“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.”
― Robert Brault

“We have to heal our wounded world. The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment.”
― Michael Jackson

“We are all wounded. But wounds are necessary for his healing light to enter into our beings. Without wounds and failure and frustrations and defeats, there will be no opening for his brilliance to tickle in and invade our lives. Failures in life are courses with very high tuition fees, so I don't cut classes and miss my lessons: on humility, on patience, on hope, on asking others for help, on listening to God, on trying again and again, and again.”
― Bo Sanchez

“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

“You don't need another Human Being to make your life complete, but let's be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn't see them as disasters In your soul, but cracks to put their love into, Is the most calming thing In this World.”
― Emery Allen

You can run away from yourself so often, and so much, just because the broken pieces of you cut your feet too deeply if you stay around for too long. But then what if someone were to come along and pick up those pieces for you? Then you wouldn't have to run away from yourself anymore. You could stop running. If someone sees you as something worth staying with— maybe you'll stay with yourself, too.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me, they are proof of the fact that there is healing.”
― Linda Hogan

“So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was—and am—innocent.” The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis”

“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

“The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.”
― Mother Teresa

“As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.”
― Maya Angelou

“you look at me and cry
everything hurts

I hold you and whisper
but everything can heal”
― Rupi Kaur

“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 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

“Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you. Stress shortens your lifespan. Even a broken heart can kill you. There is an undeniable mind-body connection. Your arguments and hateful talk can land you in the emergency room or in the morgue. You were not meant to live in a fever of anxiety; screaming yourself hoarse in a frenzy of dreadful, panicked fight-or-flight that leaves you exhausted and numb with grief. You were not meant to live like animals tearing one another to shreds. Don't turn your hair gray. Don't carve a roadmap of pain into the sweet wrinkles on your face. Don't lay in the quiet with your heart pounding like a trapped, frightened creature. For your own precious and beautiful life, and for those around you — seek help or get out before it is too late. This is your wake-up call!”
― Bryant McGill

“And here you are living
despite it all”
― Rupi Kaur

“No one heals himself by wounding another.”
― St. Ambrose

“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

“I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.”
― Jennifer Elisabeth

“The sun shall always rise upon a new day and there shall always be a rose garden within me. Yes, there is a part of me that is broken, but my broken soil gives way to my wild roses.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful.''
― Stephen Levine

“You've been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
― Louise Hay

“The wound you refuse to dress is one that will never heal. You gush lifeblood and never even know why. It will make you weak at a critical moment when you need to be strong.”
― Karen Marie Moning

“Those who overcome great challenges will be changed, and often in unexpected ways. For our struggles enter our lives as unwelcome guests, but they bring valuable gifts. And once the pain subsides, the gifts remain. These gifts are life's true treasures, bought at a great price, but cannot be acquired in any other way.”
― Steve Goodier

“1. You must let the pain visit.
2. You must allow it to teach you
3. You must not allow it to overstay.

(Three routes to healing)”
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo

“It is important for people to know that no matter what lies in their past, they can overcome the dark side and press on to a brighter world.”
― Dave Pelzer

“We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice, or misfortune. All of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We each must find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. For each pang of grief, depression, doubt, or despair there is an inverse toward renewal coming to you in time. Each tragedy is an announcement that some goodwill indeed comes in time. Be patient with yourself.”
― Bryant McGill

“Everybody’s damaged. It’s just a question of how badly, and whether you’re healing or still bleeding.”
― Angela N. Blount

“My heart will still ache sometimes. Maybe more often than not. I think it's possible to be healed without feeling whole.”
― Monica Hesse

“it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”
― Barack Obama

“Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it.''
― Stephen Levine

“Given enough time and distance, the heart will always heal.”
― Laura Fitzgerald

''But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.”
― Robert Uttaro

“Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“Every time you mistreat someone, you reveal the part of you that lacks love and needs to heal.”
― Kemi Sogunle

“There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and its continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment.”
― Jeanne McElvaney

“No one sees your strength, do they? No one sees the silent battle you fight against the overprotective mind that’s trying to keep you safe from harm by keeping you safe from risk, safe from connection, safe from honesty. Maybe others don’t see, but you see it sometimes, don’t you? In the mirror, in those eyes, begging for someone to notice. You have noticed. It is real. You are strong. You are fighting for something incredible. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise—especially not your thoughts.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

“We all have thorns in our flesh. All of us. Love is when we stay and help someone pluck out their thorns one by one and they do the same for us. Love is also when we pluck the thorns out of our own flesh, one by one. But today, the world teaches us that we shouldn’t even see those thorns, that we should only see the petals. As a result, we don’t know how to love ourselves and we don’t know how to love others. Stay with the darkness, and bring that darkness into the light. It’s there, look at it.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“You think you can avoid [pain,] but you actually can't. If you do, you just get sicker, or you feel more pain. But if you can speak it, if you can write it, if you can paint it, it is very healing.”
― Alice Walker

“Healing is more about accepting the pain and finding a way to peacefully co-exist with it. In the sea of life, pain is a tide that will ebb and weave, continually.

We need to learn how to let it wash over us, without drowning in it. Our life doesn't have to end where the pain begins, but rather, it is where we start to mend.”
― Jaeda DeWalt

“There is comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.”
― Ellen Bass

“The good news is you survived. The bad news is you're hurt and no one can heal you but yourself.”
― Clementine von Radics

Thank you for taking the time out to read these amazing quotes. Remember forgiveness doesn't excuse what the offender has done, but we must do what's in our best interest to set ourselves free. Sometimes the offender is us and we must learn to forgive ourselves too.