One of the biggest scams we’ve ever been sold is the idea that time heals everything. It sounds comforting. Gentle. Hopeful. Something people say when they don’t know what else to offer. But if you’ve lived long enough, loved deeply enough, or lost something that truly mattered, you know the truth is far more complicated.
Time doesn’t heal.
We just get older.
The pain doesn’t vanish. It doesn’t magically dissolve as the years pass. Instead, it settles—into quieter corners of our hearts, into memories we don’t visit as often, into moments that catch us off guard when we least expect it. We learn how to carry it better, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone.
Life keeps moving forward whether we’re ready or not. We go to work. We laugh at jokes. We fall in love again. We experience joy, sometimes real joy, and for moments it feels like we’re okay. But some aches never truly leave. They change shape. They soften at the edges. They become less sharp, less loud—but they’re still there.
And that’s okay.
We need to stop treating healing like it’s supposed to end with forgetting. Forgetting is not the goal. If anything, forgetting can feel like a betrayal of what we went through, of what we lost, of who we were in those moments. Healing isn’t erasing the past. It’s learning how to live fully with it.
There’s a quiet strength in accepting that certain experiences will always be part of you. Not as open wounds, but as scars—evidence that you survived something that once tried to break you. Scars don’t hurt the way wounds do, but they still remind you of what happened. And they don’t need to disappear to prove you’ve healed.
Sometimes we measure healing the wrong way. We think if we still feel sad, triggered, or affected, then something must be wrong with us. But healing isn’t a straight line, and it’s definitely not a deadline. You can be healed and still hurt. You can be strong and still feel pain. You can move forward without being “over it.”
The real work of healing is learning how to coexist with what hurt you without letting it control you. It’s being able to say, Yes, this still aches sometimes—but it no longer defines my entire life. It’s choosing to build joy alongside the pain, not waiting for the pain to disappear before you allow yourself to live.
There’s also a kind of maturity that comes with this understanding. You stop chasing the version of yourself that existed before the hurt. You stop wishing you could go back to who you were. Instead, you start honoring who you’ve become because of it. Wiser. More aware. More careful with your heart, but also more intentional with your love.
Accepting lingering pain doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re honest. It means you’re human. Some losses change us forever, and pretending otherwise only adds another layer of suffering. Peace doesn’t come from denial—it comes from acceptance.
So if you’ve ever felt frustrated because time didn’t “fix” you the way everyone promised it would, know this: you’re not broken. You’re not failing at healing. You’re simply learning how to live with depth.
Healing isn’t about being untouched by pain.
It’s about living well despite it.
And sometimes, that’s the bravest thing you can do.
TheSpiritualExplorer 