For many years, I looked for healing and validation from external sources. As simple as it sounds, I had always wanted my father to come back to us and say that he loved us and that he had fixed all his problems. All I wanted was to be loved and to have a happy family.

When I grew older, I knew that my father wouldn’t come back, but then I tried to find healing and wholeness through relationships. I would fall in love and mistakenly think that all my problems would be solved because I found love.

But that wasn’t the case.

Trying to find healing and wholeness through someone else is like chasing after fool’s gold.

I didn’t know that at the time and I struggled to figure out why I felt broken and how my relationships would splinter and fall apart.

The simple truth is this: Healing comes from within.

As kids who grew up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional family, we need to heal ourselves and process the trauma we went through. We can’t be “fixed” by looking outward.

We can try to repress, ignore, or throw ourselves into our work and relationships, but we will continue to have problems in our romantic relationships until we make the effort to find healing.

The work that we need to do will take time, and the road toward healing will be slightly different for each of us.

For today, take time to take stock of where you are on the journey. Name why you’re unhappy and decide what you can do to help yourself move forward. The list of tools that will help you are numerous (therapy, twelve-step group, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, journal writing, etc.) and it will take time, but healing is possible.

It just takes time.

I’ll leave you today with a quote from Saint Francis de Sales:

“Have patience with all things but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumphs or tribulations can ever change that.”

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.