“This too shall pass.”😬
It’s a phrase we’ve heard countless times. Whispered by well-meaning friends. Shared on motivational posters. Written into the captions of social media posts. It’s the kind of quote that gets recycled so often it begins to feel like background noise — comforting, yes, but distant. Abstract. Passive.
Until life happens. 😢
Until you're lying in bed at 2:43 AM, staring at the ceiling, your heart heavier than your chest can carry. Until you're walking through a day where nothing seems or tastes right, no smile feels real, and hope sits somewhere too far down the road for your legs to reach. Then, someone says it to you again — “This too shall pass, don't worry it's gonna be fine.”
But this time, it doesn’t feel like comfort.
It feels like a lie.
I've been there, You've been there, we've been there.
A place where everything just seems all a lie.
There's this notion that we hold onto: that pain has an expiry date.
We anticipate grief to become exhausted. We think that heartbreak will fade away as morning dew under the sun. We say to ourselves, as long as I keep breathing, as long as I keep moving, so long as I keep distracting myself, then I would forget what has broken me.
But what happens when we do not? What happens when you find out it's never gonna be okay?😢
What do you do when the wound does not heal, when the days go by and you are still in the same state that you needed to move on?
What would happen if you prayed, and journaled and drank water and went on walks and practiced gratitude- and still… the ache was still there?
Here’s the truth that most people are too afraid to admit: some things don’t pass.
Not in the way you hope. Not in the way you were told they would.
Pain is sometimes like a tenant that has no intention of moving out. Occasionally the thing that hurts you makes its way into your narrative, not as a chapter you skip over, but as a paragraph that shows up on every page. You take it with you when you make new friends, new jobs, new years.
It can be blunted. It can be made manageable. However, it does not completely vanish.
That is alright.
Since healing is not always about forgetting.
I spent years trying to outrun sadness, as if it were a disease I needed to cure. I thought growth meant smiling through it, being stronger than my emotions, rising above my wounds.
But what I’ve come to learn — slowly, painfully — is this:
Some pain doesn’t pass. Some pain teaches
The breakup that shattered you may never be “over 💔.” The loss of a loved one may always leave an empty seat in your heart.😭 The mistake you made might continue to echo in your mind from time to time.
But those things don’t mean you’ve failed to heal.
They mean you’ve learned to live with what once tried to break you.
That’s not weakness. That’s resilience.
That’s transformation.
We are fond of the concept of healing as an arc. An increasing graph of pain to peace. A consistent process of fracture to complete.
The process of healing is ugly. It’s circular.
You have some days when you feel very strong, powerful, and beautiful.
On other days you think that you have stepped ten steps back.
And on those days, when someone throws out to you, this too shall pass, it may be like an insult. As though they do not care about how deep your experience is.
However, what if we put the quote in a different light?
But what happens when this too shall pass is not an indication that the pain will go away?
Suppose that it means you will learn to carry it?
What if it means that one day, this moment will not seem so all-consuming, not because it is over, but because you are not the same?
Perhaps the saying that this too shall pass is not a promise of relief.
Perhaps it is a suggestion of a whisper that nothing in the world remains unchanged.
You will not be feeling so overwhelmed every time.
It is not always the same thing that you will be crying about.
You will not always wake up with that dread in the chest.
The pain could however be present just a bit tamer, more comfortable.
It is like an old song that once broke you down, and whose only effect now is to make you sigh.
And that is healing also.
A while ago, I went through a season where I couldn’t feel joy. Everything was grey. I would laugh at a joke and then feel hollow the second the smile faded. I remember writing down in my journal, “What if I never feel better?” and then closing it because I didn’t want to face the answer.
It was in that moment I realized, I wasn’t waiting for the pain to pass.
I was waiting for permission to live while hurting.
So I started doing little things:
Taking new courses.
Watching the Stars at night.
Going for a swim.
Sitting in sunlight for five minutes.
Texting someone even when I didn’t feel like talking.
Writing — not to fix anything, but to feel seen.
And slowly, I changed.
Not the pain. Not the past.
Me.
And when you are in a season of waiting, a time to get through grief, a time to move beyond the sadness, a time to move beyond the anxiety no longer rattling in your chest, I see you.
And I will never say that it will all go away.
Yet I will say to you:
You are more than what you feel today.
You are not broken because you're still hurting.
You are allowed to carry both pain and progress.
You are allowed to move forward with a limp.
and even though this does not completely pass…
You will.
“This too shall pass., it's gonna be okay.”
Yes. But not always in the way we imagine.
Sometimes pain fades.
Sometimes it changes shape.
Sometimes it stays, but you get stronger.
And sometimes… that’s the most beautiful healing of all.
I really what to know what you really think and how you felt reading this ☺️
Thank you for supporting me, and please do check out my other piece and give me a follow 🫂🤗
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