What does healing mean to you?

A client recently told me her therapist said she wouldn’t heal from a trauma for at least two years. I found that such an interesting—and limiting—way to frame healing, as if it has a start and end date. That might make sense if we’re talking about a cure, like a round of antibiotics the doctor prescribes: take the meds for two weeks, and the infection will clear. But healing is not the same as curing.
So what is healing?
Healing, as I see it, is a continuum. It requires patience and sincerity. It's not about returning to who you were before (unless you're using magic—or just not paying attention). According to the Yoga Sutras, the path to higher consciousness requires effort, discipline, self-study, and surrender. In other words, you have to actively participate, it requires work, and you have to let go of wanting everything to be like it was before. Every small shift in consciousness is a kind of healing. Each moment of insight, each upward movement, helps us stitch back together the illusion of fragmentation.
Yoga teaches that true healing comes when we remember we are not separate from the whole. The belief that we are seperate is the first and deepest wound. From there, life continues to fragment us in small and large ways, leaving us like a shattered mirror, reflecting much smaller parts of ourselves that are often in battle with each other. Each role we play—at work, at home, with friends, etc.— represents one of these fragments, and will most likely be in conflict with the others. While shifting roles can be skillful—and often necessary—we risk exhaustion if we forget that beneath them is one unchanging self. Once you see that, the roles can play together very nicely. 
The healing journey, then, is a return to wholeness—so we become like an unbroken mirror and see the full reflection of who we are. And that takes time. Integration is key. Without it, even profound insights remain theoretical—and those just become more shards in the shattered mirror. Integration means you know something in your bones. It becomes so real, you no longer feel the need to defend it. (Want to test that? Reflect on what you feel compelled to defend—and what you don’t.)
Healing isn’t just about one incident, trauma, or wound. If we try to heal in fragments, we’re just putting tape on the mirror. The bad news? You can’t heal selectively. The good news? You don’t have to. True healing leaves nothing behind.