The healing is in learning how to meet the pain. It might have been impossible to meet the original pain when we were 5 or 14 or even 20, but now we can step closer. As we start to heal, we can learn to hold the pain, tenderly and gently, like a newborn child. We can learn to hold it in our arms and tend to it; we can integrate it and no longer need to create these situations in our lives.
As we become the parent we always needed, we are permanently changed.