Do we ever really heal?

A question I've been asking myself lately, do we ever really heal? but what does healing really means? Does it mean that we move on and we are able to look back at whatever happened as just a memory? or does it mean that we just don't talk about it anymore, that it does not affect us in any way, shape or form later on, that we never look back and think about it with regret...
Everyone says that we should live a life that has no regrets because even when we have done something wrong we still have learned a lesson, so if the lesson was learned then why regret it? That even when we meet the wrong people we still learn something from them so why regret meeting them? why regret having spent time with the wrong people because if we hadn't then we wouldn't know who the right people are...
Well we are all human, we will have regrets and maybe we will tell ourselves at some point that if this had not happened then this would not have happened and we would go on and on, and eventually we would make ourselves find a way to make it all make sense, and if we can't do it, then we convince ourselves that one day it will all make sense and that's how we go on, but do we really heal?
I don't think we really do, we keep in our minds that which hurt us and if a similar situation arises then we run, we pull away just to make sure that we don't get hurt again, it's human nature and nothing more, we protect ourselves from getting burned again by not putting our hands in the fire, because after the first time we knew that it hurt so why even try again? Maybe to create some sort of resilience, but when we do that we numb ourselves and suddenly we don't feel anymore....
So which one is good? to not get hurt again or to put ourselves in a position to not feel anymore, because nothing in between can really happen, after a while, after enough bad things have happened, suddenly you just don't care but why would you? if that's all you know then you get up and keep going, and then you learn to pretend that it does not bother you, you learn to keep a smile on your face even when you feel like everything will fall apart in just one minute....
On the other side if you don't jump in for the opportunity that life has given you then are you really living? So many contradictions about everything, how do we even know that we are alive? Is it because we feel? or is it because we have the ability to heal and learn?
My mom keeps telling me that growing hurts, maybe that's why we hurt so much, because we grow with every bad thing that happen to us, or with every "mistake" we make, and then it goes back to, do we ever heal?
I feel like we don't, even when we think we have, something new comes up and that reminds us of a different issue we had before and suddenly everything piles up one on top of each other and you think that there has to be a point when it will all stop, and life will make sense again, that peace will be restored... But it never really is, because as we grow we get more things to learn, we get more lessons that life throws at us, and it is never ending... We look back and think well I wish I was a kid, that's when things were so easy,  but when we are kids we wish we were adults because we would get more freedom...
We never really get the time we need to heal, because that's just how life is, in the one moment that you are taking a time out to heal and forget and move on, in that very moment life throws you another ball, have you ever notice that? Life does not allow us to really truly heal, because if it did then we would make the same mistakes over and over again and then what would the point of that be?
There is this saying that says "I'd rather live a life of oh wells than a life of what ifs", do we ever really truly mean the oh well, it did not work out but at least I tried and then never look back and asked what if I did not try, what if I missed out on something greater? We will never know but I am sure that we all ask...
I am not sure that we will ever get to truly heal, I think we will all go on pretending that we did and that's how the world will continue to keep moving, and I am not sure that is such a bad thing, maybe that is what keeps us alive, the knowing that we made a mistake, the regretting it, the asking what if I had done something different? Those are questions that at some point in our lives we will ask ourselves and someone will come along and tell us how it is not a good idea to regret anything, that the what ifs don't matter because you can never prove them, so you push them back and teach yourself to not ask those questions anymore, but do me a favor please do, take the time to feel that if you did something wrong well you did it, no one expects you to be perfect, I am not saying accept it completely and don't change, I am saying that is ok to regret, it's ok to ask what if? what is not ok is to stay in that same pattern for the rest of your life, at some point find the answer that makes the most sense to you and go with it... because why not? why not ask, why not regret? maybe if people regretted more then our world would have changed for the better long time ago, but then again we only regret what we have or have not done, even though we are told to never regret what we have done, what's done is done, and then we are told to regret that which we did not do... The world is so full of contradictions!!! So tell you what, regret whatever you want to regret and ask what if to whatever you want to ask what if to, just try to not get stuck on it, at some point take the time you need to lay down and sleep on it, sometimes we are just too tired and then all makes sense the next day... Or maybe it doesn't but if it doesn't then there is one more day you were given to figure it out right?