THE HEALER WHO NEEDED HEALING | Native Heal

There is a side of being a traditional healer that people seldom talk about: the side where the healer becomes the one who needs healing. People often associat…

By Mkhulu Nyoni, traditional healer

There is a side of being a traditional healer that people seldom talk about: the side where the healer becomes the one who needs healing.

People often associate traditional healing with spiritual strength, wisdom, resilience and the ability to guide others through difficult seasons of their lives. There is an unspoken expectation that those who carry a spiritual calling should somehow possess an extraordinary ability to withstand life's challenges.

But beneath the calling is a human being.

A human being who loves, dreams, builds relationships, experiences disappointment and, sometimes, suffers losses that fundamentally alter the course of their life.

I have come to know this side of healing more intimately.

Losing someone I loved profoundly brought me face to face with a reality I had perhaps understood intellectually but never fully appreciated emotionally. Death has a way of changing the landscape of one's existence. It interrupts routines, dismantles plans, challenges familiar ways of thinking and leaves behind questions that do not always have immediate answers.

And when you are a healer, the experience can be particularly complex.

You are accustomed to holding space for other people's pain. You listen, guide, offer perspective and help people navigate the difficult intersections of their physical, emotional and spiritual lives. Yet, when grief enters your own home, you discover that knowledge and understanding do not necessarily make the pain more bearable.

There were moments when I had to confront the uncomfortable reality that I could not spiritualise my way out of heartbreak. I could not simply draw on my understanding of life, death and spirituality to make the absence less painful.

I had to grieve.

I had to allow myself to be a woman who had lost someone she loved. Not a healer expected to have answers. Not a spiritual practitioner expected to demonstrate strength. Just a human being trying to understand how to live in a world that had suddenly become unfamiliar.

My journey has taught me that grief does not discriminate according to spiritual calling. It does not spare those who understand traditional practices, those who pray, those who perform rituals or those who dedicate their lives to helping others.

A healer can be spiritually grounded and emotionally broken at the same time.

I have also come to appreciate that grief is not a reflection of spiritual weakness. Neither is the depth of one's pain an indication of a failure to accept the natural cycle of life and death. Sometimes, grief is simply the expression of a love that was meaningful, transformative and deeply woven into one's existence.

I am learning that carrying someone's memory does not mean remaining imprisoned in the circumstances of their departure. It means finding ways to honour what they contributed to your life while allowing yourself the freedom to continue living.

This experience has changed the way I understand healing.

I no longer see healing simply as the process of removing pain, restoring balance or finding solutions to life's difficulties. I see it as the courage to sit with discomfort, to acknowledge vulnerability and to give oneself permission to experience life without constantly having to appear strong.

There have been seasons when simply getting through the day was an achievement. Moments when the world continued moving while I was still trying to make sense of my own. I have learnt that healing does not always happen in visible or predictable ways. Sometimes it is quiet. Sometimes it is slow. Sometimes it looks like choosing to get out of bed, tending to something that needs nurturing, reconnecting with loved ones or finding the courage to participate in life again.

I have also learnt the importance of allowing others to hold space for me. For someone accustomed to being a source of guidance and support, receiving care can be an unfamiliar experience. Yet vulnerability has taught me that there is no shame in needing people, in seeking support or in admitting that some days are harder than others.

Perhaps the greatest lesson has been understanding that I cannot separate the healer from the human being.

My calling does not require me to abandon my humanity. It does not demand that I suppress my emotions or pretend to have mastered every experience that life places before me.

I can guide others while still finding my own way. I can offer compassion while learning to extend that same compassion to myself. I can hold space for someone else's healing while acknowledging that there are parts of my own journey that are still unfolding.

Losing someone I loved has not taken away my calling. But it has changed the way I understand it. It has made me more conscious of the tenderness required when dealing with another person's pain. It has reminded me that behind every person seeking healing is a story, a history, a vulnerability and, often, a pain that cannot be measured by what is visible.

Perhaps there is something profoundly humbling about this realisation.

The healer is not someone who has escaped suffering. The healer is someone who, like everyone else, must learn to navigate the complexities of being human.

And sometimes, the most important healing lesson is not about what we know, what we practise or what we teach others.

It is about what life teaches us when we are the ones who need to be held.

I am a healer, but I am also human. I have known love, I have known loss, and I am learning that both can exist within the same heart.

Perhaps that, too, is part of the healing journey.