Healing the Healer: Why It Took Me So Long to Share My Gifts

For the longest time, I held back. I had all this knowledge, all these healing tools, all these practices that I knew could change lives, but I couldn’t bring myself to offer them to others. Not because I didn’t believe in them—trust me, I did. But because I was still drowning in my own pain, and it felt unfair to guide others through their healing while my heart was still shattered in pieces.

I was existing, moving through life like I was fine—because I had to be. Functional depression will do that to you. You show up, you smile, you pour into everyone around you, but when you’re alone, the silence is deafening. And when you’ve experienced heartbreak in a way that completely shifts your soul, that silence doesn’t just sit in the background—it consumes you.

For me, my heart has always been my biggest space. It’s where I lead from, where I love from, where I heal from. And when that space was broken, everything else felt unstable. So how could I offer healing to others when I was still waking up every day trying to convince myself that I was okay?

I needed time. Time to grieve, to release, to sit with all the versions of myself that had been left behind in the wake of my pain. Time to unlearn the idea that healing is linear, that there’s a perfect moment when you’re “ready” to help others. I needed time to accept that healing isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence.

And that’s when things started to shift.

I realized that healing doesn’t mean never feeling the weight of your wounds—it means knowing how to hold them without letting them bury you. It means recognizing that even in your pain, you still have light to offer. And it means understanding that the very thing I was waiting for—some magical moment of “complete healing”—was never going to come, because healing is a journey, not a destination.

So, I’m here now. Ready in a way that I wasn’t before. Not because I’m fully healed, but because I’ve made peace with the process. Because I know now that my ability to guide others isn’t dependent on being perfect—it’s rooted in being real.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to be fully whole before you could share your gifts with the world, I see you. I was you. And I want you to know that your healing, your journey, your story—it’s enough. Even in your becoming, you still have the power to help others become.

And that? That’s what healing in community is all about.

— Kristin