I went to visit a friend of mine, a priest I hadn’t seen in a while. We’d agreed to meet on a Monday afternoon at the parish. I arrived right on time, but his phone was off, and for a while, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

So I took a slow walk around the parish compound. The place was peaceful, touched by stillness, birds above, gravel below. Then he appeared; emerging from the garden with a gentle smile.

“I couldn’t find you,” I said.

“I was with another brother,” he replied, “I went for advice. It took longer than I expected” he added.

Something about that moment made me pause. He went for advice. Something was troubling him.

And suddenly, the image of him shifted, not as the priest, not as the spiritual guide, not as the one who always has the words, but as a man, someone carrying something heavy.

I found myself asking inwardly about Priests:
Do they also get troubled? Do they also need help? Someone to speak to?

He must have caught the questions spinning in my silence, because he smiled gently and said: “Mganga hajigangi.” (The healer cannot heal himself.)

He explained to me that very person we trust with our wounds is helpless with their own. That the one who guides others out of darkness still stumbles in his own. But this is not weakness, it’s design.

See, when we face other people’s problems, we see with clarity. We are not entangled. We are not triggered. The pain does not wear our name. We can step back, examine the pattern, offer direction. Our hands are steady because our hearts are unburdened.

But when the problem is ours?
It is no longer theory, it is personal.
It lives in our chest, tangled in our childhood, stitched into our identity.
Solving it would mean confronting our fear, our pride, our blind spots.
And we are terrible at confronting the places we hide from.

Even when we try, we often play both roles therapist and client, judge and defender. We diagnose with bias. We resist our own medicine.

But here’s the truth; We are not built to heal in isolation. Just as we carry the gift to lift others, others carry the gift to lift us.

That is not failure, it is nature. It is what keeps this world beautifully stitched together:
A cycle of healing passed hand to hand.
A trust in one another’s strength.
A divine interdependence.

So the next time you feel the shame of needing help, pause.
Understand that you, too, are part of this rhythm.
That offering your struggle to someone else is not surrender;
It is wisdom.
It is bravery.
It is faith in the very design that allows you to help others.

And when someone comes to you with their pain,
Don’t forget they chose you not because they are weak,
But because they believe in your strength.

And on that day;

I came to speak, but I learned to listen.
I came to receive comfort, but I witnessed humility.
I came to unburden, and yet I left lighter not because my problems were solved, But because I saw the truth:

Even those we lean on lean on others.
Even the strong need softness.
Even the healers need healing.

And maybe that’s the most sacred design of all,
That we are not whole alone,
But in the holding of each other.