My Healing Journey

Hi, I am Nino.

My healing journey has been long, painful and deeply transformative. Childhood trauma led to C-PTSD and shaped the way I related to myself and the world. I lived in survival mode for decades. Shut down, disconnected from my body, and wearing a mask to function. The freeze response was never a choice. It was self-defence from a world I couldn’t feel safe in. Shame, guilt and confusion pulled me away from the people I cared about. Chronic pain became the physical expression of wounds I didn't understand, and wasn't ready to face.

By the age of 40, my body finally gave out. Years of nervous system overload, and the stresses of high-pressure leadership roles in the corporate world took their toll. I left South Africa for a new start in the UK, but there, the isolation grew and the depression deepened. The pain intensified and became relentless. I continued to search for answers, trying everything, but nothing changed. Traditional medicine told me it was all in my head, which didn't resonate and wasn't a solution. I was lost and dissociated from reality.

Three years later I finally received clarity. After months of specialist care I learnt that I had been living with ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia for over a decade. It explained why daily life had felt like torture for so long. My body was like a really old phone battery that only charges to a third of its capacity. Use it for the smallest thing and the battery drains. The cost of pushing past my limited capacity, was migraines and crashes that wiped me out for days. Real recovery meant years of deep rest and boundaries. Accepting this was humbling.

I began rebuilding slowly, listening to my body instead of fighting it. The pandemic hit as I was ready to start emerging, and pushed my right back into my darkness. The forced isolation sparked a true dark night of the soul It broke my spirit but it was the much needed catalyst that led to my spiritual awakening in my mid-40s. I questioned everything I thought I knew. Uncovering the blind spots I’d been living with my entire life. My consciousness experienced a quantum shift and everything changed.

Not long after, I was guided to Merlin Healing®, and immediately recognised the website from 10 years earlier, after I'd received a treatment which really left an impression. I wasn’t ready then but returning to it felt like a key unlocking a door I didn't know existed. This modality accelerated my healing by assisting to release layers of trauma and distortion. The change was steady and grounded. A slow remembrance and a real return to myself. I still work with energy daily to manage my pain and keep my energy balanced and regulated.

I gradually reclaimed my body, mind and spirit. As the emotional weight lifted, my nervous system found space to reset. Old patterns fell away and clarity returned. My relationship with my body blossomed. Within two years, I no longer identified as a victim, and stopped being defined by ME/CFS. I was living again and I was free.

Spirituality became my anchor. Meditation. Nature. Stillness. Meeting the Shadow with compassion. These were the things that guided my path back. I learnt to meet myself with patience and surrender. To sit with my experience instead of running from it. To see pain as the teacher instead of a punishment. Became a better healer as the result.

The version of me who once felt numb, lost and trapped by my reality, feels like someone from another lifetime. My past became medicine. Now I feel called to share my new frequency, been shaped by what has been alchemised. To hold space for those who are ready to return to themselves. Even in the darkest places there is light waiting.