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This week is hard.

Work is hard. My emotions are a mess. My thoughts are scattered and inappropriate. My body is tired.

I chose a profession based on the fact that I could {potentially} make an impact in people’s lives.

And yet, time and time again I feel like I am failing.

I see little progress. I am left day after day with questions.

“Do my clients trust me enough to open up?”
“Did I miss something?”
“Could I have said more, done more, been more?”

There’s no training that truly prepares you for losing a client. No checklist that softens the weight of knowing someone you sat across from… someone you tried to reach… is gone.

And the hardest part is the silence that follows.

The “next sessions” that will never come.

It makes me go back and replay everything.

Every session.
Every word.

And while all of this is happening… life doesn’t stop.

The other clients still show up.
The expectations are still there.
The world keeps moving like nothing happened.

And I am reminded… this is EXACTLY what those in my life will feel if I give up. They are rooting for me. They are pouring into me. They are begging me to trust them. They are begging me to listen to them.

And that’s the part that stops me.

Because I finally see it from the other side.

I see what it’s like to care for someone… to show up, to try, to hope… and still not be able to force them to choose life.

I see how powerless that feels.
How heavy that sits.
How long that silence echoes.

And I don’t want to leave that behind for the people who love me.

Not like that.

So even in the middle of pain… even in the middle of my own battles with addiction, heartache, and exhaustion… I am choosing something different.

Staying when I want to run.
Staying when the thoughts get loud.
Staying when the urge to numb everything feels like the only option.

Because maybe that’s what this really comes down to.

Not saving everyone.
Not having all the right words.
Not carrying outcomes that were never mine to control.

But choosing, over and over again, to be present.

For my clients.
For my people.
For myself.

So here I am—hurting, questioning, grieving… and still choosing to stay.

God, I don’t have the words for how I feel today. Heal me. Teach me how to carry this without letting it destroy me.