There are parts of this work that are hard. People expect that. They imagine the difficulty in broad terms. What is harder to convey is the accumulation, the steady and unrelenting exposure to loss that does not resolve between shifts.
Burnout is common, almost predictable. Many of us enter this work energized and determined to make a difference. I did. What I learned quickly is that if this work is truly your calling, sustainability depends on learning how to care for yourself and how to recognize small victories. If you cannot see and hold onto incremental change, the work will consume you. Sometimes those victories are quiet. A wound that begins to heal. A client who comes back. A moment of trust where there was none before.
In nearly a decade of doing this, I have watched countless colleagues come and go. I have also lost hundreds of clients. At times, the losses come so close together that grief blurs. It becomes difficult to distinguish one from another, or to know whether you are grieving a specific person or simply carrying a constant state of it.
Over time, that accumulation takes on its own shape. Years ago, someone referred to me as a “grief walker.” I did not fully understand the weight of that phrase at the time. More recently, I came across its connection to Stephen Jenkinson, who speaks about death as something that can change how you live. That resonates. Knowing grief this intimately changes how you move through the world.
Bearing witness to death has altered how I orient myself to life. So has witnessing suffering that does not make headlines but quietly shapes outcomes over time.
It has clarified my priorities. I no longer invest energy in people or situations that diminish me. When I spend time with others, I want it to be meaningful. Shared meals, thoughtful conversation, presence. Working this close to loss makes the fragility of life difficult to ignore.
It also follows me home. It has shaped how I parent. I see the effects of neglect and chronic stress on developing minds every day. I see what happens when children grow up without safety, stability, or affirmation. That reality informs how I show up at home, what I allow, and what I prioritize.
This work has not made me harder. It has made me more deliberate.
But deliberateness requires boundaries. It requires self care that is not performative, but protective. It requires recognizing that you cannot save everyone, and that your role is to show up with skill, integrity, and compassion, not to control outcomes.
Grief is not something I move through and leave behind. It walks with me.
And in an unexpected way, it has taught me how to live with greater intention. Perhaps that is part of the work too.
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