I tend to other people’s emotions like baby chicks. I fret over them with heat lamps, high-quality food, and supervised visits out into the grass.
They’re cute and all, but boy am I exhausted.
I felt a sense of terror wondering whether I overstepped with a client. The line between what’s okay and what’s not feels murky in my mind, especially because it’s paired with that familiar feeling of insecurity—like the tumbling down an endless tunnel, quicksand settling into my chest kind.
I know I shouldn’t be, but I feel ashamed for feeling this way.
I need to be a perfect therapist is the underlying belief. And right now I’ve deemed myself a failure.
That is the expectation, isn’t it? That I be perfect. That we’re perfect. That we can’t fall short for a moment, be a little too brash, too abrupt, too distracted, too human.
But that’s not real. Love and connection are.
They’re what brings us back to life—a bolt of lightning reminding us of the only thing that truly matters.
What’s going on between us? That’s the question I want to keep asking.
Because I see the hate. I see the venom. I see the way resentment seeps into our psyches, quietly feeding the wars we wage inside ourselves.
I want to be free. Free from the tethers of always needing to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Free from the chains that keep me believing I have to get everything exactly right to be worthy.
I practice that freedom in small ways.
I read Walt Whitman. I overwater my brilliantly blooming pink hibiscus. I lose myself in my morning chores.
And I offer myself forgiveness.
I remind myself that if I hurt someone, I can listen. I can receive their feedback with love. I don’t have to diminish their experience or defend my own. If it’s within my capacity to repair, I will. If it isn’t, I’ll sit with that too, asking why with as much honesty, fairness, and compassion as I can.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s what integrity actually looks like.
Those are the lessons I want carved into my heart. Forever and ever, amen.
Love, Jaclynn
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