A quiet reflection from inside the therapy room.

When I first began this work, I thought I was learning how to help people.

I was focused on understanding, on being prepared, on doing the work well. I believed that with enough knowledge, enough care, enough presence, I could offer something meaningful to those who came to sit across from me.

What I didn’t know then was how deeply this work would change me.

Over time, the therapy room became more than a place where others brought their pain.

It became a place where my own inner world was slowly reshaped.

There are days when a session ends and I remain seated for a moment longer. The chair across from me is empty, the room quiet again. I notice my own breath before I reach for my notes. Something in me has softened - and I know I’ve been changed, even if I can’t yet name how.

Sitting with people in their most vulnerable moments humbles you in ways nothing else can. It teaches you how fragile and resilient the human heart can be in the same breath. It shows you how much effort goes into appearing “fine,” and how rarely people are met without expectation or demand.

Holding space for others has softened me.

It has taught me to listen not only for words, but for what lives underneath them. For the fear that never learned how to ask for help. For the grief that had nowhere to land. For the strength that was shaped in environments where there was no other choice.

I’ve learned that being present with someone’s pain requires a kind of surrender. A letting go of the need to fix, to rush, to reassure too quickly. Again and again, this work asks me to stay - especially when something in me wants to move away. And sometimes this is challenging.

It taught me to trust the silence.

To trust that presence itself can be enough.

Slowly, without me realizing it at first, this way of being began to live inside me.

I became more patient with uncertainty.

More tender with my own limits.

More aware of how quickly judgment can appear when understanding feels threatening.

Listening to others taught me how to listen to myself.

I learned this not as an idea, but as a lived truth: pain doesn’t ask to be solved - it asks to be held. Emotions don’t need justification to be real. And slowing down, something I once resisted, is often where wisdom begins.

There are moments in the therapy room when everything feels very quiet. Not empty - just still. In those moments, something settles in the body. Breathing deepens. The room feels safer. And I’m reminded, again, that healing doesn’t arrive through force or clever insight. It arrives through presence - through being with what is, without asking it to become something else.

This work has changed how I move through the world.

It has made me more compassionate, not only toward others, but toward my own humanity. It has taught me to respect the pace of becoming. To honor the nervous system’s need for safety. To trust that growth happens when people feel seen, not pushed.

Holding space for others has been one of the most meaningful human experiences of my life. It has asked something of me - attention, humility, inner work - but it has also given me something I continue to carry with care.

It has taught me how to stay.

How to listen.

How to soften.

And I find that I am still learning how sacred it is to witness another human being in the quiet, ongoing work of remembering who they are.

Written with care, from inside the therapy room.

Aniela 🤍