How do I keep the trauma of my job from hardening me?

You can manage anything that comes through the doors, and the relentless trauma has quietly hardened you. That hardening was protective. You couldn't have survived years of it wide open, so a part of you closed to keep functioning. It did its job. The trouble is that the armor doesn't come off when you go home, and now it's costing you. Start by seeing the hardening for what it is: not a character defect, but a wound that formed a callus. You didn't get cold because you stopped caring. You got cold because you cared so much it had to be managed. Naming it that way matters, because it means the softness isn't gone. It's underneath, protected, waiting for it to be safe again. You can let some of it back without losing the steadiness the job needs. Pick one place off the clock where you deliberately feel again: really listen to someone you love, let one thing move you. Small and on purpose. You're not tearing off the armor. You're proving to yourself you can take it off where it's safe, and that the person under it is still there.