How do we hold people's trust without numbing out or burning out?

You did not expect this. You signed up to do a job well, and instead you were let into rooms most people never see — someone's fear, someone's body, someone's worst week. Now you feel the weight of it, and you don't know whether to brace against it or let it in. Here is what you must see clearly: that weight is not a flaw in your training. It is your judgment working correctly. Numbing it out does not make you stronger — it makes you blind to the very thing that makes you trustworthy. Burning under it does not make you more devoted — it makes you useless to the next person who needs you. You do not carry this alone, and you were never meant to. A team that holds trust well builds the habit of carrying it together — naming what was hard, setting it down at the end of the day, checking each other for the numbness that masquerades as toughness. This is not softness. It is maintenance of the instrument you use to do the work.