My daughter is pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. While the two of us were chatting recently about some social stuff at school, something occurred to me. People who go into this line of work, helping wounded animals who can’t communicate for themselves—maybe these special people, in some way, identify with things that are hurt in a way that the rest of the world can’t always see.

What my daughter and I were discussing, though, is how she—and the people in her program—are all at different stages in their own self-healing process. And now, at the beginning of her journey to help animals, she has to be careful not to try to heal the other vet students as well.

Unlike my daughter who, when she lived here, tried to run an underground pet clinic out of her childhood bedroom without me knowing—I have exactly zero interest in caring for animals other than our sweet Miss Butter Jones, of course. But, I can empathize with what she’s navigating. Like her, when I see something hurting, I often feel drawn to help. But it’s so important for me to pause and stay discerning about the people who actually want help, and people who don’t.

It’s a tough distinction sometimes in relationships, right? Our friends come to us with their issues…often the same issue over and over again. But, in my experience, many people are just at the stage where they want to talk about the issue. Only a small fraction are ready to put in the challenging work of changing themselves, their circumstances, or both.

My discussion with my daughter was such an important reminder for me. It’s okay to heal animals because they don’t have a voice and they truly want to feel better. Humans are so much more complicated. If only humans showed up at our back doors completely ready to do what it takes. But in humans’ defense—I’m pretty sure it’s almost always easier to heal puppy problems compared to people problems. So, thank you to my daughter for the reminder that it’s okay to step back until the person in pain is truly ready to step forward.

Ok Team, if you’ve been listening to Confessions for a while and you haven’t done so already—please, head over to Apple Podcast and give the show a 5-star rating and possibly even a review. This really helps me out. And hey, if you’re on your phone already and you’re listening from my website, just click the purple icon by the podcast player—the one that says ‘Listen on Apple Podcasts.’ That will bring you to Apple Podcasts and you can just scroll down to the ‘Ratings & Reviews’ section. Thanks so much Team, I really appreciate it!

And next week, we have one of our last Summer Submissions coming at you. One of my favorite cousins Forreste has some thoughts on people-pleasing that she’s going to be sharing with us so please be sure to tune in for that, and thanks so much for listening!