I was on my couch at nine on a Thursday, still in my session clothes, eating crackers from the box because cooking felt like one more act of service I didn't have in me, when my phone lit up with a text from a friend asking if I had a minute to talk about something.
I had a minute. I always had a minute.
What happens when you never close
That was the first year of my coaching practice, and I was filling my calendar with clients during the day and coaching everyone I loved off the clock at night. Friends, family, the neighbor who caught me at the mailbox and somehow ended up telling me about her marriage for forty-five minutes while I held a stack of envelopes and nodded. I'm a life coach. I make safe space easy. People can feel it — they sit down, they open up, and I lean in, because that's the work I was built for.
What I didn't account for was what happens when the doors never close.
I was depressed, and I didn't understand why. My practice was growing, people were changing, and I was doing the work I loved. But I was exhausted in a way sleep couldn't fix, the kind of tired that lives in your bones and makes you want to cry in the shower for no reason you can name. I felt invisible. Not invincible — invisible. Like I existed to hold space for everyone, and nobody was holding any for me.
A systematic review of compassion fatigue in helping professionals found that roughly 46% of counselors experience moderate levels of it, which is the clinical term for the emotional exhaustion that comes from chronic exposure to other people's pain. It's not burnout from overwork. It's the specific cost of caring, where the empathy that makes you good at your job slowly empties the reservoir you need to live your own life.
The question my own coach asked me
I was lucky enough to have my own life coach, and it was during a session with her that the light came on. She asked me something I'd asked dozens of clients but never once turned on myself: "What would happen if you missed a call?"
My chest tightened immediately. "It might be an emergency. They might need me right now. If I don't pick up, something could happen and it would be my fault."
"Are you God?"
I laughed. Then I didn't.
I wasn't the only solution to anyone's problems. I had convinced myself that I was, that if I didn't respond, if I didn't lean in at nine o'clock on a Thursday with nothing left in me, something terrible would happen. But that's not dedication. That's a savior complex wearing a coaching certificate, and it was making me sick.
Four clients, visiting hours, and one question
I made changes that felt radical at the time and obvious in hindsight. I capped my practice at four Exhale clients at a time, four ongoing coaching relationships, weekly or biweekly, for twelve weeks each. That gave me a set schedule for being on duty and, more importantly, a clear boundary for when I was off.
And I started asking one question that changed every relationship I have: "Do you want a sister right now, or do you want a coach?"
Because there's a difference. If my friend is hurting and she wants a sister, she gets my couch, a glass of wine, and my full, off-duty heart. If she wants a coach, I ask her to book a session, because coaching takes something out of me that friendship doesn't, and I owe it to both of us to know which one I'm offering.
Your phone is not an ER either
You don't have to be a coach for this to be your life. Maybe you're the mom whose adult children text her every decision they can't make on their own. Maybe you're the employee who checks Slack at midnight because the notification blinks behind your eyelids when you try to sleep. Maybe you're just the friend everyone calls when they're falling apart, the one who can't put her phone on silent without her chest tightening because what if someone needs her and she's not there.
You are running an emergency room out of your pocket, and the ER is open twenty-four hours because you never posted the visiting hours.
Your phone is a device. It doesn't have visiting hours unless you give it some, and it doesn't have a closing time unless you set one. The people who love you will survive your voicemail the same way they survived every problem before they had your number.
I still love this work. I love it more now, because the relief of having a closing time gave me back the version of myself that was worth bringing to the room. The friend who texted me at nine on that Thursday is still my friend. She's learned to ask "sister or coach?" before she launches into it, which makes me laugh every time, because what she's really asking is whether I have the capacity right now.
Sometimes the answer is no. And nobody has ever died from it.
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Post the visiting hours. Choose a time each day when you are off and treat it like a closed sign. Notifications off, phone in another room. If someone truly needs you in an emergency, they will call. If they text, it can wait until your office reopens in the morning.
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Ask the question before you lean in. The next time someone starts telling you their problems, try: "Do you want a friend right now, or do you want advice?" It's not cold. It's the kindest thing you can do for both of you, because it lets you show up fully for whichever one they actually need.
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Notice when your chest answers first. If your phone buzzes and your body tightens before you see the screen, that's your body telling you the ER is overcrowded. You don't need more beds. You need visiting hours.
If you recognize yourself in this, if your phone feels less like a tool you control and more like a lifeline other people hold, it might be worth exploring what's underneath the need to always be available. Let's talk about where the visiting hours go.