How to Fight Those Demons

There’s this client I’m working with that I’m really rooting for. She has shown a great deal of initiative and I want to see her succeed. In fact, she has asked me to stay on top of her and help her do just that. But today as her advocates, we had a meeting of the minds, so to speak, and discovered that this client has had an unfortunate setback. At the end of the meeting, I mentioned that all this client needed was to fight her demons. My colleagues, young, naive, somewhere in the late millennial or early Gen Z period, giggled. They thought I was joking.

I was actually as serious as I could possibly be. I know this client has it in her to pursue her goals, to get to the other side of the nightmare she’s facing, but she continues to give in to her demons. At least, that’s how I describe it. Demons, setbacks, hurdles, obstacles, whatever the case may be.

We’ve all been down that road before, when we find ourselves in our own way. There comes a time when the pain we feel overshadows the expectations we hold for ourselves, and so we witness one step back after another. It’s absolutely disheartening.

I lay in bed today after I arrived from work and started thinking of ways to help this client overcome this unfortunate darkness she finds herself in. And I thought to myself that the first thing she has to do is deal with the pain she’s facing. In her situation, I won’t be surprised to find it’s an overlay of several pains she has to confront. Once she finds that the goals she wants to so desperately accomplish are worth more than whatever negativity lays within her, she will find her own way.

This client has asked me to serve as her mentor, and I am honored. The problem is that I’m not always going to be there for her. It’s up to her to get back up from wherever she fell, using me as a clutch, until she is where she wants to be. There’s no doubt about that. But not everyone is strong enough to accomplish such a feat, especially when you’ve been through what this client has.

I was worried for a while because we lost touch, and I thought, “That’s it, another bright future lost to the darkness.” But as I made my way through the lobby today, there was someone trying to grab my attention through the glass door. I didn’t recognize the individual at first, but then realized it was her. I was overwhelmed with relief. Even though she was lost for a short while, she made herself back to the open arms willing to guide and help her. After we embraced, I shared how relieved I was that she had not given up on herself. And I made it clear that I wasn’t about to give up on her, how I’d been using every communication mode available to me to try and reach out to her but was unable to, and yet here she was, unexpectedly at my door and ready to continue her journey to healing. I made her promise she wouldn’t give up on herself either and she promised she wouldn’t. That’s precisely the tenacity she needs to make it to the other glorious side. And I’ll still be around, rooting for her.