Pursuing a Career with Abandon: Why I love being a Counsellor

When I first told my Nonna that I was going to be a Counsellor, I was 20 years old and had just switched from an orientation to a teaching stream in university to a Psychology major. With an appalled look on her face and an emphatic inhale through her teeth, she stated in her thick Italian accent, “Why you wanna sit and listen to peoples’ problems?” It wasn’t a question, but rather an accusation laced with judgment and condescension. I remember feeling mildly taken aback, yet I was also accustomed to her strong desire for privacy and her tendency to express herself without censoring her responses. My own response all those years ago was something along the lines of “I can’t explain it”. And of course, I suppressed my headstrong must-fight-for-what-I-believe-in feisty inner warrior and simply hugged her.

But her statement sat with me. Not because I doubted my career choice, but rather because it deepened insight into how little my Nonna understood about asking for and receiving help. As I grew older, I came to understand that she wasn’t dismissing me; she was protecting herself.

Raised by farming parents in southern Italy during the Depression and then living through World War II, she learned early that survival meant self-reliance. Asking for emotional support had never become an option for her. For every loss she experienced (and there were many), she closed her blinds, put on her symbolic black clothing, and shut off the hurting part of herself by caring for others in her life. It wasn’t my place to fight with her or force her to see my perspective. I could only love her fully, for she was coping in the only way she knew how.

Yes, the job of a Counsellor is to listen — but it is also so much more.

It’s about holding space and creating a sense of safety and connection. It’s about motivating and inspiring people to become the best versions of themselves, to learn how to invite in the change they are so desperately seeking. It’s about helping people reconnect with hope after life has rattled it. About rediscovering the strength and courage they forgot they had. About cultivating resilience, and discovering how to be kind to oneself, especially when life never taught, or even discouraged, self-compassion. The safety of the counselling room becomes a place to explore and practice positive beliefs of self that may never have had a chance to take root — whether because of trauma, relationships, symptoms, or the sheer busyness of life. It’s a place to deconstruct shame, to grieve losses, to breathe deeply, and to remember that we matter. Every conversation is, in its own way, a chance to say: you are not alone.

That’s why I chose this career.
And that’s why, decades later, I still love what I do.