Mindful Minute: The Art of Receiving
By David Present
A Thanksgiving table is an exercise in quiet cooperation.
Someone passes the bread. Someone refills a glass. A dish travels from one end of the table to the other, carried by hands that have no particular obligation to help, except that someone asked.
Nobody thinks twice about saying, “Could you pass that?”
Strange how difficult that question becomes outside the dining room.
For law professionals, asking for help can feel particularly unnatural. We are trained to provide answers, solve problems, and shoulder responsibility. Clients come to us because they do not know what to do. They bring us their disputes, their fears, and sometimes the most painful experiences of their lives.
We listen, work through the facts, and offer guidance before turning to the next client. Sometimes, though, a conversation stays with us long after the appointment ends.
There is a name for what can happen when professionals repeatedly encounter the trauma of others: vicarious trauma. It describes the psychological effects that can arise from prolonged exposure to other people’s traumatic experiences. Over time, those experiences can alter how we perceive safety, trust, and the world around us.
It is different from ordinary professional exhaustion. We may leave the office, close the file, and still carry something of what we heard.
The research suggests this is not uncommon in certain areas of legal practice.
In a 2011 study of 238 attorneys and 109 administrative staff members at the Wisconsin State Public Defender Office, researchers found that attorneys reported significantly higher levels of secondary traumatic stress, depression, burnout, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The differences were associated with longer working hours and greater exposure to clients who had experienced trauma.[1]
We are taught to protect our clients’ interests. We are less often taught how to protect ourselves from the emotional weight of doing so.
The expectation that we remain composed can make it difficult to admit when the work is affecting us.
But research offers another perspective.
In August 2026, researchers Alice Neikirk and Ray Nickson published a study based on interviews with 53 criminal defense lawyers in Australia. They found that lawyers often relied on informal conversations with colleagues, supportive supervisors, and workplace relationships to help navigate the emotional demands of their work.
The researchers explored a concept called vicarious resilience: the ability to adapt positively to difficult professional experiences, supported not simply by individual toughness, but by relationships and a workplace environment that acknowledges those difficulties.[2]
Resilience, in other words, does not have to mean becoming better at suffering alone.
Yet seeking that support is not always easy.
A national study released by the American Bar Association in September 2026 found that 53.3% of surveyed lawyers identified confidentiality concerns as a barrier to seeking mental health support, while 49.2% expressed concerns about their professional reputation or career opportunities.[3]
These concerns deserve to be taken seriously. Asking for help requires more than personal courage. It requires access to trustworthy, confidential support and professional environments that make seeking it possible.
Still, some of our reluctance may come from assumptions about how others will respond.
Psychologists Xuan Zhao and Nicholas Epley studied this question in research involving 2,118 participants. They found that people seeking assistance consistently underestimated others’ willingness to help and how positively those individuals would feel about providing it.[4]
The colleague we hesitate to call may be glad to hear from us and happy to have something useful to offer.
Of course, not everyone can help, and professional support must respect confidentiality and appropriate boundaries. But we should not assume that needing someone makes us an inconvenience.
Consider how readily we offer assistance to others. We review a colleague’s argument, stay late to prepare for a hearing, or listen when a friend is struggling. We recognize these moments as meaningful. We understand the satisfaction of being trusted.
But when the roles reverse, we hesitate.
We say we are fine. We insist we can handle it. We thank someone for offering, then decline before considering whether we actually need the help.
Perhaps we have learned to understand generosity from only one side.
November invites us to practice gratitude. We gather with family and friends, acknowledge those who have supported us, and give thanks for the kindness that has carried us through another year.
But gratitude requires something from us, too.
It requires a willingness to receive.
Perhaps that begins with something small. Ask a trusted colleague how they navigate the emotional demands of difficult cases, without disclosing confidential client information. Accept an offer to share a responsibility. Tell someone when a particularly difficult week has taken its toll. Reach out for professional support when the weight becomes difficult to manage.
And if you supervise others, make room for those conversations. Let them know that asking for support is not a failure of competence.
These gestures may seem ordinary. Yet they challenge a deeply ingrained belief that strength means needing nothing from anyone.
At Thanksgiving, we pass the dishes because no single person can reach the entire table.
The same is true of the lives we build beyond it.
This November, as we give thanks for those who have helped us, perhaps we can also give ourselves permission to accept their help.
You do not always have to be the person everyone leans on.
Sometimes, you can lean, too.
[1] Andrew P. Levin et al., Secondary Traumatic Stress in Attorneys and Their Administrative Support Staff Working With Trauma-Exposed Clients, 199 Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 946, 946 (2011).
[2] Alice Neikirk & Ray Nickson, Vicarious Trauma, Vicarious Resilience and Criminal Defence Lawyers, Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (published online Aug. 2, 2026).
[3] Patrick R. Krill & Justin J. Anker, When Demands Equal Distress: An Updated Understanding of Lawyer Mental Health and Well-Being, 415 Journal of Affective Disorders, art. 122479 (2026) (published online Sept. 2026). See also American Bar Association, Survey of Lawyer Well-Being (Sept. 9, 2026).
[4] Xuan Zhao & Nicholas Epley, Surprisingly Happy to Have Helped: Underestimating Prosociality Creates a Misplaced Barrier to Asking for Help, 33 Psychological Science 1708, 1708 (2022).
