Two People in a Room

I’ve been sitting in a library this morning trying to get some work done. I’ve had a few pastoral calls, nothing particularly unusual, just the sort of calls that come with working alongside people whose lives are complicated by addiction, homelessness, poor mental health, trauma and all the other things that can make life difficult.

But I noticed that I was getting annoyed. Then frustrated. And, if I’m honest, a little bit cross.

They were being needy.

I wanted to get on with my work. I wanted to concentrate. I wanted the phone not to ring.

And then came the slightly uncomfortable thought: I have needs too.

It got me thinking about pastoral care, and about leadership more generally.

We can become very good at thinking about the needs of other people. We learn about trauma, addiction, mental health and the ways people cope with lives that have often been incredibly difficult. We get quite good at spotting patterns and triggers in other people.

But there are two people in the room. Or, this morning, two people on the phone.

The person I was speaking to has a history. Things have happened to them. They have known love and loss, hope and disappointment, joy and pain. They have developed ways of getting through life, some of which may once have helped them survive and some of which may now be causing problems.

So have I.

I bring my own history into the conversation. I bring my tiredness and whatever else has happened that morning. I bring the work I was trying to concentrate on, my assumptions and my own ways of responding when I feel under pressure. I don't suddenly become objective because I am doing pastoral care.

That matters.

Because I can easily mistake my response for reality. If I feel frustrated, it doesn't necessarily mean the other person is being unreasonable. If I feel anxious, it doesn't necessarily mean there is an emergency. If I feel responsible for sorting something out, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is mine to sort out.

This morning I found myself thinking, “they wouldn't listen to me.”

And then I thought: “was I actually listening to them?”

That stopped me for a moment.

Sometimes people really are difficult. Sometimes they really aren't listening. Sometimes they are asking more of us than we can reasonably give. Pastoral care isn't about pretending otherwise. But my response is still part of the situation.

There are two nervous systems involved here. We affect one another more than we sometimes realise. Someone else's anxiety can make me anxious. Their anger can make me defensive. Their vulnerability can make me want to rescue them. Their chaos can make me desperate to restore some order. Sometimes what someone brings into the room touches something in me.

Carl Jung put it rather well: “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

That feels relevant to pastoral care. If I don't know something about my own fears, needs, frustrations and desire to be needed, I can start imagining that everything I am feeling belongs to the other person.

I don't think I need to feel guilty about being irritated. And I don't need to justify it either. I probably need to pay attention to it.

What is mine? What is theirs? What is happening between us?

That is why I think pastoral workers need to ask themselves: what is happening in me right now? Not instead of asking what is happening to the person we are caring for, but alongside it. Am I tired? Am I overwhelmed? Has something been touched in me? Am I responding to what is actually happening, or to something I am already carrying?

Because if I don't ask those questions, I can end up blaming someone else for something that is partly happening in me.

I think the same is true of leadership.

Leaders don't somehow become less complicated people when they start leading. We bring ourselves with us. Our insecurities can affect how we respond to criticism. Our need for control can get dressed up as good organisation. Our desire to be liked can make difficult conversations harder. If we've been let down before, we may become suspicious more quickly than we realise.

Sometimes what we call a leadership instinct is partly something else.

I might say, “I just have a strong sense that this isn't right.” Perhaps I do. But I also need to be willing to ask whether there is some anxiety mixed in with the discernment. Am I protecting the organisation, or am I protecting myself? Am I challenging someone because it needs to be done, or because something they have said has got under my skin?

I don't think the answer is to distrust our instincts. Leaders need judgement. But I do think good leadership involves knowing enough about yourself to question your own certainty from time to time.

We talk a lot about leadership in terms of skills: communication, strategy, management, decision-making. All important. But there is something else going on underneath all of that. What happens inside me when I am criticised? When someone needs more from me than I have to give? When I'm tired? When things feel out of control?

I know that when I am tired, my boundaries get worse. I'm more likely to answer the phone, more likely to take something on, and more likely to think, “I can cope with this.”

And there is something good in that. Sometimes you do need to answer.

This is where it gets complicated. There are people for whom a five-minute conversation really can make a difference. Someone can be starting to spiral, and a bit of human contact can interrupt that. Sometimes a call really might stop things getting to the point of self-harm or something worse.

So “just turn your phone off” isn't always a satisfactory answer. Sometimes the phone needs answering.

But there is another side to it.

I can answer because someone genuinely needs me. I can also answer because, somewhere in me, I like being the person who can cope.

I am needed.

That's harder to admit.

Being needed can feel good. It can feel like purpose. It can feel like I'm doing what I'm here to do. But it can also become a trap. If being needed becomes part of how I understand myself, saying no becomes much harder. I can take on things that aren't mine. I can keep going when I should stop. I can become too available and then, rather unfairly, resent people for needing me.

Paul says something interesting in Galatians 6. He tells Christians to “carry each other’s burdens”, but a few verses later he says that “each one should carry their own load.”

I think there is something important in that tension. We are called to carry one another's burdens. Sometimes people really do need someone to come alongside them and help carry what they cannot carry alone. But that isn't the same as carrying everything for them.

Perhaps part of good pastoral care is learning the difference.

So perhaps boundaries aren't simply about managing other people's demands. Sometimes they're about knowing something about myself. Why am I answering this call? Because this person genuinely needs me? Because this might be a crisis? Because I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't? Because I feel guilty? Or because, somewhere underneath all of that, I need to be needed?

Sometimes I won't know. Sometimes it will be all of those things at once.

The Christian starting point helps me here.

There aren't two different kinds of human beings in the room. There isn't the broken person and the whole person, the needy person and the competent person.

There are two people made in the image of God.

The person struggling with addiction is made in God's image. The person who is homeless is made in God's image. The person whose life is chaotic is made in God's image. And so am I.

Both are extravagantly loved by God.

That doesn't remove the differences between us. I have responsibilities as a pastor that the person calling me doesn't have. If I am leading people, I have responsibilities towards them too. Safeguarding matters. Boundaries matter. Sometimes I have to say no.

But I am not standing outside the human mess looking in.

I'm in it too.

That means I need pastoral care as well. I need people who can tell me the truth. I need colleagues and friends, supervision, prayer and rest. I need to be able to say, “That got to me,” without feeling that I have somehow failed at ministry.

And sometimes I need to put the phone down. Not because I don't care. Because I do. If I never stop, eventually my exhaustion becomes somebody else's problem.

That's perhaps what this morning has been about for me.

I was annoyed. I was frustrated. I felt overwhelmed. Maybe the person was being demanding. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I wasn't listening as well as I thought I was. Maybe they really did need me.

Probably there wasn't one simple answer. And perhaps that's okay.

There are two people in the room, each bringing their own history and their own stuff into the encounter, trying to work out what is needed. And somewhere in the middle of that, God is present.

I'm beginning to think faithful pastoral leadership probably isn't about being endlessly available. It is about learning when to be fully present and when to have the courage to step back.

And perhaps part of that learning is becoming honest enough to recognise the difference between being needed and needing to be needed.

I'm still working that one out.

This morning, I think, I was reminded that I need to.

-Rev'd Jon Swales, Sep 2026, Trinity University