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The fastest way to burn out as a therapist is to believe the pressure is your fault. We sit down with our friend Val, a Colorado Springs small business owner building a practice for neurodivergent and marginalized communities, and we get painfully honest about what clinician life looks like right now: the medical model, the no-show hit to income, the endless notes, the supervision hours, and the quiet expectation that you’ll keep saying yes until you collapse.

From there, we shift into what “real self-care” actually means for working clinicians. We talk boundaries that hold up in the real world: naming your peak hours, giving yourself permission to be different, setting response-time expectations with simple email language, and stopping the reflex to apologize for being unavailable. We also explore why tiny changes beat total reinventions for neurodivergent brains, and how community helps us notice when our “normal” is sliding toward burnout.

We go deeper into decolonizing mental health and what it means to unlearn systems that treat people like commodities. If you supervise, lead a team, or you’re a new clinician trying to survive, you’ll leave with language, mindset shifts, and practical ways to protect your energy while staying relational in the work. Subscribe for more honest conversations, share this with a clinician friend who needs it, and leave a review with the boundary you’re practicing next.

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

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Conferences can feel like a gamble: hundreds (or thousands) of dollars, time away from clients, travel fatigue, and the hope that you’ll walk out with something that actually changes your work. We’re Maria and Liliana, and we’re naming the quiet frustration a lot of therapists carry, especially if you’re balancing caretaking, dynamic disabilities, or the financial realities of private practice. When conferences used to “fill the bucket” and now leave you thinking “Was that worth it?”, you’re not alone.

We dig into how we choose conferences with intention instead of pressure. We talk CE credits and licensure requirements, the difference between networking goals and skill-building goals, and why unclear “who this is for” session descriptions waste everyone’s time. We also call out the rinse-and-repeat problem: recycled slides, stale keynotes, and content that feels stuck in grad school while clinicians are dealing with modern anxiety, depression, isolation, and real-world complexity across settings like agencies, schools, and private practice.

Then we get into what we wish more conferences would do right now: bridge legacy models with innovation and talk honestly about AI in therapy. AI is already shaping how we search, learn, and create materials, so we explore how conferences can address AI tools, ethics, and adult learning without shaming clinicians. We also touch on the tone of conference culture itself, because our field should be leading the way in welcoming learning environments, not “you don’t belong” spaces.

Listen, then share your take: What conferences or trainers are truly worth it lately, and why? If this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and send this to a colleague who’s debating whether to register.

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

Send us Fan Mail

Your heart can be broken and you can still lead well, but you have to stop treating that ache like evidence you’re failing. We sit down with Marisol, a former mental health therapist of 21 years turned resilience consultant and trauma-informed leadership trainer, to name what so many helping professionals are carrying right now: grief that doesn’t resolve neatly, emotional labor that doesn’t get seen, and the pressure to keep performing competence when the world feels unstable.

Marisol shares a deeply personal story from kinship care and godparenting that reveals the real work behind “showing up” over time. We talk about the moment a therapist told her that staying in a child’s life meant learning to live with a broken heart, and how that truth translates to clinicians, nonprofit leaders, immigration advocates, and anyone trying to serve others in high-stakes systems. Instead of chasing a fantasy of fixing everything, we explore how to stay present, keep healthy boundaries, and let grief exist without turning it into frantic over-responsibility.

We also dig into therapist burnout versus brokenheartedness, the kintsugi metaphor of repairing cracks with gold, and why identity can get dangerously fused with the role of “helper.” If you’ve ever thought “my clients need me,” felt disposable in a commodified therapy culture, or wondered who you are outside your job title, this conversation offers language and practical reframes to build resilient teams and a sustainable career while staying fully human.

Subscribe for more honest conversations, share this with a colleague who’s carrying too much, and leave a review so more helpers can find it. What part of your identity do you want to strengthen outside of work?

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon