My Broken-heart Prevention Plan

I am settling into my new job and can honestly say I am enjoying my work right now. It is a relief to be getting closer to feeling content.
I have been working with street people for close to six years now and I am pretty good at setting boundaries with my clients and not letting work life invade personal life too much. I have met many people with crappy pasts and histories of abuse so not much surprises me anymore when I hear stories and I will always marvel at people's resilience. But my role has changed and I am actually required now to ask people what their story is and abuse is one area I need to address. Oddly enough almost all the clients I have been assessing lately that will be the first subject that will come up and they seem to be longing to have someone to talk to about it. It has actually become a joke for my one coworker and she figures I must be some sort of magnet. I have been busy trying not to cry in front of my clients or to keep my face from looking too horrified.
I am realizing that I am afraid of my own compassion. I know I cannot take on the pain these people have gone through nor should I try to carry the burden. I will need to learn how wide I have to open the door to my heart because I do often choose to close it off so I don't have to deal with it. God has been speaking to me pretty clearly about healing He wants to do and is asking for my prayers. I am not a certified counselor and many of these people I need to refer elsewhere but I know they are crossing my path for a reason. So I am finding balance and will probably struggle for a bit figuring out what that should look like.
Currently, I am focusing on maintaining and instilling hope and trusting God to do the heavy lifting. I am calling this my broken-heart prevention plan.