You are okay

There is a kind of constant attention that accompanies many of our days.
Not because something is actually happening, but because the system is used to being that way.

You often feel it in the body before you notice it in your thoughts:
a tension that doesn’t quite release,
a breath that never really drops,
a subtle difficulty in fully resting into the moment.

Over time, this way of being becomes normal.

Tension doesn’t make noise. It doesn’t announce itself.
It settles quietly into the body, into the way we inhabit the world.
And at some point, we stop asking whether it’s even necessary.

Our brain is not designed to make us calm.
It is designed to keep us safe.

That’s why it maintains a background level of vigilance,
even when there is no immediate threat.
This function is useful.
It becomes exhausting when it never switches off.

Over time, it drains energy, makes stability harder to feel,
and creates that familiar sense of having to hold everything together,
even in moments that don’t actually require it.

This is where a simple—but not trivial—practice comes in:
noticing that, in this moment, you’re OK.

Not in an absolute sense.
Not because everything is working.
Not because life is easy.

But because, right now, there is something holding.

The body is doing its job, even when it’s tired, even when it’s repairing.
The breath arrives.
There is presence, even if it’s not continuous.
There is life, even if it’s imperfect.

It’s important to be clear: this is not a practice meant to deny pain.

There are moments—and for some people, long periods—when you are not “OK” at all.
Illness, loss, mental or physical exhaustion are real.
They are not crossed with a sentence.

In these cases, being “OK” doesn’t mean feeling well.
It means, when and if possible, recognizing a minimal point of support:
a breath that is still there,
a body that, despite the difficulty, continues to hold,
a moment that doesn’t ask to be fixed.

Training yourself to return to these micro-moments doesn’t change reality.
It changes how you move through it.

It’s a simple, concrete gesture.
A way to stop forcing—if only for a moment.

This practice doesn’t solve life.
It doesn’t fix what hurts.

It’s about noticing that, here and now, something holds.
Not because everything is fine.
Not because pain disappears.

But because, in this moment,
there is a point that holds.

You’re OK.

And you continue from there…

The Tribe of the Empathic

There’s a thought I often come back to.

If there were an empathy bingo card, and I counted how many times a day I hear someone describe themselves as “very empathic,” I would probably win quite often.

Empathy is one of those qualities people seem comfortable wearing. More comfortable, perhaps, than calling themselves intelligent. With empathy, we appear more generous with ourselves.

Over time, I’ve found myself pausing on this. Not out of judgment, but out of experience.
Because the more I work with people, the more I listen to their stories, the more empathy starts to look less obvious, less immediate, less simple than we often assume.

I don’t write this to define empathy. I write it to sit with it.

What I’ve learned is that empathy is rarely spontaneous. Our minds are built on shortcuts, categories, biases. They help us navigate the world. They are necessary. But they are also the very things that get in the way when we try to truly meet someone else.

Stepping into another person’s story requires intention. It asks us, at least for a moment, to loosen our grip on our own lenses. You can’t really enter someone else’s story while fully wearing your own.

Staying with another person’s emotional landscape is delicate work. It means resisting the pull to translate their experience into ours. It means noticing when familiar emotions get activated and choosing not to let them take over the space.

And this is where it often becomes tiring.

Almost without realizing it, we move toward advice, solutions, fixing. Those paths are reassuring. They give us something to do. Sometimes they soothe us more than they help the other person.

Being with someone else’s experience can hurt. It can touch unresolved places. It can make us feel powerless, or overly involved, or uncomfortable with not knowing what to do next. Remaining balanced inside another person’s story takes the presence of a tightrope walker.

Over time, I’ve come to see empathy less as resonance and more as hospitality.
Welcoming a story for what it is, without reshaping it. Even when it feels familiar. Even when parts of it echo our own. Another person’s story is not a mirror. It’s a window. And a window is something you approach with curiosity, not recognition.

This is perhaps why empathy feels so complex to me. And why I pause when I hear it claimed too easily.

We often confuse empathy with sensitivity, or with the sincere desire to understand others. A beautiful desire. But one that doesn’t always translate into being able to stay present.

Most of us know the feeling of not being truly listened to. Of being met with someone else’s story, or with advice we didn’t ask for. Many hands would go up. Expat life teaches this quickly.

In my work as a coach, I listen to many stories. Thousands of hours by now. And I’ve learned something simple and demanding at the same time: the moment I carry someone else’s story into my own, I make it harder to truly be there for them.

Empathy, at least as I experience it, asks for something paradoxical.
To forget my own story, rather than find it inside someone else’s.

Involvement is not empathy.
Presence, questions, and listening are.

Every story has its own gravity. It deserves care.
And perhaps the only real requirement is this: to leave our own shoes at the door.

Leaving My Shoes at the Door

This space is an invitation to pause.

To leave assumptions, certainty, and quick answers at the door, and step into something a little more spacious.
Here, I write to reflect rather than to conclude. To stay with questions instead of rushing toward solutions.

Leaving My Shoes at the Door is a place for thoughts that emerge from listening, from being with people, from noticing what happens in the space between stories. It’s shaped by my work as a coach, by life lived across cultures, and by the quiet discipline of presence.

You won’t find instructions here.
What you may find are reflections meant to be held, not consumed. Words that don’t aim to convince, but to create room. For curiosity. For nuance. For being with others—and with ourselves—without needing to fix, explain, or perform.

This is a space to arrive lightly.
And to stay, just long enough.