I wrote in my last blog about the village feeling, and if you have not read my last blog I invite you to go there and read it, since it may help you to understand better this one. Because something from that quote, and for some reason, I carried it with me for the rest of the week, and somehow I am still thinking about it.

Perhaps because I related the word village with the word tribe, and made me think about something we deeply need, but have often learned not to acknowledge: the need to belong. Not simply to be surrounded by people, but to feel that there is somewhere we can arrive without having to prepare ourselves first, without having to explain too much, without wondering whether we are being too sensitive, too intense, too tired, or too vulnerable. Somewhere we can arrive exactly as we are that day.

I wonder if we have unconsciously turned self-sufficiency into a kind of ideal. We take pride in being able to handle everything, solve our problems, ask for nothing, and keep moving forward even when life becomes difficult. And, of course, there is something deeply valuable about learning how to hold ourselves. But sometimes, somewhere along the way, we can begin to confuse the ability to hold ourselves with the belief that we must always do it alone.

There is a huge difference between knowing how to be with yourself and feeling that you cannot lean on anyone. And believe me I know what I am talking about.

I think the body knows that difference perfectly, even when the mind takes much longer to recognise it. You have probably experienced it yourself: being with someone around whom you do not need to measure your words, prove that you are okay, or explain yourself, and noticing how, little by little, your body begins to soften. Perhaps your breathing becomes deeper, your shoulders drop, your face relaxes, and a feeling appears that is difficult to explain but unmistakable: for a while, you do not have to be responsible for everything.

There are people around whom our body understands that it is safe to rest, and perhaps that is one of the deepest forms of belonging.

From the perspective of Tao, this experience reminds me of something I find again and again in nature: life does not need to be constantly pushed in order to unfold. Water finds its way because it knows how to move around what stands in its path; a seed does not have to pull on itself to become a tree. There is an intelligence in life that is not always about doing more, but about allowing the conditions for something to happen.

Sometimes I think the same is true of us. Perhaps there are emotions that do not disappear because we keep trying to understand, analyse, or transform them. Perhaps some of them begin to change when they finally find a safe enough space in which they are allowed to be felt. And often, that space is not created only within ourselves; it can also emerge in the presence of another person.

This is something I find especially meaningful when working with emotions through Emoyin. Because working with our emotions does not mean learning how not to need one another. Quite the opposite. The more capable we become of listening to what is happening inside us, the more honestly we can recognise what we need. And perhaps one of the things we find hardest to admit is precisely this: we need other people.

Not as a dependency that prevents us from walking, but as a natural part of being alive.

In Chinese Medicine, the Heart holds a particularly important place because it is associated with the Shen, that dimension of consciousness that allows us to be present, to relate, and to experience life. It is also connected with joy, and this relationship makes me think often about what we actually mean when we talk about being joyful.

We live in a time when joy seems to have to be visible. We are supposed to be motivated, excited, grateful, positive, enjoying ourselves. We have even learned to feel guilty when we cannot experience the positivity we believe we should have.

But there is another kind of joy that feels much quieter to me, and perhaps much closer to the Heart. It is the joy of feeling at home with someone. The joy of sharing silence without feeling the need to fill it. The joy of receiving a look that says, “I understand,” without needing to explain very much. The joy of laughing with someone until, for a moment, we forget everything that was worrying us. It is not a joy that demands that we be lifted above ourselves; it is one that allows us to be fully present in our own lives.

Perhaps that is why joy also needs compassion.

Because we cannot ask the Heart to be joyful all the time. We cannot demand that we feel good as proof that we are doing our inner work correctly. Sometimes caring for the Heart means allowing ourselves to move through sadness, tiredness, uncertainty, or grief without immediately turning them into something we need to fix.

And actually this brings me back to the word TRIBE.

Because perhaps one of the most healing experiences we can have is being with someone who does not need us to stop feeling what we are feeling in order to remain beside us. Someone who does not turn our sadness into a lesson, our confusion into advice, or our fear into an opportunity for growth. Someone who can simply say, “I’m here.”

I think we all need to experience that at some point, and I also think we need to learn how to offer it.

Because having a tribe is not only about finding people who can hold us. It also means becoming someone who can hold others, little by little. Learning to listen without rushing to respond, to accompany without taking over, to respect silence, and to be present without feeling that we have to solve whatever is happening to the other person.

Perhaps true community has much less to do with agreeing with one another and much more to do with being able to remain close even when we are different.

As I write this, I also think about all the people who, for one reason or another, are moving through periods of deep loneliness. People who may have others around them but do not feel that they can truly show themselves, or people who are far from family, have moved to a new city, ended a relationship, or are going through a period of transformation and have not yet found where they can feel at home again.

If that is you, perhaps I want to tell you something we sometimes forget: there is nothing wrong with you because you need connection. It does not mean that you have not done enough inner work or that you have failed to learn how to hold yourself. We are relational beings. We need to look and be looked at, to listen and be listened to, to care and to feel cared for.

And perhaps building a tribe is not something that happens all at once. It can begin in a very small, almost imperceptible way. With someone you decide to call after a long time. With a conversation in which you finally say something you have been carrying for months. With the courage to accept an invitation when your first instinct would have been to stay home. With a group in which you suddenly discover that other people are also carrying questions that resemble your own.

But before i let you go, there is something else I would like to invite you to consider.

Before asking yourself who belongs to your tribe, perhaps ask yourself what kind of relationship you are building with yourself. Because we also need to become a safe place for ourselves. And this does not mean learning not to need anyone; it means learning not to abandon ourselves whenever an emotion appears that we do not know how to handle.

Perhaps part of emotional maturity is precisely learning how to stay.

To stay when we are sad, without demanding that we feel better. To stay when we are afraid, without being ashamed of it. To stay when we do not know which decision to make, without forcing ourselves to find an answer immediately. And, above all, to learn to treat ourselves with the same kindness we hope to find in our tribe.

Because perhaps the relationship we have with ourselves and the relationships we have with others are not as separate as we imagine.

When we stop demanding perfection from ourselves, we may begin to allow others to be imperfect too. When we stop trying to control our emotions, perhaps we become better able to accompany the emotions of the people we love. When we learn to ask for help, perhaps we also learn how to receive it without feeling that we are losing our strength.

That is why my sister’s words have stayed with me. “Everyone should have a tribe.”

And now I would like to give that question back to you: what would yours look like?

I do not mean only who would be in it, but how you would feel when you were there. Would you be able to rest? Would you be able to speak about what is really happening inside you? Could you arrive on a difficult day without feeling that you had to hide it? Could you celebrate your joy without fearing judgement? Could you simply be?

And perhaps there is one more question, an even more intimate one: what are you doing today to move a little closer to that place?

You do not need to have an immediate answer. Sometimes the important questions need to stay with us for a while before they reveal where they are trying to lead us.

But perhaps you could observe this month.

Notice who allows your body to soften. Notice where you can breathe a little more deeply. Notice which relationships leave more space inside you, and which ones make you feel that you have to make yourself smaller in order to remain.

And perhaps, little by little, you can begin choosing from there.

Because I believe we all need a tribe. Not so that someone else can live our lives for us, or rescue us from what we are here to move through, but so that, as we walk, we can remember that we do not have to do everything alone.

And perhaps one of the most beautiful ways of caring for the Heart is precisely this: finding people with whom, at least for a while, we can put our armour down and simply return to being human.

This is also why I keep coming back to the idea of the Emoyin Tribe.

Because when we speak about a tribe, I don't mean a community where we come together simply to learn more, to collect more tools, or to add another practice to our lives. I mean a space where we can return to ourselves in the company of others who are also willing to look inward, to listen to their bodies, to make room for their emotions, and to move through life with a little more awareness and compassion.

This is what we are creating in Emoyin.

A tribe of people who are walking their own path, each with a different story, a different body, a different history and different questions, but who share a desire to live with a deeper connection to themselves. We come together through the wisdom of the Tao and Chinese Medicine, through the language of the body and emotions, and through practices that invite us not to become someone else, but to come home to who we already are.

There is something very special about doing this work alongside others. Sometimes another person's words open a door inside us that we didn't know was there. Sometimes simply hearing that someone else is struggling with the same thing makes us feel less alone. And sometimes we don't need anyone to say anything at all; we simply need to know that there are others walking beside us.

That, for me, is the heart of the Emoyin Tribe.

It is not about having everything figured out. It is about having a place where you can keep exploring. A place where your emotions are not something to be ashamed of or overcome, but something you can learn to listen to. A place where the body is not treated as an obstacle to the life you want to live, but as a source of wisdom that has been speaking to you all along.

So if something in these words has resonated with you, perhaps this is your invitation.

Come and join us in the Tribe.

You don't need to arrive knowing anything. You don't need to have a particular experience, a particular level of practice, or your life figured out. You simply need to feel that something in you is asking for a deeper connection — with yourself, with your body, with your emotions, and with others.

You can join us on this link and begin walking together.

Join Emoyin Tribe

Perhaps you will discover, as I continue to, that a tribe is not somewhere we finally arrive.

It is something we create together, every time we choose presence over performance, connection over isolation, and compassion over judgement.

And perhaps this is what we all need a little more of: a place to come home to, to be seen, to breathe and a place where we remember that, even when the journey is deeply personal, we were never really meant to walk it alone.

Could it be possible to go back to the tribe…

Everyone Should Have a Village