Walk Beside Me, Not Inside Me.

What if our well-meaning care has been crossing a line we rarely name? We pull apart the quiet ways empathy can turn into supervision and how “emotional colonization” shows up in families, faith communities, and friendships. Instead of offering easy answers, we sit with better questions and a more humane posture that honors agency, consent, and pace.

We start by tracing the cultural current the host calls societal narcissism—how proximity tricks us into thinking we have jurisdiction over someone else’s inner world. From there, we redefine empathy beyond the slogan of “walking in someone’s shoes,” adding the humility to be guided by the person wearing them. You’ll hear how surveillance masquerades as concern, why watched people perform rather than heal, and how boundaries can serve love rather than distance. Drawing on Brené Brown’s strong back, soft front, grounded heart, we show what collapses when empathy becomes control: overhelping, rigidity, and anxiety-driven fixing.

We also bring in Adam Grant’s framework of preacher, prosecutor, and politician to reveal the roles we slip into when our beliefs feel threatened. The antidote is a scientific posture—curiosity over certainty—that slows us down and replaces verdicts with listening. Along the way, we offer reflective prompts to help you notice where you might be supervising rather than accompanying, and how to restore presence without possession. If you’ve ever felt “helped” but not held, or noticed your own impulse to manage someone’s healing, this conversation will give you language and practices to recalibrate with care.

Join us, take a breath, and let these questions work on you at their own pace. If the conversation resonates, share it with someone who values real empathy, subscribe for more mindful episodes, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your presence matters—stay mindful, stay human, and keep becoming.

Transcript

Setting Intention And Self-Check

SPEAKER_01 1:07

How are you? Yes, you I hope you're doing well. How is the year settling with you? All the questions from the last two episodes are the answers arriving. Are you taking time to listen to yourself and carve and craft your own healing in the face of all the noise? I hope you're doing so. If you're not, here is an invitation that you begin to speak for yourself. Speak to yourself first so you can then pour into others from a field cup. All right, let's get back to societal narcissism. Curating and naming societal narcissism has been fascinating. What began as a personal reflection has slowly revealed itself as something more complex and more communal. Every time I step outside or yeah, step off the microphone and I sit down, do researches, read books to help me gain a proper perspective or clearer picture of what I'm trying to explore. I see something new, and there's there are a lot of thoughts coming to my head that I can't put down. I'm leaving the principle of mindfulness while trying to give language to social patterns that deserve discussion without becoming preachy, without becoming performative. That has been heavy. And I'll be honest, it is a fine line. So I'll trust you to make that emotional and mindful choice that feels right for you right now, and even after you listen to this episode. Consider this episode a guide into something I've been calling emotional colonization. I can hear you, yes, hear you roll your eyes, societal narcissism now. Emotional colonization, yes. In the last episode, we start with the noise, the loud, the loud world, pardon me, the silenced buddy, and today I want to sit with something more uncomfortable. It is not just out there, but between us, you and I, as you're listening today. This episode is about empathy. Not the version we quote, not the version we post, but the version we practice. Somewhere along the way, empathy, a posture meant to soften us began to hand into something else. I know that if someone stood up to you now or asked you to define empathy, many of us would say it's about walking in someone else's shoes. And that is true. But I say to people that no matter how much uh I want to walk in your shoes, even if you're size 46 like I am, you either have a slim fit or a bigger fit or a wide fit or something, I can never fit into those shoes. So for me, when I define empathy, I say empathy is walking in someone else's shoes. Fact, it also requires the humility, the wisdom to let the person wearing the shoes guide you in their journey. I have noticed that in many healing, faith, and growth spaces, empathy has quietly shifted from accompaniment, that is, a person walking alongside the person wearing the shoes, to oversight. We have begun to have oversight functions over other people's healing, faith, and growth space. From I'm with you to I know what's best for you, from I'm listening to I'm managing your emotions from presence to correction. And this shift is very subtle. I put up the other day on my status that we live in a times where people think that they have absolute right to understand what the other person is feeling. Jurisdiction because of proximity. It often arises stressed as concern, as insight, as wisdom, but in your body you feel a difference. Your gut, your soul, your spirit tells you that this is far beyond insight. This is far beyond wisdom. Because empathy that supervises does not feel like safety, it feels like being watched. And when people feel watched, they do not heal, they perform, and I know you can ask me, and I'll tell you the times I performed, the times I shared with someone, and it came back at me because immediately I shared I was in a vulnerable space sharing something. They thought that whatever it is I was going through, they had even if they had not gone through it, they had read somewhere that something was going to help me, and that was not what I needed. And then what do I do? I wear my mask immediately and begin to perform and smile. This is not an accusation though, it is an observation. Many of us learned this posture, honestly, because hey, in families where silence was survival, in cultures where endurance was praised. And this one is close to my heart in fate spaces where obedience replaced curiosity. So when we finally found the language for boundaries, we found words that therapy and self-awareness gave to us, especially now that everyone is protecting their mental health. We held these words tightly. We protected ourselves so tightly that we lost the essence of this word, this language, this ability to navigate, this naming of our mental state. We held them too tightly and without meaning to. We began to monitor one another's healing, we began to assess people's progress. We began to question the timelines of other people's healing as if the way you healed, the way you're processing your healing or your self-awareness journey should be the same map another person should use. We decided or we began to decide which responses were healthy and which ones needed fixing. Here, I'm not asking us to abandon empathy. No, no, because we do need it, we then need to understand and see from each other's perspectives, and this adage that comes to me all the time when I'm talking about empathy is the Yoruba adage that says, What is taboo in my compound might be accepted in yours. So I am not asking us to abandon empathy, I'm asking us to humble it, to remember that knowledge may be power, but knowing what we don't know is wisdom. To remember that empathy is not about wearing someone else's shoes alone, it's about being willing to walk beside them at their pace on their terms, because the moment empathy stops listening, it stops being empathy. So today I'm inviting you to explore with me a different question. When does care cross into control? And how do we remain connected without becoming evasive? Personally, I do not have answers to that because how I allow I always say to people that this is a no-judgment zone, but the truth is sometimes when someone comes to you, you you first judge in your mind, even. But sometimes also, um, or what I'm trying to say in essence is that even though you might judge your body language, should lean it, should work towards leaning to remain connected and not invade the other person's agency. Of course, my go-to is usually Bernie Brown when I'm talking about things like this. Um, and she does offer language that helps me personally stay grounded. She speaks of empathy uh requiring a strong back, a soft front, and a grounded heart. Uh, you can find this concept in Dare to Lead, Daring Great Lee, or Gets of Imperfection. She explains a strong back as giving us boundaries, knowing where I end and you begin. A soft front, she says, allows tenderness without armor, and a grounded heart reminds me, and I hope you of who I am. So I don't need to control who you are. I've also realized empathy becomes supervision when one of these collapses, when a soft front without a strong bag leads to overextending and overhelping because you don't know how to define boundaries. And I know that when people hear boundaries, what they hear is keeping people out, but what boundary is is serving yourself. We have an episode of that. I'll try to link it in the show notes, and one day we'll talk about it again on Mindfully with Chimish. A strong back without a soft front becomes rigidity and moralism and legalism and all of that. And when the heart isn't grounded, empathy turns into control because we're trying to regulate our discomfort through the other person's healing. True empathy doesn't rush people, it doesn't supervise timelines, it doesn't correct emotions, meet process, it stays present without possession, and that's harder than it sounds. It is. Adam Grant offers another helpful mirror. Of course, for those who know Adam Grant, the author or think again is um is a philosophy or his work is mainly around corporate areas. But I think I have I I listened or I read parts of his book, and I think it can also serve in relational places. Um he suggests that when one believes are threatened, we often sleep into one of three roles: a preacher, a prosecutor, or a politician. Each of these can quietly show up in healy spaces, not because we are bad, but because we are human. He argues that the alternative is more is a more scientific posture. Curiosity over certainty. And I agree. If you've been with Mindful Utumishi enough, you know that I preach curiosity, letting go of our autopilot systems to lean into uncertainty with some curiosity to learn, to open ourselves to whatever that uncertainty is trying to teach. I'll add this though: even when we know better, we will still sleep. The work is not perfection, the work is recognition, and as I say all the time, it is not about perfection, it's about showing up. Or you could flip it, it's about showing up, not perfection. That's a lot, even for me. So uh, let me see if I have thoughts to leave with you today. And again, it's an invitation, it is not an instruction. Are you ready for the questions or the thoughts? So, the first invitation is where in my life am I offering empathy? And where might I be offering supervision? Where am I supporting agency? And where might I be managing discomfort? Healing needs witnesses, not wardens, and empathy when practiced with humility remains one of the most forms of connection we could ever have. And as we come to the end of this episode on emotional colonization, I want us to slow down just a little because conversations like this are not meant to be solved, they are meant to be held. If empathy has ever slipped into supervision for you, or if you have ever felt supervised in the name of care, I want you to know this. Noticing does not make you wrong, it makes you aware. And awareness, when paired with humility, can become wisdom. So instead of answers, I'll leave you with a few questions, not to interrogate yourself, but to accompany yourself with curiosity, self-empathy, yeah. Ask gently, where in my relationships am I offering support? And where might I be managing discomfort? When someone I care about is struggling, am I more committed to being helpful or to being present? What does empathy look like when I trust the other person's agency as much as I own my insight? And where might I need stronger boundaries? Not to withdraw, but to love more, honestly. Again, you do not need to answer this now. You can pick a pen and write them down or come back to listen to this episode. But let these questions work with you, let them surface in their own time. Remember, healing doesn't need supervisors, it needs witnesses, it needs people willing to stay close without taking other. So remember, I'll say it again, healing doesn't need supervisors. In the next episode, yes, we have come to the end. I'll try to explore what it means to belong without disappearing. That will be episode 99 on my way to 100. I'm so excited to stay connected with our. Losing ourselves. Until then, remember not to rush. Remember to stay mindful, stay human, and stay becoming. As always, if this episode stays with you and you would like to sit with it a little longer, jump on the WhatsApp space, the mindfulness WhatsApp space. And remember, it's not a place for fixing, diagnosing, or advice giving. It's a space for reflection, listening, and shared humanity and shared stories. You're welcome to join. If and only if it feels supportive to your process. Again, the link is in the episode notes. Whether you join the conversations or keep it private, remember your healing does not need an audience. Thank you very much for listening. Stay mindful. Stay becoming. Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your country. Above all of this, love God. He that is the essence of your being. I am Luatomichi. I leave you with the song by S.A. Peters used by permission or with permission from the artist S.A. Peters The Prayer. And my prayer for you is that every line in the song not only means something to you but comes through for you.

Curiosity Over Certainty

SPEAKER_00 24:31

May all of your days be as bright as the sun. And all of your fears are fade with the dawn. And when the storms come, they will come like a flood. Not for long. No, not for long. May all of our children reach out to the wind. Find the magic like kings and queens. And when the sky falls, you don't fall like a war. But not flow. And we will sing, sing for our mothers. Sing songs of hope and love week for our brothers. Feed like a river, hope like a fire, and love like a star. Love like a star.