Ground at the source.
You can name your problems. So why can't you get out of them?
Habit apps. Morning routines. Journaling prompts. A podcast about discipline. A new plan every Sunday. Turning yourself off and on again.
Figlet Life Coaching runs my Proof of Work of Being Human protocol on your actual situation, down where the pain lives.
Coaching is how we go from where you are now to where you want to go. We only address the past when it emerges in the present. Figlet works that way, in my words: it helps you find the ground in your body first, say what actually happened, and notice which part of you is driving. You make sense. The strategies you built to survive were intelligent. The work is getting your choice back.
*The numbers above are published outcomes for Emotionally Focused Therapy, one of the three roots of the Empathi Method: 86% of couples improve and 73% stay better two years on. Figlet Life Coaching is coaching, not therapy, and makes no clinical claim. The first ten messages are free.
The Empathi Method,
for one person
*The numbers above are published outcomes for Emotionally Focused Therapy, one of the three roots of the Empathi Method: 86% of couples improve and 73% stay better two years on. Figlet Life Coaching is coaching, not therapy, and makes no clinical claim. The first ten messages are free.
AI Life Coaching From a Licensed Therapist | Empathi.com
Why Proof of Work?
Proof of work is Bitcoin’s phrase: cost that cannot be faked. Energy actually spent, work actually done. And proof of work is what love requires: presence that cannot be faked. The same is true of a life. AI is the great faker of everything in between. What it cannot fake is cost, and what it cannot fake is presence. So Figlet doesn’t do the work for you. It holds the loop while you do it.
Why Proof of Work?
Proof of work is Bitcoin’s phrase: cost that cannot be faked. Energy actually spent, work actually done. And proof of work is what love requires: presence that cannot be faked. The same is true of a life. AI is the great faker of everything in between. What it cannot fake is cost, and what it cannot fake is presence. So Figlet doesn’t do the work for you. It holds the loop while you do it.
The protocol is a loop you can run any night. Get ground in your body first. Say what happened. Find where it lands in your body. Name who’s driving: which protector, which coin, which direction on the compass of shame. Trace it to your history, your family, your culture, the system you live inside. Feel it and tell someone. Then take one creative action, backed by something real.
What is the Proof of Work of Being Human protocol?
It begins with you. With what I call reflexive participation, the core practice my book is built around. I draw it from imaginal psychology, and at its simplest it means making yourself the subject of your own honest inquiry.
Reflexive participation comes from the teaching of Aftab Omer at the Institute of Imaginal Studies, where I trained.
You study yourself, both thinking about and feeling into how you are really being affected by the world in a given moment, so that you can take creative action that is true to your own organism and to what the moment is actually asking of you.
Sovereignty is not something you start with. It is something that emerges. It is belonging to yourself fully enough that you can finally meet the world as it actually is. Figlet is there so you can run the inquiry whenever it’s needed, not just on the good days.
You study yourself, both thinking about and feeling into how you are really being affected by the world in a given moment, so that you can take creative action that is true to your own organism and to what the moment is actually asking of you.
Sovereignty is not something you start with. It is something that emerges. It is belonging to yourself fully enough that you can finally meet the world as it actually is. Figlet is there so you can run the inquiry whenever it’s needed, not just on the good days.
Is this for me if I'm not in a relationship?
Yes. Figlet Life Coaching is for one person: you, your body, your work, your money, your family, your attention, your belonging, your aliveness. Couples have their own door, Figlet’s relationship coaching and therapy with Figs and Teale. This one is about building sovereign ground inside yourself.
The nine Sovereign Grounds:
The two coins, too much and not enough. The cast inside: protector parts with jobs, guarding the child. The Gatekeeper and the Friend.
The body is the first ledger of immutable truth. It records what was safe, what was unstable, what was repaired and what never was. Measure less, feel more. Figlet never gives medical advice.
The financial system as the not-good-enough mother. A mechanism, not your character. The four costumes of one money wound. Figlet never recommends assets, timing or tax moves.
The Waltz of Pain, repair over and over, letting love in. For the relationship itself, there is Figlet’s relationship coaching.
What every child needs to hear: yes, I’m there for you; yes, you’re enough for me; and boundaries that are the same tomorrow as today. Repair the wound by not passing it on.
Working against shame, not for money. The Relentless, the Reluctant and the yo-yo at work. What is this work backed by? Figlet never tells anyone to quit.
The algorithmic mother who never says no. Fiat attention against sovereign attention. What altar do you kneel at most?
Fiat belonging, tribe over truth. Friendship is the middle scale, between the parts inside you and the wider world. Who do you feel most yourself with, and which protector stops you reaching out?
Ecstatic living: being without a project attached. Places where nothing needs to get better, protected on purpose. The ground you trust is what lets you leap.
If one of these is yours, start there. Figlet will meet you on that ground and run the loop with you tonight. Not sure which one? Take the two-minute Ground Check.
Can it handle my specific situation?
You may feel like the only person who can’t get out of this. The truth is that the same pains arrive in my room again and again, wearing different clothes. Figlet was built on how I work with them, and it starts from your words, not a script. Start with the Ground Check if you want to know which ground is loudest.
The pains people bring most often:
Each of these has its own article, written by me, and its own ground inside Figlet.
The question isn’t about jobs. It’s about an alive part of you asking for its life back. Read the article.
It’s rarely the job. It’s fiat work: effort that never compounds into safety or rest. Read the article.
The shame about it is the thing keeping you hidden. We go at it in the body first. Read the article.
You’re not lazy. Something in you wants to rest in being enough. Read the article.
Shame measures you by output and calls it truth. We find the coin you keep flipping, too much or not enough.
The wound wears four costumes: not looking, hoarding, attacking yourself, attacking others. Figlet helps you name yours. It never tells you what to buy.
Everything has become a project, including rest. Aliveness is being without a project attached, and it can be protected on purpose.
Coaching is not for everything. If what you’re carrying is heavier than coaching can hold, Figlet says so plainly and points you to a licensed therapist where you live.
Does AI life coaching actually work?
It works when you do the work, and Figlet is honest about that. It can’t fake cost and it can’t fake presence, so it doesn’t try. What it does is hold the protocol steady at 2am, in my words, for as long as you need, and it ends every conversation with one creative action you can actually take. That is the proof of work, and it’s yours.
Is starting hard?
People often don’t know what they want from coaching. They just know the loop they’re in. You don’t need to know. Open Figlet, say what’s actually going on in your own words, and it takes it from there.
Slipping back is part of the work, not failure. A return after time away is the practice working, and Figlet never shames it.
Here's how it starts:
- Open Figlet and say what's going on, in your own words.
- The first ten messages are free. No card.
- Figlet finds the ground that's hurting and runs the loop with you.
Here's how it starts:
- Open Figlet and say what's going on, in your own words.
- The first ten messages are free. No card.
- Figlet finds the ground that's hurting and runs the loop with you.
Figlet Life Coaching Can Help You…
- Make a mistake without attacking yourself for a day.
- Notice tension before it becomes a headache.
- Rest without guilt.
- Check your balance without dread.
- Be bored for five minutes.
- Reach out to someone first.
- Have a moment this week where nothing needs to get better.
Your Life Coaching Questions, Answered
Telling an AI the things you tell no one is strange. Here’s exactly what you’re stepping into.
It can hold a protocol, ask the next honest question, and refuse to let you skip the body. Figlet works the way I do in the room, Hakomi-informed: notice something and name it, get curious with permission, stay with it for a moment, then ask what you notice next. It can’t fake presence, and it doesn’t pretend to. The work stays yours.
The first ten messages are free, with no card. After that it’s a monthly subscription that costs less than one session with a coach. Current pricing is on the start page.
No. Coaching is how we go from where you are now to where you want to go, and we only address the past when it emerges in the present. Therapy mines the past more freely. If what you describe sounds like more than coaching can hold, Figlet says so and points you to a licensed therapist where you live.
The method from my book, Proof of Work (Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027): seven moves that build sovereign ground inside yourself, run across the nine Sovereign Grounds of a life.
Figlet is not a crisis service. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988.
How the protocol runs
Seven moves, in my words, on your actual situation. Figlet walks them with you every time. On an ordinary day it takes two minutes: feet and one breath, what’s affecting me, where it is in my body, which part is driving, one true small next step.
Ground
You can’t reason with a flooded nervous system. Feet on the floor, one slow out-breath longer than the in. Settle it one notch before you think about any of it.
Notice
Re-enter the most recent moment in the present tense. Say what happened, not what it means about you. Then find where it lives in the body and don’t fix it. The body is the first ledger.
Who's driving
Listen for the voice. The inner critic was built in childhood to keep you safe. You don’t argue with it. You notice whether it’s whipping you to prove yourself or making you small and silent.
Trace it
When is the first time you remember your worth being measured this way? You didn’t invent the belief. You inherited it. A wound you inherited is not a verdict on you.
Feel it, tell someone
Grief becomes compassion once it’s felt. Fear becomes courage once it’s spoken. Say the real sentence to one person who won’t try to fix you.
Creative action
Not a life overhaul. One action this week that’s true to your own organism and to what the moment is asking. The alive part of you remembering it still exists.
Built by a therapist, not a growth team.
Figlet Life Coaching is my protocol in my own words, after seventeen years in the therapy room. It is here to do more than get you through the week. It’s here to help you get your choice, your sovereignty, back.
- Feel safe to be who you actually are.
- Get back to joy that isn't a project.
- Grieve what needs grieving, and move.
- Stop having the same fight with yourself.
Yelp Rates Us 5 Stars!
Why People Rate Working With Figs Five Stars
Figlet Life Coaching comes out of the same room. The way I work with couples, slowing down, finding the body, naming who’s driving, is the way Figlet works with you on your own life.
Take it from
the people who've worked with Figs
Check out our reviews with this direct feed from our Yelp page.
-
"Figs was like no other therapist I had seen before. He got through to my partner in a way I didn't believe was possible."
— Lea L., Bedford, MA -
"His focus on Emotionally Focused Therapy has been instrumental — the best and most proven approach to couples work."
— Mary F., Redwood City, CA -
"We fight about the same things, but the fight is shorter and a lot less painful."
— Ahmed E., Sunnyside, NY
"With Empathi, Figs has created a fun and creative way to help people feel more connected in their relationship and to become acquainted with the transformational power of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy."
Dr. Sue Johnson
Creator of Emotionally-Focused Therapy
It's quick, free,
and there's nothing to book
Between the emotional hurdle of admitting something is wrong and the logistics of finding someone to talk to, starting is the hardest part. Figlet removes the logistics. Open it and talk.
- Open Figlet and say what's going on.
- Figlet finds the ground that's hurting.
- Run the loop together. Ten minutes is enough.
- Leave with one creative action for tonight.
The Nine Sovereign Grounds
Figlet meets you on whichever one is hurting, and runs the same seven moves.
- Self
- Body
- Love
- Family
- Work and creativity
- Money
- Attention and technology
- Belonging
- Aliveness
- Get ground in your body
- What happened
- Where it lands in the body
- Who's driving
- Trace it
- Feel it and tell someone
- One creative action
Four Ways In
Figlet Life Coaching
- Start tonight, in your own words.
- First ten messages free, no card.
- The protocol on your actual situation.
- Come back whenever you need.
The Book: Proof of Work
- From Fiat Life to Thriving in the AI Age.
- Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027.
- The full protocol, ground by ground.
- Get the date first.
The Live Program
with Figs
- A small group, several weeks.
- The protocol, together, on real situations.
- The list hears first when it opens.
Couples Therapy
with Figs and Teale
- For the relationship itself.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy, in the room or online.
- Request a free consultation.
