Hitomi Horiguchi｜Dialogue Facilitator

❍ 1

My origin is the field.

In 1997, at McDonald’s Japan,

I managed dozens of staff in a place where

numbers, speed, and human emotion moved simultaneously.

That was where I learned management—through my body, not theory.

In 2002, I entered the apparel industry.

I had no particular interest in fashion,

but moved across industries through the common thread of management.

As a store manager of a luxury select shop,

I stood on the floor, entrusted with sales and responsibility for results.

In 2004, I casually started a blog for the store.

It unexpectedly reached No.1 in a popular fashion blog ranking

and drew far more attention than I had imagined.

By beginning to express,

the atmosphere of the space changed.

People’s movements changed.

And as a result, sales grew.

Reality changes through words and through being.

That conviction was unmistakable.

Wanting to better support people, I studied coaching.

As the quality of dialogue deepened, sales rose again—one level higher.

After nearly a year of email exchanges with a charismatic hairdresser mentor,

I was guided toward independence.

In 2026, at 31, I chose to walk my path as a life coach.

Business went surprisingly well.

Clients increased.

I received the word “thank you” again and again.

My income exceeded what I had imagined.

From the outside, I looked successful.

And yet—

somewhere inside, I was not full.

I was giving, yet not receiving.

Results were there, but a quiet sense of lack lingered in my heart.

“Still not enough.”

“I must give more.”

❍ 2

Holding that unease, I encountered a single book:

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm.

I was 35.

When I finished it, I couldn’t say I fully understood.

But one thing was crystal clear.

—I didn’t know how to love.

—And at the same time, I didn’t know how to receive.

From that moment, my life quietly shifted course—

away from accumulating “success,”

toward a journey of asking, What does it mean to be full?

I was always rushing.

The next appointment, the next result, the next correct answer.

I was rarely present.

I realized this on a trip to Yoronjima.

Time with nothing to do.

Days without checking the clock.

A world of waves, wind, and the weight of my body alone.

Ah—I had been living in a constant hurry.

That was when my “habits of attunement” began.

First, yoga.

By reconnecting breath and body,

I realized how detached my thinking had been from my physical self.

Around age 36, persistent back pain led me to discover

that I had scoliosis since childhood.

I began chiropractic care.

There, I learned for the first time what it meant not to “fix,”

but to align.

Then I reached for a long-held wish.

My voice.

I began singing lessons—

not to sing well, but to know my true voice.

The voice was directly connected to emotion.

What I had suppressed, held back, or left unspoken

slowly began to emerge as sound.

Next came words.

“I don’t want to end my life unable to speak English.”

I returned to English conversation after years away.

Speaking imperfectly.

Continuing even when not fully understood.

For me, this was a profound release.

I also traveled abroad alone.

I wanted to understand, in my body,

what Fromm meant by “the capacity to be alone.”

Not loneliness—but being alone.

Time without adjusting to anyone or explaining myself.

Around that time, my nieces were born.

As I spent more time with children, I noticed something.

They live neither in the future nor the past—only now.

They taught me what it truly means to live in the present.

Meditation drew me naturally.

I learned Transcendental Meditation and made it a daily habit.

Not to gain something, but to return.

Music, film, and visual art followed.

I consciously increased time spent perceiving

the invisible intentions of creators.

What I felt, I put into words.

I wrote on my blog.

I expressed.

Sensitivity dulls if unused.

Used, it always sharpens.

I also studied deep listening.

Not answering.

Not guiding.

Simply being there.

Each of these habits, one by one,

slowly but surely reorganized my way of being.

I didn’t learn because I was lacking.

I kept choosing in order to be full.

And then, at 50, I could finally think—quietly:

I am full.

Not because I achieved something.

Not because I became someone.

But because I returned to my own time and senses.

This is the foundation of my Art of Being.

❍ 3

After fullness,

I could finally work with the question: How shall I be?

When I first became independent as a life coach,

I was very “useful.”

I asked questions, shifted perspectives, built action plans, produced results.

Clients changed.

I received many words of gratitude.

Income and evaluation were steady.

Still, a subtle discomfort remained.

—Was I giving too many answers?

—Was I rushing people’s lives just a little?

These questions accumulated—quietly, but surely.

Gradually, my center of gravity shifted

from “speaking” to “listening.”

I studied deep listening,

learned to endure silence,

and began waiting for the tremble before words.

Then something strange began to happen.

People started to realize things themselves.

Not answers given by someone else,

but words rising from within.

In those moments, the air always trembles slightly.

Breathing changes.

Tone of voice shifts.

Posture changes.

The light in the eyes transforms.

In 2023, I encountered ChatGPT.

At first, I was astonished.

Fast thinking.

Beautiful organization.

Precise structure.

I formed a hypothesis:

“Perhaps AI alone is enough.”

I ran experiments for 1000 days—

asking questions, refining language, building structures, deepening dialogue.

And I learned something clearly.

There are things only humans can do.

The quality of silence.

Discomfort before words.

The atmosphere that rises in a shared space.

The brief moment when breathing changes.

These only occur when humans face one another.

So I did not replace humans with AI.

I welcomed AI as a co-creative partner.

Structure and language can be entrusted to AI at times.

But sensing the space, waiting for the pause,

and watching questions grow—

that is the human role.

At some point,

I began to feel a slight discomfort with the word “session.”

It sounded like a place for solving problems.

So I chose the word Dialogue.

A space to place questions, allow silence,

and remember together what was already there.

When Being is aligned,

Doing rises naturally.

No strain. No haste. Yet movement is certain.

This is the form of transformation I trust.

I am a facilitator.

I do not teach.

I do not guide.

I do not pull.

I simply prepare the space, nurture questions,

and witness the moment when someone meets their own words.

That has become my work.

Titles are no longer so important.

But if I must choose one—

Facilitator.

Even in the age of AI,

no—because it is the age of AI,

this role will never disappear.

When consciousness changes,

the world becomes beautiful.