Guidance for the part of life that just broke open, or the part you've been holding closed for years. A layoff, a breakup, a betrayal, a grief.
Sometimes nothing is wrong. Something in you is simply asking for more room than your life gives it.
I'm Dragos, a guide based in Amsterdam. I've crossed some of this ground myself. My work is to walk it with you while you find your own way through.
Some things aren't meant to be carried alone.
Most of what you call fate is a part of you no one has met.
Whatever gets pushed down does not die. It goes underground and keeps working. Jung called it the shadow: the parts of a life set aside so the rest of it could function. The grief there was no time for. The anger that wasn't allowed. The need that made someone uncomfortable once and got locked away for good. Held down long enough, these things stop waiting politely. They start arranging your life from below.
The same argument in every relationship. The same collapse at the same point in every job. A tiredness that sleep doesn't touch.
The shadow holds more than pain. It's also where potential gets dumped. The ambition you shrunk because it made people uncomfortable. The soft parts you hardened to stay safe. That bigger life you're constantly on the verge of starting, and never quite do.
Some of what you carry was never yours. It came down through the family, hand to hand, the way land or debt comes down. You were carrying it before you were old enough to refuse it.
Understanding all this is the easy part now. The books exist, the podcasts exist, and most people who find their way here can already explain their patterns well. The old stories knew what the books tend to forget: a thing only changes when it is finally felt, down where it lives. And that is heavy to do alone. Heavier than it needs to be.
The Process
You can arrive with a feeling and nothing else. Most people do. A tightness, a flatness, a thing that happened three years ago that still runs the week. The explanation, if there is one, comes later.
We slow down first, because speed is usually part of the problem. Then we start meeting what you've been carrying. Some of it you'll recognize the moment it's named. Some of it takes longer, because you've carried it so long it stopped looking like something you were carrying. It started looking like you.
Most people I work with learned early that needing something makes them a burden. So they became the strong one instead. Good in a crisis, as long as the crisis is someone else's. That strength is earned, and I won't talk you out of it. It has also become the wall between you and whatever lives behind it.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
— Carl Jung
The work is slow on purpose, in plain language, with your body in the room as much as your thoughts. Old beliefs and old ways of coping made sense once, in a house or a job or a marriage that needed them, and they kept running long after the need ended. They loosen when they're finally met. So that's what we do. We sit with the thing until it shows you what it was protecting.
There's no fixed number of sessions and no script. The pace is yours, and you'll be the first to know when the work is done.
My Approach
A session is a conversation, slower than most. Nothing is required of you before it starts. You can arrive with something prepared or with nothing, and you won't be asked to perform your pain or start with your childhood. We start where you are that day, even if where you are is "I don't know."
While you talk, I'm listening for the gap between what you're saying and what's actually happening. The pause before a hard sentence. The way your voice changes when you get close to something. The story you tell about yourself that doesn't quite match the thing you just described. That gap is usually where the work is, and most people already sense it's there. They just haven't had anyone sit with them at its edge.
I'm trained in Compassionate Inquiry, somatic work, and nonviolent communication. The training taught me to recognize those moments and what to do when one arrives. The rest is plain attention to the person in front of me. No two people carry things the same way, so no two sessions run the same way.
I'll be honest with you, including when it's uncomfortable. I'll ask questions you might not want to answer, and you can decline them. If I don't know something, I'll say so.
“Run towards the roar,’ the old people used to tell the young ones. When faced with great danger and when people panic and seek a false sense of safety, run towards the roaring and go where you fear to go. For only in facing your fears can you find some safety and a way through. When the world rattles and the end seems near, go towards the roar.”
― Michael Meade
Dragos Radu
I work with men and women in anxiety, burnout, and the kind of life transition that doesn't announce itself until you're already inside it.
I spent years in hospitality and worked my way up to hotel manager, and burned out. I moved to corporate looking for something steadier and burned out again. Two different environments, same result, because the thing driving me was never the job. Then my body gave out too. I was limping, crooked, learning to walk again. When your body collapses alongside everything else, avoidance stops being one of your options. I know what it's like to refuse to look at the wound. And I know what it's like when the choice gets taken away.
There's an old story about Nasruddin, who loses the key to his house and spends the night searching for it under a lamppost. A neighbor finds him and asks if he's sure he dropped it there. He didn't. He dropped it somewhere in the dark. But the dark is frightening, and the light was where he could see. Most of us live like this. We work on what's visible and manageable, and the actual loss stays out in the dark, untouched. That's what I kept doing, until I couldn't anymore.
Training with Sacred Sons, the ManKind Project, and other men's work spaces showed me things I didn't expect. I was good at holding a room for other men years before I'd fully sat with my own edges. Old beliefs about what makes a man capable or worthy still had a grip on me, and they'd surface as anger, or a flat no, whenever someone pushed against them. Staying inside that discomfort is most of what changed me.
That work led me to start the Orion Project, a men's circle here in Amsterdam. Fire circles, workshops, the kind of room I needed back when I was the one stuck behind the laptop. Running it has taught me as much as any training did.
On paper, I'm a certified life and personal development coach, trained in Compassionate Inquiry, somatic work, and nonviolent communication. I hold no clinical license, by choice. If what you're carrying needs a therapist, I'll tell you so, and I'll help you find one.
The ground I work from is ground I've walked. That's the whole claim.
TRAINING & EDUCATION
BA Business Administration, Hotelschool The Hague Amsterdam
Leadership & Transpersonal Life Coaching Training Certification, Sofia University Palo Alto
International Coaching Federation (ICF) Level 1
Compassionate Inquiry Training with Gabor Mate, 1-year long training online
Personal Development Counsellor & Business Coaching Certification, Confident Business Bucharest
The Way of the Shaman, Foundation of Shamanic Studies
(Some of the) Personal trainings attended:
Sacred Sons
Soul of Men
ManKind Project
Ways to Work Together
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![coaching session location, Amsterdam office]()
In-Person
Sessions at my Amsterdam office. Good for deeper work, somatic practice, the kind of presence that's harder to get through a screen.
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![Sunlight filtering through a dense forest of tall pine trees, illuminating the green moss and undergrowth at ground level.]()
In-Nature
Outdoor sessions in and around Amsterdam. Walking, breathing, working with what's around you instead of four walls. If sitting across from someone in a room doesn't feel like where this work lives for you, this might.
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![Close-up of a silver laptop keyboard on a white surface.]()
Online
For when distance or scheduling makes in-person hard. Same depth, different format, video sessions that still hold a rhythm.
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![corporate/in-company training and coaching]()
Corporate/In-Company
Workshops and one-on-one guidance for teams under sustained pressure. Burnout is territory I know from the inside, twice, in hospitality and corporate. If your people are running on fumes, write to me and we'll see what fits.
Codependency
Life Transitions
Shame & Guilt
Grief & Loss
Anxiety
Burnout
Relationship Patterns
Codependency Life Transitions Shame & Guilt Grief & Loss Anxiety Burnout Relationship Patterns
This is your process.
I'm here so you don't carry it alone.
01.
A room with edges
Fixed time, held frame, nothing leaks out of it. You can put things down here because the container holds.
02.
My full attention
No protocol running in the background, no next question waiting while you talk. What you say shapes what happens next.
03.
The pace stays yours
I'll follow what's alive, and I'll check before we go through a door you didn't open.
Getting Started
01. Reach out
Send me a message about what's bringing you here. It doesn't need to be polished or figured out. A few honest sentences are enough. I'll reply within a day.
02. We talk
A free 30-minute call. You get a sense of how I work, I get a sense of what's been going on, and we decide together whether to continue. If I'm the wrong person for it, I'll say so on the call.
03. We start
If it fits, we set a time. The first session starts wherever you are.
Whenever you're ready…
Frequently Asked Questions
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EUR 70 per session, 50 minutes. I'm not affiliated with insurance providers, so sessions aren't reimbursed through Dutch health insurance. Some employers cover this kind of work through a personal development or wellbeing budget, worth checking with HR if that's an option for you. I can give you an invoice either way.
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Formally: Compassionate Inquiry, somatic work, nonviolent communication. Underneath that, a conviction the old stories keep repeating: the thing you avoid is usually the thing that has your energy. Sessions follow what's alive in the room, so no two run alike.
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That's up to you. Some people want ongoing support, others come for a specific thing and then stop. I'll check in with you regularly so we both know if it's still working.
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In person at my office in Amsterdam, outdoors in and around the city, and online via Zoom.
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My intention is to help you build something that holds after we stop meeting. Sessions are collaborative and direct. I'll tell you what I'm noticing, I'll ask you things you might not want to answer, and I won't pretend to have it more figured out than I do.
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A therapist works within a clinical frame and can diagnose and treat. My work is guidance. We sit with what you're carrying, at your pace, until you find your own way through it. Some people see a therapist and work with me at the same time, and the two go well together. If what you bring needs clinical care, I'll say so and help you find it.