Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had lotsa feelings of all colors, shapes, & sizes.
But along the way, people around her didn’t know what to do with her BIG feelings (or ANY feelings for that matter).
To keep their own (effing!) peace, they judged and called her:
TOO sensitive
TOO emotional
TOO much
Over time, the little girl built a hard shell on the outside to avoid getting into trouble.
She also developed MAJOR RBF (Resting Bitch Face) so others wouldn’t judge her.
She kept her mouth shut, head down, and nose to the grind…
…and guess what? She got praised for it because she was the “good, easy kid”.
…But the feelings on the inside didn’t go away. They just kept building, sloshing back and forth, leaking out at
the WORST TIMES,
the WORST PLACES,
and in the WORST WAYS.
Eventually the pressure on the inside grew so much that the hard shell EXPLODED, unleashing all kinds of dark & stormy feelings and causing all kinds of stress in her life & relationships.
…And now?
She’s having the time of her life because she actually BEFRIENDED her feelings instead of rejecting them!
Hiya, I’m Joanne, and I’m a Feelings Translator who GETS it!
I’ve had my share of headaches & heartaches in trying to figure out how to navigate the messy world of feelings.
As a firstborn daughter of a Korean immigrant family who definitely did NOT do feelings as someone who definitely had a TON of it, I felt like I was a glass jar trying to contain a maelstrom inside...burying myself in school, ministry, work, mentorship, etc.
(Basically, taking care of others out of a sense that I need to EARN affection, worthiness, and belonging…)
It was only a matter of time until these feelings morphed into full-on anxiety, depression, dissociation, and panic attacks, which took YEARS of therapy to claw my way out of them.
Once I got my footing again, I jumped into the world of becoming a therapist, learning whatever I could lay hands on regarding what feelings are, how they work, and how to do them well.
Over the course of several years of working with my favorite clients who seemed to struggled through very similar internal experiences, I devised a simple 3-step framework that described what happens when we DON’T do feelings well (aka The Emotional Vortex), and another framework that outlines how we can do feelings WELL (aka The Emotional Flow).
Once I started sharing this framework with my therapy clients, the average length of their therapy DROPPED from 3+ years down to 8-10 months (just 1/4 of the time)!!
Why? Because I taught them how to work WITH their feelings so their feelings can work FOR them.
But here’s the pickle…Even though this 3-step framework was revitalizing my clients’ lives, it became increasingly evident how 1-on-1 therapy was so limiting…
I could only work with those who are physically in the state of California where I’m licensed as a Marriage & Family Therapist
I could only have so many 1-on-1 sessions in a week
At one point, I had 180+ people on my therapy waitlist! (At my usual pace, that would take me ~7.5 YEARS to work with everyone, not including new people who sign up!!)
Not everyone could afford my full session fee ($275)
Not everyone could do regular weekly sessions
I really wanted to share this life-changing framework with THOUSANDS of people, but found myself and my time as a bottleneck, with all the red tape that’s involved with psychotherapy.
(I’m not knocking therapy…I still love it! It’s just that we could learn a ton of things OUTSIDE of therapy that might actually FREE UP our sessions for the deeper processing that only therapy can provide!!)
This is why I branched out beyond therapy to make an entire school for feelings that transcend time zones and budget!
Even though I still am helping people as a therapist (with a specialty in using the Enneagram & Brainspotting to help people grow beyond their one-sided relationships), I put everything I know about feelings into this new entity so that people all over the world, across different time zones and various economic situations, can have access to the key step in how to harness the power of emotions to create our dream lives & relationships.
Here are some ways I can help you do just that:
The BIG Feelings First Aid Kit
A FREE PDF guide that gives you quick next steps when your feelings show up in the WRONG TIMES, WRONG PLACES, and WRONG WAYS.
The BIG Feelings Masterclass
A 1-hour course that shows you the bird’s eye view of how feelings work, what happens when we don’t let them do their job, and how to work WITH them so they can work FOR you
Intelligent Emotions
A more thorough course than the Masterclass that has bite-sized videos & concrete exercises showing you how to turn your feelings into your greatest allies — and in practice, not just theory!
Featured In!
Other Deets & Quirks
Highly Sensitive Person, INFJ
Queer kid who grew up in the church, formerly a pastor (aka SUPER repressed for most of my life)
Enneagram 4 SP — I lived believing that I AM my feelings and have to EARN affection by suffering silently solo
A proud owner of 3 dream businesses, including:
Team Iron Man!
Hobbies: Pumpkin carving, cocktails, escape rooms, hammocking
Favorite movie: The Greatest Showman
Mama of 20+ (stuffed) animal babies (allergies are the WORST!)
