I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Elise Liu on her podcast Craving Food Freedom.

We talked all about how shame causes us to feel less than, different, not good enough, and how to escape the shame spiral that traps us in that place initially.

TRANSCRIPT

The Shame Spiral of “I’m not good enough.”

Elise: Joanne presented me with all of these fun, interesting topics. And one of them being, I don't feel like I'm a good enough person. 

The way that I see this play out, the feeling of I'm not good enough, it’s not necessarily a feeling. It's more like a thought of, I'm not good enough. So I have to do more and more and more and change myself.

What specific scenarios do you see these feelings bubbling up?

Joanne: I think often, as you say, people usually notice it as in plot form. In the heat of the moment, that's not what people consider. It's usually after crap hits the fan, after things break, and they're like, what happened? 

In the moment they're trying to do damage control. They put out the immediate fires and afterwards, after trying to catch their breath, it's like, well, what happened? 

Then as they backtrack they come across more of the thoughts of, “Oh, this is because I have a hard time reconciling or the fact that I'm actually okay or I really don't believe that this person really wants to be with me. I don't believe that I'm good, et cetera.”

I think feelings kind of show up in their rawer form. Even with our brains, how they work is by the time we get to the thinking portion of it, it means we're already calm enough to do that kind of self reflection. 

In the heat of the moment, though, that part shuts down. And then we go into our mammal and our lizard brain where everything is super chaotic and upside down. It's more of a body visceral feeling or like a sense. Then maybe we can kind of reconcile with the feeling of it.

I don't think our experiences are quite clean cut between thinking, feeling, and doing. Or like head, heart, and our body, they're very much interconnected. And that's precisely why we need to consider them as such. 

It's just that in this day and age, especially in the Westernized part of the world, there's been way more emphasis and acknowledgement of the head center or things that are more intellectualized, rational sentences, etc. When it comes to things that are more abstract or ethereal like, emotions or body sensations, we don't give them the same respect and the same amount of attention.

In a sense it might be splitting hairs to try to tease out a particular emotion or particular body sensation. Whichever one stands out to you the most, roll with that and you'll eventually hit the other ones.

Elise: I remember reading the definition of emotions and what really is the definition behind it.

And this one really stuck with me, which is, “Emotions are just signals to you and others of what you need.”

If you're sad, then if other people see that you're sad, they might comfort you. And if you know that you're sad hopefully you'll know to comfort yourself. So it's internal and external signals for you and others.

What do you think is the role of emotions in day-to-day 21st century life?

Joanne: I think our feelings are meant to be signals highlighting what we're needing or what we're wanting. Different emotions convey that message depending on what it is. (Read more about this here)

Let's say sadness, because you just brought that up. Even in the movie Inside Out, when sadness showed up, that signal was labeled as bad and that's kind of where things started going sideways. But by the end of the movie, and spoiler alert, the main thing the character was needing was acknowledgement, comfort and closeness. Those are the three main things that happen or that the person needs when the emotion sadness comes up.

When it comes to anger, the main needs that anger signals are for agency, the ability to make decisions or make change on behalf of oneself, more efficacy or efficiency, for things to be very effective or go according to a certain expectation or timeline, et cetera. Anger naturally is a very energizing emotion that involves a lot of forward movement. 

Fear would be either for more preparation or more practice, more support maybe. 

All of these emotions correspond with particular needs. If we actually accept that our emotions are neutral signals, neither inherently good or bad, then we're more likely to get the memo as to what they're trying to point out.

When we label these signals as inherently good or bad, for example, for a lot of women the emotion of sadness is labeled as good but the emotion of anger is labeled as bad. I think for a lot of men it might be the opposite. Whichever way it goes it doesn't really matter.

Sometimes it depends on a person's culture and the labels that get attached to different emotions. Good emotions are overly celebrated. It's as if when those feelings show up all is well.

For some households or for some cultures, numbness might be labeled as a good emotion and “let's just keep this very steady.” Any emotion that disrupts the waters is labeled as bad. Then things get very complicated because we're getting further and further removed from the needs that those emotions are trying to signal. 

Elise: I love that framing. 

I am always envious of people who grew up in families where their emotions are celebrated, heard, seen, and comforted.

I think in a lot of families that part is just pushed away or things are awkward and emotions are not addressed. I feel like those are the people that grow up and they're like, “What do I do with these feelings? I barely know how to name these feelings.”

Joanne: There's an actual term for that. It's called alexithymia. The inability to put words to feelings. Either our own feelings or other people's feelings. 

That's part of the confusion. 

Especially in the part of the world where we put so much emphasis on the “rational”. And what's assumed to be rational are things that are visible, measurable, and able to be explained.

Well, if we can't put words to feelings, then of course they're going to be assumed to be extra immature or extra unworthy. Not because feelings themselves are bad, but because we've put all these expectations on what's considered worthy and what is not. 

Even considering our own Individual experiences in a wider social context is super important.

An easy example is if a person leans more deeply emotional or expressive and that person is heavily judged in their environment, but you pick them up, you drop them off in a different part of the world that tends to value what that person already does. That person is going to have a very different personal and social experience, even though that person hasn't changed at all. 

We often don't consider our experiences with respect to our context. It's just that, especially in this part of the world, if what big feelers do isn't well celebrated then we get extra judged and extra shamed much more than is actually appropriate.

Elise: I'm even thinking about more taboo emotions like envy or jealousy or anger or whatever it is that is frowned upon if you express it too much. Because society labels these as good or bad that's probably why people feel shame expressing those things. Or the fact that they feel like, “Oh, I'm not a good person. I'm not like my friend who never has a bad thought and is so accommodating, never jealous, et cetera.”

So going back to that topic, I don't feel like I'm a good person or I feel like I'm a bad person. Where do you think that comes from in people?

Joanne: I think shame itself, which is assumed to be a bad emotion, also has its own function. 

One quick example is, you can probably think of some people off the bat that you're like, “they're so shameless.” You can see the destruction they cause. 

For those people they could afford to have MORE shame. So that they would be able to  honor other people and take care of them instead of  steamrolling over them.

Shame itself, though it is generally assumed to be bad, there is a very useful social function. 

If you think about the Asian countries that are very shame driven, what's one of the perks of those societies? The train systems run very smoothly. The streets are very clean. Everything is very orderly and smooth.

Shame itself as an emotion, one of its main functions might be to keep the collective running very smoothly by making sure that the individuals are aligning themselves to the agendas or the values of the collective. 

It's just that, especially in the United States, where we put such a high emphasis on the individual at the expense of the collective, where we even have a whole holiday celebrating independence, shame as an emotion would first of all be a natural byproduct in highlighting specific individuals as if they are broken. It's like you better make sure to change yourself so you fit the overall collective. 

In that sense seeing, a supposedly bad emotions like shame, as having a particular function is very helpful so that we reduce some of the charge. It's not actually about the individual feeling shame as being bad. It's just that sometimes those individuals have been MADE to feel bad because they don't fit the collective. 

We need to see the end result, the conclusion of “I am a bad person” (supposedly). If we see it in that bigger cultural or social context, perhaps those individuals who feel or struggle with a lot of shame might have accidentally absorbed OTHER people's messages or other people's expectations or other people's judgment. And it isn’t actually the case that the individual is broken or bad or unworthy.

Emotions are Messengers

Elise: That is so insightful. Actually, a few examples come to mind. I think anyone would be able to relate to this, “Maybe I just need to change this about myself and then things will be better” or “My partner, my friend does it better. Let me try to be different or better, just like how they're doing it.”

In terms of this month with my patients, I remember one example of someone saying, “Growing up all I wanted to do was change myself. I felt like I needed to change. I needed to change this about me. I was broken. Something was off about me. It's a me issue. It's a me problem.” She said that so often. 

It was only until she went into therapy that she started to say, “No, I'm okay. Maybe it's not me. I have to think about the context. I have to think about the external situation. Maybe it's not all me.”

I thought that was so profound. I heard that again later that week with someone else. That shift is so, so interesting to me.

Joanne: The messages of I'm too “       ”. I am too emotional. I'm too loud. I'm too skinny. I'm too whatever, it doesn't really matter what it is, but I'm too “       ”. There is a standard or a baseline with respect to that mess to know I am off of the main standard. 

But who the hell drew that standard in the first place? 

Because isn't it the case that if a person is too sensitive then there's an assumption of what the right amount of sensitive is. Maybe instead of the person being too sensitive maybe everyone else is being too insensitive.

It's an arbitrary line, right? 

Especially for those who tend to feel a lot of shame in that being a ONE-DOWN experience: I am more inferior than other people. Or a ONE-AWAY position: I am on the outside looking in. It is a very underly powered position. Especially nowadays, because it's more common or more welcomed for people to talk about power and privilege. 

Somebody is benefiting from a person feeling shame.

Somebody is benefiting from that person being kept under one's foot. 

If we think about shame through the lens of power and privilege, about who's in vs. who's out, who's above vs. who's below, then that paints a very different picture. Because we think when a person is feeling shame it's solely about the individual. 

Again, that is a byproduct of being in a very individualistic society. When it comes to those more collectivistic societies, shame still highlights that focus on the individual.  

One way of shifting out of shame is asking the questions, 

“Is there anybody who might be benefiting at my expense when I spin in shame?” 

“Is there anybody who profits from me remaining in the shame spiral?” 

All these programs, companies, or marketing strategies that there are, there has to be ethics involved when it comes to marketing because people are vulnerable. There are very specific people who are, in a way, preying on those who are very vulnerable and those who are very vulnerable are often those who are experiencing a lot of shame.

When you're struggling with this thought or feeling, “There's something wrong with me.”

If you ask yourself, “Is there anyone benefiting from me believing those about myself?” Then instead of shame the feeling that might come up is ANGER.

It's like, “What the hell? Why is this person or this company benefiting from my belief in myself as being less worthy?”

It can pull us out of that shame spiral.

Elise: Yes. I've actually done this with people struggling with body image. When people spiral into negative body image I tell them to question where that comes from. Also why did someone's comment about your body when you were young make you feel like you have to change? Why couldn't you get angry at that person instead? Why are you internalizing this? 

Sometimes when a person can naturally get themselves to get angry at that outside force I feel good. I feel like they're making progress because they're turning back on what was being said to them.

Joanne: Now the kicker. As I said earlier, a lot of people who find me are those who struggle with high familiarity with anxiety, guilt, and shame, partially because they have an allergic reaction to anger. It's like, “I'm not allowed to feel angry. I shouldn't feel angry because anger is a bad emotion for me.” 

When other people are angry, like men in high positions of power or incompetent old white men, for example, that they're feeling anger isn't given the same amount of stigma. But when a woman speaks up, for example, that person's labeled as being too bitchy, too bossy, too much, too loud, whatever, so again, the double standard. 

Also other cultural or community messages that say certain individuals aren't supposed to access anger. Certain individuals, especially historically under resourced or under empowered populations, those who are women, immigrants, LGBTQ, whatever, they're not allowed to feel anger.

Why? Because ANGER is an emotion of power, too. 

Those who are in power want to maintain their position of power, so y'all better make sure to not have access to that very powerful emotion because we don't want to lose our power. We want to maintain our position. 

So, whether it be thinking of it through the shame route or the anger route, the flip sides of the same coin, because in this sense, shame and anger, both are emotions about power, privilege, and belonging. Whichever angle best resonates with you, go with that.

It's just a difficult thing that when a person is struggling with shame, the very thing that they need is anger. But if anger has been labeled as a bad emotion it's kind of this mutually like recycling experience. And so that's part of the reason why it's so hard to get past it.

An alternative is, let's say a person is struggling with any shame message like, “I'm too incompetent.” That person, if they think about their closest friend, that they love so much, and they swap positions. Let's say their close friend is struggling with the same thoughts, same feelings, same sentiments. You, as a very caring, loving friend, how would you feel towards that person? What would you say to that person?

“What do you mean? You've done all these awesome things and here, here, here, and here are all the concrete reasons and evidence why you are actually very competent and capable. Even if you're not the best at something I've seen instances of you learning new skills”

If there's any discrepancy between how you treat yourself and how you treat your close friend, that's a signal that the kind of shame you're feeling is a very reactive one vs. a reflection of what’s real and true.

Elise: I think this actually goes hand in hand with someone's self-esteem. I think when all of this is paired with low self-esteem what I see happen and what I personally also know happens is you'll look at someone else and say, “They're just a better person. They have these more shiny, innate skills, these social skills, or these whatever skills that I don't have, maybe they're just more cut out for it. And I'm different.”

That thought creeps in for a lot of people. 

I'm going to share a personal sort of anecdote. For the majority of my early life, maybe the first two decades, I didn't question people. I didn't question anyone. I thought they were better than me. I thought they were smarter than me. I thought they were shinier, they were more successful. This is mostly from people who had attained success or maybe were white or whatever it was. I just thought they were different people. They were better people. 

It wasn't until recently, maybe the past five years, as I became a working professional, seeing all of these working professionals as that person that's higher up on the chain, that has more success, that might be more beautiful and whatever it is, they're no better than me. I can get angry at them if something is not right or if something is not fair. They're not inherently better as a human.

Joanne: I think that brings us back to the main idea that shame has the message of being ONE-DOWN and ONE-AWAY. 

“I am lesser than other people. I'm on the outside looking in.”

We take these as neutral messages. It's just information. It doesn't mean that it's actually true, but that's basically what shame signals. That it's as if those things are the case. 

The way to dissolve shame or as an antidote to shame is whatever is the opposite. 

Some people might think the opposite of shame is pride. Thinking that you're better than the other person, but it's more of the same in actuality. 

Taking a ONE-UP position in pride or contempt and looking down on other people basically says that you are not equal with another person. Sometimes people can be in a ONE-DOWN position and then switch and overcompensate to being in a one up position.

A clear example of this is narcissists. 

On the outside narcissists generally take a very one up position and they look down on other people. But you know that they're not actually better because once you say a comment that seems to point at how they're not so one up, they get super offended. They double down on their position. That reveals how they're actually so insecure on the inside. At the core, it's still shame. 

It doesn't really matter how it shows up. Sometimes shame might show more obviously in that a person is more self-demeaning or more groveling or more heavily in the envy position or whatever. Or a person might show up on the outside as, I'm just better than all of you or, how dare you treat me this way.

SHAME and PRIDE are flip sides of the same coin, they work hand in hand, they're not the opposites of each other. 

The actual opposite of both of them is HUMILITY. When I say humility some people might hear humiliation. It's the same root but the word humility in the Latin root refers to the term humus, which means earth or dirt.

It's also where we get the same word human. 

So the antidote to being in a one down or one up position, mainly shame or pride, is to recognize that we are all on the same plane. We're all ground level. We're all on the dirt level as human beings. That's the only way out of this very reactive trap in that instead of being one-down and one-away or one-up and one-in, we are all equal and we all belong. 

That's the only way out of this process. 

Even in our growth process it’'s important to recognize the possibility of us overcompensating. We can actually end up burning a lot of bridges or creating a whole lot of other problems. It's well intended, we're trying to get out of the shame position, but in effect, it might actually cause more complications.Then we just swing right back into the shame cycle all over again.

Elise: That was the best explanation I've ever heard of these terms, the way that you tied it together. The common theme is the more that you feel “othered” the the worse off you are ultimately, because you just don't feel connected to anyone. The more that you can think that all humans are humans and we're just on the same playing field, everything becomes easier.

Joanne: Being different isn't bad, but everyone's different. I am no more or less different than others.

Everyone's different and everyone is the same. 

Those who have not done a lot of personal work, those can't be in the same sentence together.

“I either have to be good OR bad. I can't be good AND bad. I have to either be different and special or same and bad, or sometimes it can be flipped around. I need to be same which is good and different which is bad.” It doesn't matter which way it goes. 

When people have really done their personal work we can reconcile even seemingly opposite concepts in the same way. We can hold paradox because there's enough room inside of us to be able to hold all that. 

You would be able to tell someone who's really done their work.

For example, someone comes by and says a comment to them and it's like water off a duck's back.They just move on with their day. 

Anyone who's still in the shame or pride position, a person who's swinging more in shame, will be like, “Oh my gosh, this person thinks so lowly of me” or “I knew it. This must mean there's something wrong with me” and then go down that route. 

Or it's like, “How dare you? How dare you call me that?”

In either case it's skipping the being equal sense. Instead of being equal, we're going to get caught up in all kinds of drama. Spend a whole lot more time, resources, and energy than we need to and create a lot more headache and heartache than we really need. Imagine how much time got sucked up in reactivity because we might not have a very vibrant relationship with feelings and labeling certain feelings as good and others as bad.

Elise: When you can feel the feelings and not place judgment something about that neutralizes it. Then you prevent the shame spiral. 

Joanne: It’s not just neutralizing but it's actually recognizing that there's a specific message.

It's a fantastic thing to go from being polarized or picking and choosing feelings to seeing them as all neutral. That's fantastic. 

It's just that staying in that place is like seeing feelings as fruit flies. And you just wave it away. That's what neutralizing means. It doesn't bother you, it doesn't knock you off balance.

What if each feeling has a very specific message? 

Instead of just seeing them as neutral, you see them as neutral messages. Then that highlights what direction we could take to actually face those needs or those wants. 

I think in recent decades there's been a fantastic movement with Brene Brown and Susan David where now we're at the place where it's more normal to hear, “Let them go. Feel the feelings and let them pass.”

That is awesome compared to where we were before. 

The next step is don't just let them go. Find out where you go next by discerning or translating what each feeling means about what you need or what you want. 

We're not just trying to make sure we don't get knocked off balance, but we're trying to have forward movement in actually creating the kind of life and relationships that we actually dream of.

How I Became a Feelings Translator

Elise: Totally. I heard a quote recently that said, “If something still bothers you, that's work that you need to do.” 

You do this work so well, Joanne. You really know this stuff so well, this emotions sphere. What made you want to dive so deep into this specific realm?

Joanne: I'm a BIG Feeler myself. Highly Sensitive Person, Enneagram Four, the only feeling person in my immigrant family. Being a closeted queer, having grown up in a very conservative, religious space, all those reasons. 

My own personal journey involved me having had so many feelings that then I repressed, and then I became super numb and super dissociated. I was actually celebrated because I was the good, easy kid, never caused any problems. Until I just lost my shit one day. All these feelings came up. That launched me into my own therapy journey, which I'm super thankful for. 

Now I am a therapist and feelings coach. I work with a lot of people with their feelings. As I was doing that over the years, I thought, there's probably more here. There's a lot of parallels. As my clients work through their feelings, I get more healing. Then vice versa, as I do my own personal work my clients also have more clarity as to what they're feeling. 

It was a parallel process where once I crystallized what I sensed in how feelings work into those three simple steps of: feeling the emotion, revealing the need, and dealing with the need, everything became so much simpler.

Clients used to see me for years and years and years. Nowadays, if I have a pretty good fit with a client then it usually takes 30 to 40 sessions, which is about like 8 to 10 months, before they're like, “You know, I think I got this because feelings aren't really all that complicated.” 

It's just when we put so much shame and stigma on top of it, because again, our cultural messages about how feelings are bad. That's what makes it more complicated. 

But there is an inherent logic and reason to feelings. We just have to know that it's like a language and it has a vocab and grammar structure. Once people realize that it is actually pretty straightforward. 

What used to knock people off balance for like weeks or maybe even years, nowadays, they recognize, “I still have feelings that trigger me or sometimes they trip me up, but it takes like an hour or three at most that I can course correct.” 

The point isn't to feel less. The point is to recognize that feelings are just signals, they're ways that we are given information about what to do going forward. Not too much differently than as drivers in a car. We need to take in signals, traffic wise, for pedestrians and things like that so we can make decisions moving forward. Things move smoothly. 

Experience vs. Expression

Elise: Totally. My last question here, that I'm personally curious about as a fellow Asian American woman. When you are practicing all of this and you're being more emotionally expressive. What do you do with people who don't know this version of you, namely your family or people in your childhood who have never seen the side to you and that awkwardness that comes?

Joanne: There's the EXPERIENCE of emotion and there's the EXPRESSION of emotion. We need to consider both instead of lumping them together. 

The EXPERIENCE of an emotion is where we gather and glean all that good information, but that can be done as an individual. That's a personal internal process. A feeling comes up, “I know I'm feeling irritable right now.” What does irritation mean? Irritation means that something is in my space and I need to create more buffer. That's the experience of it. You do that on your own. 

The EXPRESSION of an emotion, it depends on your context. Because unfortunately not all of us are in very safe environments and expressing an emotion might actually put us into hotter waters.

You can still feel the emotion, glean the information and validate yourself. As to whether you show that to your context, it really depends on whether or not you're in danger and whether or not you would actually get those needs met. So this part requires a lot more discernment.

For example, if someone gets so upset; they get chewed out by their boss at work unfairly. In this climate the job market is not doing really well, then it might not be to their benefit to speak up to their boss even if their feelings are valid.

It doesn't mean that they shouldn't feel that feeling, but I'd probably encourage channeling and harnessing that rightful anger towards reestablishing, rewriting your resume, and going on more interviews. That would probably make more practical sense than for the boss to know how you're feeling, because frankly, if we're dealing with an asshole boss, they're probably not going to care how we feel anyway. 

So there's the experience of an emotion. This is where we translate it, we validate it ourselves, and we share it with people who are SAFE. 

When I say safe, safe based NOT on our feelings about them, but based on their track record.

Have they demonstrated in the past that they can hold very valuable parts of you? We're not going to shut people out completely, they can mess up and that's okay, but have they repaired that.

If not, if they have a track record of dismissing you, invalidating your experiences, labeling you, judging you, whatever, it's probably their crap.

With those people I would not recommend that people share their feelings. It's only going to be used against them. 

Elise: That's such an important distinction, guys. Read the room.

Joanne: For people who lean more “big feeling” or struggle with shame again there's the absorbing of all these collective messages as if it's a reflection of oneself. It's not. Sometimes it's other people's crap. Don't take that in as if it's a reflection of you, spit it back out.

That's the other function of anger. We recognize that this does not belong to me. This is not my stuff. This is their stuff. I'm going to spit it back out. People don't have to take it back, but it's still our responsibility to keep our home clean. 

Elise: Yes! Get angry, feel your feelings, process internally and read the room. Those are such, such valuable lessons.

I really appreciate you coming on. I've learned so much today, the nuances of emotions that I never thought I would learn from you, Joanne. You never know what you don't know.

Joanne: The thing is we don't have to know all the things about feelings right now. 

I like considering things in very simple terms. You can learn as you go. 

It's kind of like first you start with a pencil and then you might bring in three colored pencils. So now you’ve got four. You can go a long way with a single pencil and three primary color pencils. And then add more nuance as you go. That’s totally fine. 

Even when you're interacting with someone who doesn't speak a lick of English. If both of you know a language that's kind of in the middle, or you can draw pictures or hand gestures or whatever, you can still go a long way even if you haven't mastered the other language.

The bar is low. Any extra insight about how feelings work goes a long way because at least it spares us from absorbing that extra shame and maintaining our emotional balance. 

When we're stressed, we are more likely to make decisions that make things worse. Meaning when we're less stressed, we are more likely to make decisions that reduce stress even further down.

So anything, any movements towards integrating your feelings into your normal day-to-day life, fantastic! Even if listeners take one or two things from this particular interview and just apply that in their day-to-day life, that'll go a long way.

Intelligent Emotions

Elise: I know it's going to go a long way. I think I'm going to practice this, too. There's so many areas in my life that I see applies with what you were talking about. 

I know that you have the tools. What can someone expect to get out of your course on emotions, which I know that you're really passionate about right now. What can someone expect on day one and then after the end of this course?

Joanne: I am running a hybrid course. It's a school where there are some online pre-recorded videos for people to watch and go through on their own timeline. However, feelings are definitely meant to be learned in a community context. Alongside those recordings I want people to have access to other people to be able to ask questions, tease out the nuances, hear other people's experiences.

“That sounds like me” or “I resonate with it.”

“I thought I was the only one who was struggling with this, but it turns out it's a very normal thing.”

When people start, part of it is learning the basics, the feelings 101 stuff of how feelings are supposed to work and how we’ve made it go sideways.

I talk a lot about the Emotional Vortex, what happens when people don't do feelings well. Along with all the vocab and the grammar structure of feelings, even the basic stuff will take you a long way. Then talking about how to actually practice those in our personal growth, our relationships, and in our professional realms.

After we put out all the fires in our environment, and for some people that might involve them actually meeting a therapist near them, then we can paint the picture of what it's like to be in an emotional flow state. There's putting out the fires of the Emotional Vortex and once the dust has settled and we have more margin, we have the possibility of dreaming what we would like, not just what we need. Maybe that person builds towards a career that instead of working with computers and data, maybe they go into a field that's more relational.

If a person often feels anger, chances are that person really values things like justice or efficiency or whatever. And so they might build towards that kind of career. Our feelings don't just tell us what we need in the moment to put out fires, but they also reveal really important parts of our individuality.

This is kind of where we get into the existential stuff. What is the purpose and meaning for your life? Your feelings show you. 

Some people might be coming in because there's too much drama. There's too much chaos happening. So enrolling into the course they learn the basics to cool things down and maybe bring on a therapist.

Elise: Yes. Tapping into what you want is so, so special. For anyone who's feeling like they are not satisfied in their life right now, or someone who feels like they always have to change themselves to be a good enough person or, whatever it is, this course would be perfect for you to feel these feelings, feel the anger and get closer to your truest feelings. That is so, so powerful.

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Joanne Kim, Feelings Translator

Hi! I’m a therapist-turned feelings coach who helps Highly Sensitive Persons, Empaths, Enneagram 2s & 4s, etc. turn their BIGGEST feelings into their GREATEST superpower! 

They are often the first (or only) person in their family to intuitively process and express feelings; consequently, they are often judged or criticized so that they learn to people please, placate, or perform until they hit a wall. 

They’re super familiar with anxiety, guilt, and shame, partly because of an allergic reaction to anger (theirs and others').

Often the super responsible, empathic, and ethical person in their environments, they reach out to me after they're already burned out, resentful in their relationships, or sucked into their shame spiral.

The most common feedback I get from people when I share about how feelings work is,

"Why didn't anyone teach me this in school??"

Hence, I am building a school helping people work WITH their feelings so their feelings work FOR them.

Join the waitlist here and you’ll get details fresh off the press!