Jackie Coffin & Kim Fontaine - Emotions and Me
Jackie & Kim
Jackie & Kim are the founders of Emotions and Me - a small company designed to support the development of emotional awareness and empower you with the tools to enhance your emotional intelligence.
Both Jackie and Kim come from different educational and emotional backgrounds, but they share a vision. They want to support people of all ages - men, women, children and seniors in engaging and enhancing their emotional awareness. In developing a healthy relationship with emotions, and becoming comfortable talking about their feelings. Today, they’re working on developing resources that will support emotional awareness. They’re also launching a campaign to normalize emotional conversations. The same way we’re all comfortable talking about the weather, their dream is for emotional conversations to become just as comfortable and normal. Both Jackie and Kim believe that these conversations can be simple, fun and supportive - and they’re here to guide you through it all.
I’m so excited for you guys to connect with Jackie and Kim, check out what they’re creating and sharing with Emotions and Me, and follow along as they continue to grow and shine!
I'd love it if you'd introduce yourself, what you do, and what you're working on.
Hi! We are Jackie Coffin and Kim Fontaine with Emotions and Me. We are working on supporting the development of emotional awareness and empowering people with the tools to enhance their emotional intelligence. We are doing this through workshops and presentations in person and online (anyone can host one!), and creating a social media presence that provides information on emotions and asks/shows people how to engage in #emotionalconversations. We are also developing emotional support resources and are planning a speaker series with a focus on emotions for the fall.
How did you get started? What inspired the work that you're doing?
Jackie: I’ve struggled with emotions and still have to work on my comfort with them on a daily basis. However, after spending more than 8 years taking classes with Empowerment Now! and exploring the importance of emotions and the role they play in our overall health, emotions have become one of my top priorities and passions. It’s been a very steep learning curve for me to identify, express and embrace my emotions. After doing this, what’s stood out to me the most is that we don’t teach emotional awareness in our society. Yes, emotions are talked about, but they are mostly considered uncomfortable and therefore ignored and stuffed. I did this a lot growing up as I wasn’t taught what to do with them and I didn’t have any tools. As a result, I developed a lot of health issues and even had a kidney removed in my early 20s. I wanted to change that with my son who was born in 2014. I decided to support him in developing healthy relationship with emotions so I started empowering him with the words for emotions and tools to express them from a young age. As a result, he is a very emotionally expressive individual and has no problem telling you how he is feeling (which is awesome but not always comfortable!). I hope to support others in learning to do the same!
Kim: I met Jackie 4 years ago during classes at Empowerment Now! and although our history with emotions differs something we do have in common is that emotions were not addressed or taught in my household growing up. Although, emotions were used frequently at home, they were not talked about or looked at with wonder, what is this emotion informing me of? Instead emotions were something that just happened. I love emotions, their intricacies, how informative and empowering they can be, and using them as leverage to optimize best personal health and connections.
In putting my education into practice, I’ve gained a much deeper understanding of emotions, the power of them and how to utilize emotions in a healthy way. This process has allowed me to enjoy life in a fuller, more connected and vulnerable way.
What is your biggest passion? Do you feel like you're living your passion and purpose?
Interest and curiosity around emotions, emotional health and growth.
Jackie: I am passionate about sharing information and helping others. Learning more about emotions, what they are, what they feel like in my body and their importance has changed my health and happiness. I am passionate about crafting this information in such a way that I can teach others about emotions, support them in enhancing their emotional intelligence so that they too can lead a more empowered life.
Kim: Learning how to pull apart emotions internally, what the differences between them are, learning the language of them and how to work with them in a healthy way to create more balance has changed my life. It has resulted in more secure relationships and deeper connections and created a path towards Joy and Love in my life. I am passionate about sharing this information with other people because there is a lot of freedom in this knowledge and learning how to apply it can change lives.
What is your joy blueprint? What lights you up, brings you joy, and makes you feel the most alive?
This is such a great question! We love asking people to connect with emotions and learning their individual fingerprints for each emotion. We would love to share with you what joy feels like for us!
Kim: When I am feeling Joy, I get a tingly sensation on the outside of my skin, a wave that starts in my stomach that comes all the way up through the centre of my torso and then I can get kind of giggly, my throat muscles work in a different way and all this results in a big smile and wrinkles around my eyes. My voice is more uplifted and I feel like I have a lot of physical energy and excitement.
For me and my newer experiences with Joy is that it is just there, it’s not always an event or experience that creates Joy for me. I created an intent to experience more Joy regularly regardless of external influences and I am now noticing I have more space and capacity to experience Joy.
Jackie: When I am feeling Joy it feels like a very large rush to the head. I want to move my body a lot and dance. I tend to have a very large smile and large bouts of laughter. I will get a surge of energy in my chest that extends out into my arms and legs. It’s fun and intense and sometimes overwhelming.
For me what brings me Joy and makes me feel alive, is those moments where I allow myself to be present with my son and have fun with him and the simple things that inspire Joy like flying a kite, blowing bubbles, a foot race or a good tickle fight.
How do you live intentionally? Are there tools/resources/practices that you rely on to help you stay mindful and grounded?
One of the tools we use is an established community of emotionally aware and grounded women that know how to offer and receive authentic support. This is also why we are inspired to support others in creating community.
Another way we live intentionally is to consciously set intention. Before we host a workshop or presentation, we always set our intent for how we want it to go, ripples and outcomes, in a manner that will be healthiest for us and the group we are working with. This keeps us grounded, mindful and in-the-flow.
What would your younger self think about what you're doing now?
Kim: I think she would think this is super cool and she’d be really happy. She felt lonely as a child and wasn’t allowed to express her emotions and her true self. Now I am doing that and I’m teaching others how to do so, how cool is that?
Jackie: My younger self would be happy I’m helping others and that I have cool information that is making a difference in this world.
Do you have a go-to mantra or affirmation?
Be curious.
Be brave, be vulnerable.
Be authentically you.
Show up.
What is your biggest dream?
Our biggest dream for Emotions and Me is ultimately when people have conversations with each other and ask how they are doing, people can answer with an emotion and have an opportunity to own their fullest self and experience the richest of connections.
And on a personal note, Jackie wants her son to grow up in a world where he can have emotional conversations and connections with people.
And...
We also want to be interviewed by Oprah on Super Soul Sunday. Oprah...are you available?!
To learn more about Jackie, Kim and Emotions and Me you can connect with them on their website www.emotionsandme.com and on Instagram @emoandme Facebook @emotionsandme and via email emotionsandme@gmail.com
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