MEET CHELSEA
MEET CHELSEA
Growing up, I was a pressure cooker of emotions with no release valve. Just ask my parents.
In my family, we come from a long line of emotional suppressors where only light emotions have a place at the table. Think: happiness, joy, and laughter. All of the heavy emotions? Those were meant to be bottled up, and hopefully forgotten after enough time.
But here’s the thing—I couldn’t forget about the heavy emotions. I felt like The Hulk, full of unexpressed anger and confusion with no way to let it out productively…only explosively.
I became an expert at plastering on a smile while doing mental gymnastics to suppress anything heavy, then unleashing The Hulk in the comfort of my own home.
After years of this emotional rollercoaster, I became an adult with workaholic tendencies, pedestalling myself against others, creating co-dependent relationships, and connecting with others primarily through suffering. Sounds like a dream, right?
I also developed a pattern of throwing myself into situations just to prove I could do things people said I couldn’t. Building things out of spite was my go-to.
It all came to a head when I was 26. Two major friendship fallouts and a high-stress job pushed me to my breaking point.
To "fix" myself, I decided to either attend a silent mediation retreat in Thailand for two weeks, or enroll in a year-long certification program to learn the Integrated Processing Technique (IPT).
The year-long certification program won, and to my dismay, on the first day I learned the entire certification program hinged on my ability to dive head-first into the emotions I was running from. Yikes.
But, here’s where it became life-changing: I discovered that all those scary emotions I'd been running from were actually trying to help me make better decisions and break unhealthy patterns.
They were clues set out to help me live a more fulfilling, happy life, not strict rules I needed to act upon.
The program transformed me at my core. And as a certified practitioner, I began working extensively with individuals processing deep trauma, from childhood abuse and suicidal ideation to addiction recovery and race-based hate crimes. I spent years helping people go back to the time of the traumatic events to rewrite the narrative they were telling themselves about the experience, but something wasn't sitting right.
As I worked with clients, I noticed they were becoming dependent on me for their emotional processing - exactly what I wanted to avoid. There were relying on me since I was able to read their body signals better than they could.
That’s when I had an idea - could I create a simple tool that could teach people how to read their own body signals? After 6 years of testing and iterating, with others, and myself, Color Mending was born.
Based on the Theory of Constructed Emotion and Interoception, I’ve used Color Mending to successfully help hundreds of people be able to learn their language of emotions through coloring.
Whether you're struggling with burnout, feeling stuck in patterns, or just ready to understand yourself better, I'm here to show you how all emotions - even the heavy, big, and scary ones - can be your greatest teacher.
Trust me, if this former emotional pressure cooker can learn how to identify emotions, understand the stories I’m telling myself around this emotion, and then identify regulation strategies to bring balance back to my mind and body through coloring, anyone can!