That's not a question you expect to have when, on paper, you've done everything “right”. First-generation college graduate. MBA. Fortune 500 project manager. Co-founded a company (Million Mile Secrets, for those who remember it!), grew it, sold it. First class flights and five-star hotels. Two kids. A life that looked the way a life is supposed to look.

And yet. Hopelessness. Overwhelm. Disconnection. Loneliness.

I didn't know how to get out of it. I just knew I was deeply unhappy and looking for a pathway to peace — peace with myself. I had done all the things society told me would bring happiness, and yet none of them had.

Years of traditional talk therapy barely helped. So I tried something different. I hired a somatic (body-based) coach. And I did EMDR.

What I found in that process was the courage to face my past — to really understand the hold it still had on me, subconsciously, that was driving my dysfunctional patterns. Poor decisions. Unfulfilling relationships. Jobs that didn't light me up. I was in unhealthy, even abusive, relationships for over a decade. I didn't want to feel, so I didn't let myself feel. I was avoiding.

And then I had to do what I now call jumping into the mud puddle.

I had to feel all of it — the grief, the anger, the deep feelings of abandonment and rejection I didn't even know were there. I had to let those feelings come out, give them a voice, acknowledge the volume they had been carrying inside me. And when I did, I got to make a conscious choice: I don't need to carry this anymore.

After that process, I felt a freedom and expansion I had never felt before. I now have a wonderful fiancé who is supportive and loving. I feel unlimited potential within myself. I am totally in alignment, living and acting in accordance with my values.

I know how to embody the feelings I deserve to feel. Peace. Trust. Gratitude.

That's why I'm coaching.

Here's what I'm going to be covering in this newsletter — and why I'm calling it a lab.

I see this as a working space. A place where we bring curiosity, research, and real lived experience together to understand how we connect, heal, and grow in relationship. Each issue might include:

Interviews — conversations with researchers, therapists, coaches, and people doing the real work of transforming their relationships.

The latest neuroscience — what's actually happening in the brain and body around attachment, safety, stress, and repair. The research backing somatic and relational work is extraordinary, and most people never hear it.

Activities and exercises to try at home — this is a lab, after all. Something concrete in every issue: a reflection question, a communication tool, a somatic practice, a framework to use in a real conversation.

Research breakdowns — accessible, human summaries of what the studies actually say, and what it means for your relationships and your life.

The name matters. Relational intelligence — the ability to build trust, navigate tension, and create meaning with the people in your life — is a skill. It can be learned, practiced, and developed. It's also, I'd argue, the most important work any of us can do.

I didn't always know that. I had to jump into the mud puddle first.

Now I want to help you find your way through — with a little less mud and a lot more clarity about where you're going.

Welcome to the lab.

— Emily