Welcome to BIG Feelings
A little bit about me
Hi! I’m Missy.
I’m a therapist, educator, creator, parent, and soon-to-be published author. 🥹
I knew as early as middle school that I wanted to become a therapist, although my path to get there wasn’t exactly traditional. Through work in education, foster care, long-term volunteering, community mental health, and eventually private practice, one thing stayed pretty consistent: I wanted to help people feel supported and understand themselves better, especially when life feels overwhelming, emotions feel big, or they’re putting a lot of pressure on themselves to get everything “right.”
Growing up, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a “good girl.” My performance in school, and later at work, became closely tied to how I felt about myself. No matter what I accomplished, it always seemed like I could be trying harder or doing more.
Being a big feeler made that even more challenging. I internalized those expectations and spent a lot of time feeling sad, anxious, overwhelmed, or like I should somehow be handling everything better.
As a therapist, those are now many of the people I work with: teen and young adult women who feel all the things, care deeply, and try really hard to make good decisions.
And as a parent, I now have my own big-feeling daughter who is learning how to navigate her emotions and understand herself too.
One of the things I’ve noticed again and again, both personally and professionally, is how quickly we tend to treat uncomfortable feelings like something that needs to be fixed.
We try to talk ourselves out of them. We rush kids through them. We tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel this way. We assume that if something feels hard, we must be doing something wrong.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe feelings don’t work that way.
I think feelings are opportunities.
They give us a chance to understand what we value, what we believe in, what gives us a sense of purpose, and what challenges us. They can tell us something about what matters, what hurts, what feels unfair, what feels unsafe, what we need, or what we’re hoping for.
That belief has shaped almost everything I’ve created.
BIG Feelings grew out of my work as a therapist and educator, but also out of wanting to create things people could use outside of a therapy session. Tools that help people slow down, notice what’s happening, and make sense of their own experience without feeling judged, corrected, or ashamed.
That eventually grew into resources for adults, teens, kids, families, schools, and professionals, and more recently into Brightlight Orchard, an interactive storybook world where children can explore emotions and choices through stories rather than being told what they’re supposed to learn.
But underneath all of those pieces is the same idea:
You don’t have to completely understand a feeling to move through it.
And you don’t have to have everything figured out before you can take your next step.
That’s what I hope this newsletter can be too.
Sometimes I’ll share a resource. Sometimes I’ll share something I’ve been thinking about, something I’ve noticed in my work, a behind-the-scenes look at what I’m creating, or an idea that might help you understand yourself or someone you care about a little differently.
I don’t want this to feel like a stream of things I’m trying to sell you. I want it to feel more like hearing from someone whose work you chose to follow.
And I’m always open to feedback or suggestions about what you’d like to learn more about.
I’m really glad you’re here.
Talk soon,
Missy ✨
Dr. Missy Kleinz, PhD, LPC
Creator of BIG Feelings + Brightlight Orchard
P.S. If you realize you picked the wrong topics when you signed up, you’ll always be able to update your preferences.