Struggling in your marriage? Feeling stuck with how to change things? Intentional Families is bringing personal development courses designed just for you! Jess Mannion would love to work with you and your family to boost emotional resilience, to give you a toolkit to create a calmer home, to increase the intimacy in your marriage while the kids are still home. We spoke to Jess to learn more about her counselling business.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
Being a counsellor, I hear incredible stories of the lives people have lived through, survived, conquered, and experienced tremendous growth among the heartache. It was when I started hearing themes coming out in their stories that sounded very similar to many others, that I had this desire to stop the vicious cycles in their tracks.
My mantra has and will always be “to do myself out of a job”. I would be ecstatic the day that counsellors are no longer needed because families are healthy and thriving, not just surviving. However, if I have just a glimpse of hope that that will come true, I knew I needed to meet with the families as they began their journey to health and healing.
So, Intentional Families was born. A family coaching service to support young and upcoming families to stay together and thrive together. Through this, I meet with couples in whatever stage they find themselves in to walk them through that stage, to address any issues coming up and to prepare for any inevitable issues so they grow closer together, not further apart. I have strategically adapted my training to address all the P’s of life – pre-marriage, post-wedding, pregnancy, post-partum, parenting, and beyond.
The Launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Intentional Families is still very much in it’s infancy, being born in December 2017. However, the first area I felt called to address is conflict and anger management. One of the biggest relationship killers is ruthless anger. I know what it feels like to have that rage just creep out from nowhere. To feel like you are constantly yelling at brick walls that are STILL not responding. To feel like a lonely ogre, desperately trying to keep your family together as they slip through your fingers.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Through my research, I devised a tool to help curb that intense heat of the moment cycle that we often find ourselves in when we are stressed and rundown. It takes more than positive thinking; that’s only half the battle. We need to connect our body with our emotions and filter them through the head. As parents, when our children push back against us, we feel threatened and disrespected. This kicks in our fight/flight response that brings out the inner hulk inside us. The problem is, our thinking brain has been bypassed because the fight/flight response says, “We don’t have time to think about this, we need to act now!” Hence, we find ourselves falling into the same trap we promised so profusely an hour ago, to not get that angry again.
When I explored this, it all made so much sense. I felt less pressure on myself and I could cope with my daughter’s outbursts calmly and much more effectively. Though through trial and error, I do have to say without enough sleep, nothing will work! So, sleep is of the utmost importance. See my blog on Anger.
