coachjoelle.com

 Hi guys!

I am so excited to share today’s Make Your Life Interview with you! 

My guest today is the founding editor of Experience Life Magazine, Pilar Gerasimo and she is one amazing woman with a message that will change your life.

As you hear the details of Pilar’s journey, you will be inspired by how her desire to create a different kind of health magazine (one that was not all about fad diets and 6-pack abs) and a willingness to take risks and take action set circumstances in motion to have her living a life that is best described as a dream come true.

Today as a result of Pilar’s desire to impact the health and vitality of the American public she has done nothing less than create her own revolution! 

In a world where fast food, chronic stress, prescription symptom-masking and a computer-to-couch lifestyle is the norm, and drinking green juice and meditating is considered “a little weird”, Pilar asserts that seeking health truly is a revolutionary act. 

Pilar’s new site www.revolutionaryact.com embodies this message and challenges the way our society is leaning, putting the knowledge (and hence, the power) back in your hands to choose to be revolutionary for the sake of your own health, vitality and longevity.

Whether you are inspired to take a new look at how you treat your body or you are moved to pursue your dreams, Pilar’s story is sure to empower you to Make Your Life  

Joelle

Make Your Life Interview with Pilar Gerasimo

 A little bit about Pilar…

Pilar Gerasimo is the founding editor of Experience Life Magazine, a whole-person health and fitness magazine that reaches more than two million women and men nationwide.

But this magazine is different than a lot of what you will find out there in the world of health and fitness: No six-pack-abs sensationalism or bikini-body obsessions; no diets or overnight miracle weight loss schemes; just the practical wisdom and real-life inspiration you need to achieve the healthy life goals that matter to YOU. 

Available on newsstands at Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble and also by subscription, Experience Life has won numerous awards and earned high praise from leading health experts, including Dr. Mehmet Oz. The magazine’s tagline — “Being Healthy Is a Revolutionary Act” — reflects one of Pilar’s deepest personal convictions: that choosing to be healthy in an unhealthy culture requires unconventional choices and perspectives, and that when you make that choice it positively transforms not just your own life, but the lives of everyone around you. 

Pilar’s central passion is empowering people to live their healthiest, most authentic lives so that they can give their best gifts — and thereby help change the world for the better. Pilar lives with her husband Zack and their three-legged pitbull on an organic cooperative family farm in western Wisconsin.

Listen Now! Coach Joelle Interviews Pilar Gerasimo

Download instructions: To listen, right click on the link above and select "Save Target As." Pick a folder to save your audio into.  Once the audio is saved to your hard drive you can upload it to your iPod or listen to it on your computer at your leisure. Note: Due to the file size, downloading may take a few moments. Deep breath… exhale… smile… ok, it will be there any moment now  ;-)

Hi  Guys!

For our first Make Your Life Interview of 2011 it is my honor to introduce you to Top nutritionist, author and health expert Natalia Rose. 

I was first introduced to Natalia on my own journey to greater health and vitality.  As I read her books on raw food and detoxification, her approach that encouraged cleansing at a cellular level as the key to vibrant health, emotional balance and mental clarity stuck a powerful chord.

As you will hear in the interview, Natalia’s path to accessing what she calls “life force energy” through living food has taken her not just to optimum health but to a deep understanding of the nature of the human experience.

At one point in the interview all I have to say is “WOW!” as her sharing and insight literally expanded and blew my mind.

Whether you are gearing up for a more vital body, want to raise healthy children or are exploring the meaning of life, this interview will open up whole new worlds.

Enjoy!

Joelle

Make Your Life Interview with Natalia Rose

A little bit about Natalia…

 Natalia Rose, is a graduate of New York University and a Clinical Nutritionist and she believes that cleansing at a cellular level is the key to vibrant health, emotional balance and mental clarity. 

In her private Manhattan practice, she works with some of the world's most body-conscious men and women, including models, actors, and media personalities.

Rose has been featured on NBC, FOX News, MSNBC, The View, NPR and in publications such as The New York Times, USA TODAY, Womens World, First For Women, The Enquirer, Yoga Journal, Hamptons Magazine and Psychology Today. 

Natalia offers this knowledge on her web site: http://www.detoxtheworld.com and in her books, The Raw Food Detox Diet, Raw Food Life Force Energy, The New Energy Body and Detox 4 Women.

Listen Now! Coach Joelle Interviews Natalia Rose 

Download instructions: To listen, right click on the link above and select "Save Target As." Pick a folder to save your audio into.  Once the audio is saved to your hard drive you can upload it to your iPod or listen to it on your computer at your leisure. Note: Due to the file size, downloading may take a few moments. Deep breath… exhale… smile… ok, it will be there any moment now  ;-)

 Hi guys!

For years I have been nurturing the vision of bringing you an over-the-top retreat experience that could literally change your life. 

Not only did I want to be able to give you access to all of the wonder, insights and tools that I have seen transform people’s lives through professional coaching, but I wanted it to be in a beautiful, nature-filled, relaxing and immersive setting where you could really let go and have the time and mental space to connect to yourself and your dreams and begin to make them real.

I am excited to announce that it’s happening this September 26 – October 2, 2010, when 10 special people will embark on a transformational tall ship sailing adventure to their Amazing Life!

Read all about it, and if your body sighs and your eyes sparkle as you imagine what you might create in your own amazing life, I suggest you meet us in Grenada for a vacation you will never forget!

See you on deck!

Coach Joelle

A Whole New Kind of "You Time"

The moment you place your bare feet on the teak wood deck, the stress of life melts away.

Finally, you have the time to rest, connect, reflect and create without interruption.

You have dreams that have been in hibernation waiting for their time to be made real.

Their time is now.

What would “AMAZING" look like for you?

 

Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself what your version of an “amazing life” would look like?

• Do you dream of a new career but don’t know where to get started

Are you looking for deep soulful love but somehow you keep experiencing
heartbreak?

Do you long for a change in location so you can finally start your dream life but feel too tied down to actually make the change?

Or maybe you just want to be happy, to live with greater freedom in life, greater peace and greater joy.

If you are ready to let go of what has been stopping you from claiming the life you've imagined, you want to be on this ship! Read More

Read More About The Amazing Life Cruise

Join Coach Joelle for…

7 Simple Ways to "Make Your Life"!

 Hi Guys!

Over the years I have come to appreciate how ridiculously powerful we are when you passionately believe in your dreams and have the courage to intentionally go after them. If I had to boil the whole process down to seven steps, these are the biggies and I am excited to share them with you and to start getting your dreams out into the world.
 

From practical life-skills to the "magic of life", this interactive seminar goes through the top 7 ways that you can powerfully “make your life!”

When: Tuesday, September 29th 7-8:00 PM eastern (6:00 central,5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific)
Where: By Phone (Your call-in number will be sent to your inbox)

Come join me and experience the magic of your life lived on purpose!

Read more and register

Join Coach Joelle for…

Who Do You THINK

You Are?

Get ready to embrace the REAL YOU (and yes, it is WAY better that you think!) The greatest gift you can give your professional future and your personal life is a deep honor and appreciation of who you are. Join me to find out the truth about your brillaint self!

When: Thursday September 17th 12:00-1:00 PM eastern (11:00 central, 10:00 Mountain, 9:00 Pacific)
Where: By Phone (Your call-in number will be sent to your inbox) 

Read more or register!  

About the Seminar:

It’s no secret that your thoughts about yourself make all of the difference when it comes to creating the experiences, business successes and life that you want. 
 

As Marianne Williamson states so eloquently, too many are tormented with the question “who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”  Who am I to aspire to be top producer? Who am I to think I can own my own business? Who am I to be happy? Well, it’s time to embrace your gorgeous, talented, fabulous self and find out the truth about you once and for all!
 

Read more or register!  

It was Two years ago that my husband Jeff took me on a sailing adventure on a tall ship (imagine pirates of the Caribbean and you can get a feel for our boat) and it was everything I could every want in a vacation.

Sailing on the open seas, close to nature, community, simplicity, visiting tiny out of the way bays and islands that sported nothing but a sand beach and a bar.  It was the perfect combination of fun and total relaxation, all with the most beautiful backdrop imaginable.

 Our perfect vacation found, we were all set to do another for our anniversary this year but we were dismayed to find that the owners were mismanaging their money and fighting between themselves and the company was suffering.  Instead of sending our money to head out on a ship this winter we found ourselves sending money to have abandoned crew members transported back to their home countries after the company had left the ships and their crews in foreign waters.

The community around this particular type of vacationing is almost cult like, full of die-hard fans of the tall ship experience.  They have shared news and stories and pictures of their sailing adventures, discussed the demise of the afore mentioned company and coordinated rescue efforts for the crew through an online forum, which my husband has been hooked on since he started doing the research for our first trip two years ago.

With the loss of our tall ship experience, there was suddenly a void for all of these people and as life goes, where there is a void, it started pulling us all in to fill it.

On the scene arrives Captain Neil, a brash and bawdy former tall-ship captain and his trusty assistant Liz (the amazing operating room nurse who coordinated the raising of tens of thousands of dollars to get the abandoned crew home to their families.) A core group rallying around the vision of future tall-ship adventures began a campaign to raise money to buy a ship, start a company and continue the tradition.   My husband has marched us into that core group and this weekend…. We went to meet our ship mates and look at a ship!

We met up with the other investors at the Barking Crab on Boston Harbor and finally put faces to names and icons (imagine our surprise when the infamous Liz looked nothing like the banana riding a llama that she uses as her onscreen icon.)

We came from all walks of life, a variety of ages, with little in common other than our love for the tall-ship experience, but that was all we needed.

 I think my husband put it perfectly when he wrote:

"this ship is sweet. Our short time on her filled me with the energy we want in a ship. During our sail I quickly lost track of time and my life. I was completely present in the moment, hanging out with my new best friends, without any awarenss that I had only met them an hour earlier. "

The ship … was beautiful. 

With wooden decks, simple rooms and ample sails I really could not have asked for anything more.  We helped the crew hoist the sails, as we had on our sailing vacations of the past.  To feel the mighty pull of the wind blowing us across the harbor is truly one of the most pure and beautiful experiences.  As I took it all in, I knew my dad was there.  The man who loved the sea, he was the first to expose me to such things as raw oysters and smoked salmon and windsurfing.  He actually built the sail boat that we sailed on at our cabin in Canada and I know he would have been so pleased that we were doing this and were he alive, he would have joined us on the adventure, I am sure of it.

The tour and sailing of the ship and our fellow tall-ship enthusiasts were major contributors to a weekend that, as a whole was on of my favorite experiences so far in 2008 by far.

What happens next? We are not sure, offers, negotiation, raising money etc.  but one thing I know for sure, this crew will sail together again and if I have any say in the matter, it will be on our own ship as we create a special vacationing experience for those who are hungry for adventure and the simple beauty of a tall ship.

Coach Joelle

P.S.  A special thank you to my husband for creating this adventure.  My dad would be so happy to see I am with such an adventurer and lover of the sea.  Smooch!

Hi guys!

Last Friday I was doing my regular Friday ritual, lunch at my favorite Mediterranean restaurant, Aladdin’s, and then a trip down the street to Bridgette’s for an afternoon of nail papering with wine and trashy magazines, when I stumbled across some really extraordinary holiday gifts.

First, to create some context…years ago at a Barlow Girl concert, a Christian organization called World Vision gave the audience a chance to make a difference for people on the other side of the world.  When they held up the sponsor card for Ontonio Brian from Africa I jumped on stage and started a new adventure in learning more about a world that was so far removed from my own. 

For the past several years I have had the privilege of sponsoring Ontonio and his family to support them in having some of the basic necessities that most people reading this email may take for granted.  While I am aspiring to my new home in the forest and moving to a weekly instead of bi-weekly massage schedule, many of these people are challenged with putting food on the table and having clean water to drink.

I regularly get opportunities to provide additional funds beyond my monthly sponsorship but am rarely called to do so.  That is, not until I saw their holiday catalogue and some truly remarkable gift giving opportunities.

.

• For the cost of a night out you can provide a family with a goat and two chickens to provide nutritious milk and high protein eggs.

• For a car payment you can provide a farmer with two oxen and a plow, increasing their productivity by up to 500%!

• For someone with a little more money to spend you can actually provide a family with a house.  They have these wonderful round homes called Mongolian Gers, the building of which, in one story allowed a mother and her children to move out of a one room shack that they were sharing with 10 extended family members.  Imagine. I can barely.

• You can even buy a flock of ducks! (well, you can send 5 but I figure that must almost qualify as a flock.) For most of us we can go to the store and get chicken any time we want. 

For most of us we can go to the store and get chicken any time we want.  We can even have them delivered to our door, already cooked, with seasoning and a bottle of coke. This catalogue was a powerful reminder for me of how much we have and how little it can take to make a difference.

As I was having my feet rubbed, drinking my glass of wine, I read on with tears running down my face.  Little by little my sheltered life gets opened up to the struggles of the world, and for this I am grateful.

If you are looking to give some extraordinary holiday gifts or perhaps take on serving a life on the other side of the planet you may want to check out  www.worldvision.org.

Sending gratitude, abundance and awareness.

Joelle

P.S.  World Vision is a Christian organization and some of the money does go to administration and providing religious education in the communities.  From my understanding it is not presented as a “must do” but as an opportunity which the people can take or leave.  Just something I wanted to be sure you were clear on as you make choices about where to share your wealth.  Love to you!

Last Wednesday I had a moment of clarity. 

I just picked up my mother from the airport. My uncle Rob was in from New York and we were gathering to celebrate the Thanksgiving weekend.

My husband arrived home from work with a case of wine and mom and uncle Rob unloaded their baskets of goodies; maple glazed nuts, chocolate from Canada, and of course, more wine. 

Soon after the doorbell rings and a vision of loveliness awaits at the door.  That morning, I received the sudden inspiration to invite my new friend to meet my mom.  She said yes and came to join the festivities.

Five of us coming together with our own stories and experiences, our own passions and insight; we discussed life, politics, the latest movies, and drank wine for hours.

There was a moment where I had a flash of a scene from the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”.  In the final moments the main character is sitting in totally bliss and appreciation.  A large table is set and around it is assembled a motley crew pulled together from various parts of her new community.  Finally she had found the family she was longing for.  It is a vision that has often crossed my mind as I settle into the idea of putting down roots in Cleveland.  This scene of love and community is a vision that delights and inspires me.

At 8:45 last Wednesday night, I had my very own version of that vision; community, joy and family.  That tiny glimpse was all I needed for a renewed commitment to having one heck of a kick-butt loving community right where I am, right …about….. NOW!

I am so blessed to have friends, family and a loving community all over the world and for those of you who happen to be local (or you want to jump on a plane), the door is open. Come on over because Joelle is ready to play!

HUGS! 

 Joelle

Hello Everyone!  Thanksgiving is the perfect time to remind us of one of the secrets to great living. 

Gratitude

It doesn’t cost you anything and it is one of the very best things in life.  It is a powerful tool for loving your life and today’s issue of the LIVLOUD Newsletter invites you to take on gratitude with special intention this week.

Read Whole Article

Thank you for being a part of my community. 

I am grateful to have this place to explore life and to share the adventure.

With love,

Joelle

Happy Thanksgiving!

WOW. 

Today I was grappling with some of the big life issues, contemplating what to take on next, defining new directions, going deeper into my personal mission and my plan for this life.  This was a day when the coach needed some coaching.

On the way to a Reiki session I made a couple phone calls and on the way out the door I sent an email to two of my special “girl power” women in my life.  By the time I returned to the car after my appointment I had two returned messages, each from a special woman in my life ready to answer the call for support.

The first call I returned, I caught Jennifer graciously ready to spend my 40 minute drive exploring the nuances of my current inquiry.  She listened and gave her insight.  We shared some life stories and at the end of it I felt clear and peaceful. Upon returning home my dear friend Joan had sent me a 3 page email in response to my own, sharing insight, inspiration, encouragement and provocative questions for me to ponder.  I truly just sat there in awe.

Thank you Joan, Tonetta, Mom, Jen, and sweet sweet Alexandra (and all you special people I know I can call on when I need you) you are a gift to me and I am so grateful for your presence in my life. 

Thank you for being on my side.

I wish you peace.

In gratitude,

Joelle

As I sit here feeling incredibly messy and not very “Coach Joelle-ish” I want to thank you for loving me in my messiness.

Joan and Tonetta, thank you for loving me when I have forgotten who I am and for thinking I am “cute” in my lost-ness – my gratitude is beyond words. My beautiful Jeffrey – thank you for loving me for all I am and all I am not and for having the insight to put a Lebron James bobble head and Fred Flinstone on my desk in the middle of my moment of misery. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for allowing me to be a sloppy mess and for that to be ok. May each and every one of you have people you can be messy with.

In messiness and love,

Joelle

Hello my dear friends. I wrote this today to acknowledge an inspired group of individuals who I have the priveldge of playing with here in the Cleveland Area. I wanted to share it  with you.

Community, Inspiration and Connection… that’s my town

January is an interesting time for a Canadian, living in Arizona, to make the move to Ohio! But It could happen to you!  A little internet dating and a whole lot of chemistry and next thing you know I’m living in the North East!  Along with the major change in climate and a brand new marriage, I also started a new adventure in my business. Enter, Coach Joelle, inc. a personal development company with global reach, created from the comfort of my NE Ohio Home.  Not long into this new life, I was noticing my husband was leaving me mighty early Friday mornings. Hmmm, not the Jeff I had come to know and love.  I had troubles getting him out of bed on a Wednesdays, what could have him bouncing out the door at 7am on a Friday?!  The mystery was revealed one day when he declared that he was ready to share, he wanted me to join him that Friday morning!  As it turns out, the secret society was not so secret….Midtown Mornings, Friday’s 7:30 am, the office of Nead Brand Partners.

What makes up a Midtown Morning you ask? Well take one part great coffee (heck, they even have their own signature brand from Phoenix Coffee!), one part bagels, one part community and connection, add some inspired speakers, throw in a couple of guys named Mark for good measure, stir with energy energy energy and you have a Midtown Morning! 

Being a Professional Coach, I crave meaningful conversation and others who are here to make a difference…It seemed without trying, I had found my new home.  Through my connection with the Midtown business community I have found kindred spirits, a direct line of access to pretty much anyone in greater Cleveland, weekly education and inspiration, a crew to play and Midtown Brew with, and last but not least, after searching the country for a branding company that would take Coach Joelle inc. to the next level, it turns out I needed look no further than a midtown morning. Today Midtown,…. tomorrow the world! 

Carpe Midtown!

Coach Joelle

If you are hanging out in our part of the world come check out our Midtown community!  www.mymidtown.com

Coming from Canada I grew up on the tale of Anne of Green Gables (If you are unfamiliar with the feisty red-haired orphan who wins the hearts of an east coast community, I invite you to give it a read or pass it onto your teenage girls). One of the most remarkable parts of the story is the friendship between Anne and what she calls her bosom friend, Diana (I remember as kids we would giggle at the word bosom ).   A bosom friend is a friend you hold close to you, a friend that touches your very soul.  I am grateful to say I have a handful of these bosom friends and today I am very present to their impact on my life.

I am in Arizona this week. I lived in Arizona for 7 years and over those years I really became the woman I am today; someone I really like and that I am proud to be, and the people I collected in my life over those years are a reflection of that woman. In January I moved to Cleveland to live with my new husband and over these past months my focus has been creating my home there and building my business.  Seeking new friends has not been a priority.  I have been on the phone with my bosom friends in weekly scheduled conversations to keep the love and support in our lives but I tell you, it is something different to be here with them, sharing space and spending time face to face. 

I am only one day into my trip to Arizona and I am already so much more grounded, and peaceful and the world is open to possibility.  I attribute this to a power that my bosom friends hold.  This power is – being with them, reminds me of who I am.  My bosom friends love me and they see who I am in the world when my own clouded mind is shrouded in fear and doubt. My bosom friends have unwavering faith in me, are always quick with a hug, and would fly half way around the world in a moment of need.  My bosom friends are so beautiful and so powerful and it is wonderful to stand beside them on their path, holding the mirror up to them and showing them their brilliance when they are feeling weak and tired of this journey.

Thank you God for my friends, for their love, and for the opportunity to know each of them – I would not be half of who I am without them. I invite you to take a moment and tell your bosom friends what they mean to you.  Give them a call and let them know the impact they have on your life. Pick up the phone right now and tell someone you love them. BIG HUGS to all my bosom friends!

To the love of friends,

Joelle

I can honestly say that I have come to a point in my life that I do not attend events just to "attend" something.  What I mean by this is that once upon a time I just liked being out and talking to people and learning and so, I would go to seminars, networking events, parties just because they are there.  Today I value my time more and I am clearer about what I am committed to in life, so I make very careful choices with my time.

With that being said, I have to tell you there was an event that I attended last week that I have been looking forward to attending for about 5 weeks and now that I am on the other side, the 5 weeks of anticipation was warranted! The event I am talking about is Ladies who Launch Live!,  an all day event focused on education, connection, empowerment and play for women launching businesses.  I had the opportunity to accompany one of the founders Victoria Colligan to one of the local chapter meetings in April, and the delightful mix of high energy, creative women taking action and of course a little wine and cheese had me saying, i want to play with these gals! Last Thursday’s "live" event left me with the same impression.

Over the course of the day there were speakers on everything from obtaining financing for your business to, how to get the attention of the media, to panels of ladies who have launched and inspiring stories of entrepreneurship, struggle and success. The room was motivational seminar meets trip to the mall.  Vendors lined the outer walls of the fabulous old church converted to gallery and banquet hall, but these were not just any vendors – they are ladies who have launched! Everything from Chrissy Knuth Sparrow, the creator of www.stylstyk.com (recently seen on QVC), a nifty invention that allows you to beautify your do with just a zigzag of the styk, to Karen Miller of The www.funkyviolet.com, a fabulous boutique with the most fun, vibrant purses, jewelry and clothing, to a full display and demonstrations by Lisa Lansing of inspiralmotion of something called Gyrotonic, a combination of yoga and Pilates all guided by the gentle hand of a masterful instructor (I fell in love in my first 5 minutes!).  finish that off with an “invite your men” cocktail hour and I cannot think of a better way to spend the day.

One of the things I love about “Ladies who Launch” is that the whole thing is unabashedly girly and I respect that. Event the website has lipsticks and pink shoes as navigation icons and the tag line “Entrepreneurship and Creativity as a Lifestyle” pretty much says it all.  The other thing I love, is the passion I see in the people who are involved with this organization. It is the most vibrant, energized, fun, women in business networking group I have ever participated in! From everything I have seen, these gals are up to something great.

If you think you may be ready to launch yourself you can check them out at www.ladieswholanuch.com to sign up for an "incubator" (1 month program and support group to launch your vision) or to see if ladies who Launch live is coming to a city near you!

To your launching!

Coach Joelle

My friend Mark Nead sent me this link to We Feel Fine – a social experiment collecting feelings from web logs across the planet on a moment by moment basis.  The idea sound cool in it self but wait until you see what they have done with it!

This site is truly a work of art painted with humanity.  Our emotions are the colors and life is the canvas.  When I went to the first "movement" called madness ( which is a description of how the information is organized/not organized) what I experienced was a black screen filled with little moving colored dots.  As I move my cursor around the screen, certain dots grow and if I click on the dot a colorful quote comes up from a web log somewhere on the planet with the date and a location where it was written.

Here is what I found when I clicked on a little blue dot labeled upset: "I have been through a lot of crap in my life. And I have cried over that crap and wished it all away, but, you know, I would go through that crap ten more times if it meant that I wouldn’t have had to feel the pain I felt yesterday; if it meant I didn’t have to say good bye." The caption said – Florida, on a rainy day, yesterday.

Beyond the intrigue and the beauty of this site, what impacted me was that in the moment that I was there surrounded by the little color dots that are other people’s emotions, I was really present to humanity and it seemed in that moment that I was there with all those people and I realized that whatever I was feeling, someone else ( many someone elses) was feeling.  It seemed like you could never feel alone on that site.  hmm.  I encourage you to check it out (link below and more information at the bottom of this post). It is really brilliant! http://wefeelfine.org

With love and compassion

Coach Joelle

We Feel Fine – 2006 We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved. The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 – 20,000 new feelings per day.

Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine’s Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles’ properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

We Feel Fine is a collaboration with Sepandar Kamvar, and was launched simultaneously with Lovelines on May 8, 2006. www.wefeelfine.org