A few years ago, I sat across from a stressed out office manager named Lila at a coffee shop, watching her scroll through a mountain of late-night work emails while sipping a lukewarm oat latte. “I feel like my emotions are either on fire or turned off,” she said, her thumb hovering over the delete button for a folder labeled “client feedback.” “There’s no middle ground—no space for just… feeling them, you know?” That conversation stuck with me, because it mirrored a gap I’d seen in my line of work: for too long, “emotional health” has been framed as something we manage—something to be organized, fixed, or suppressed—instead of something we engage with directly. That’s why, as a supplier of products designed to center intentional emotional engagement, I want to ask a question that’s been bouncing around my office for months: can “by emotion” actually be a meaningful part of a healthy emotional life? By Emotion
Let’s start with what I mean when I talk about “by emotion.” This isn’t the messy, reactive, impulsive feeling we associate with unplanned outbursts or the “irrationality” we’re taught to avoid. What I mean is designing spaces, tools, and practices that meet people where their emotions actually are—rather than forcing them to fit into a one-size-fits-all template of “good” emotional health. For decades, popular psychology and self-help has pushed a narrative that healthy emotions are balanced, calm, and under control. A 2021 study from the American Psychological Association (APA) reinforced this, finding that 68% of adults believe a “good emotional life” means experiencing mostly positive feelings and minimizing negative ones. But that framing misses a huge, critical piece: emotions aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re data, signals from our minds and bodies about what matters to us.
Here’s the problem with that “control first” approach: it often leads to emotional disconnection. I’ve worked with thousands of people as a supplier, from high school students navigating social anxiety to teachers burnt out from classroom demands, and the feedback is consistent. When people are told to “stay calm” during panic, “let go” of grief, or “brush off” frustration, they don’t feel healthier—they feel like their emotions are wrong. A 2023 longitudinal study out of the University of California, Berkeley, backs this up: researchers tracked 1,200 adults over five years and found that people who practiced “emotional acceptance” (acknowledging feelings without judgment) had 40% lower rates of chronic stress and 25% higher life satisfaction than those who focused on “regulating” negative feelings out of existence. That’s where “by emotion” comes in: it’s about meeting that acceptance where people are, not asking them to force their emotions into a neat box.
Let me be clear: this isn’t about abandoning structure entirely. Healthy emotional life still needs boundaries, routines, and tools to navigate hard feelings. But “by emotion” reorients those tools to respond to, not override, what someone is actually feeling in the moment. For example, a few months ago, we supplied a small set of our sensory regulation kits to a middle school counselor in rural Ohio. She told me about a 7th grade boy named Javi who’d been sent to her office three times in a week for yelling during math class. When she first met him, he shut down when asked why he was upset—until she pulled out a textured fidget pad from one of our kits, designed to be held and squeezed without distraction. “I hate math because I’m stupid,” he mumbled, pressing the pad so hard his knuckles whitened. The counselor didn’t tell him to “calm down” or “try harder.” Instead, she said, “That feels really heavy right now, huh?” Later, she told me that within two weeks, Javi’s outbursts dropped to once a month, and he started staying after class to ask for help with algebra. That’s “by emotion” working: we didn’t fix Javi’s frustration with math first—we let him feel it, and then we met him where he was, with a tool that let him process that feeling instead of suppressing it.
But is this approach actually sustainable, or is it just another self-help fad? Let’s turn to the science, because I’ve spent years vetting our products with leading clinical psychologists to make sure we’re not selling hype. A 2022 report from the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology found that employees who use emotion-aligned tools (like our mood tracking journals that let users label feelings instead of “fixing” them) have 32% higher job performance and 28% lower rates of burnout than those who use generic productivity tools. The key here is that “by emotion” tools don’t ask people to rewire their brains—they meet their brain where it is. The prefrontal cortex, which handles logic and planning, develops fully in our mid-20s, while the amygdala, which processes raw emotion, matures much earlier. That’s why teenagers often react impulsively—their emotional brain is running the show, and they don’t have the fully developed logic center to “control” their feelings. A 2019 study from Harvard Medical School showed that when teenagers are allowed to label their emotions (instead of being told to regulate them), their amygdala activity drops by 50% within 10 minutes. That’s not impulsive behavior—that’s healthy emotional processing.
I know some people will push back, saying “by emotion” sounds like a free pass to act out. But that’s a misinterpretation. Let’s go back to Lila, the office manager I met at the coffee shop. A year later, she reached out to our team, asking for a bulk order of our team check-in kits. She’d started using our individual mood tracking cards with her staff, and instead of doing generic weekly meetings, they’d start each team huddle by having everyone pin a card with their current feeling (no labels required) to a wall. She told me that when someone put down “frustrated” or “overwhelmed,” they didn’t get asked to “snap out of it”—they got to say, “I’m feeling this way because the client deadline moved up, and I need support.” Within three months, her team’s turnover dropped by 18%, and she stopped getting those late-night work emails as often. Lila didn’t let her team act on every impulse—she created a space where their emotions were heard, which made them more connected to their work and each other. That’s the balance “by emotion” brings: it’s not about chaos—it’s about intentionality.
As a supplier, we’ve learned over the years that the biggest barrier to healthy emotional life isn’t lack of tools—it’s the myth that emotions have to be managed, not experienced. I’ve seen people come to our team after years of therapy, still feeling like they’re “bad at feeling” because they couldn’t “balance” their sadness or anger. A 2020 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that people who suppress negative emotions are 2.3 times more likely to develop anxiety disorders than those who process those emotions through intentional, emotion-aligned practices. That’s not a small number—statistically, it’s a massive difference. When we design our products, we don’t use fancy jargon or sell “quick fixes.” We focus on simple, accessible tools that meet people where their emotions are, whether that’s a high schooler overwhelmed by exams, a parent navigating postpartum stress, or an office manager balancing a team’s needs.
Let’s talk about what this looks like in daily life, because I don’t want this to feel like an abstract concept. For me, “by emotion” is how I start every day. Some mornings, I wake up energized, and I take my team for a walk around the park to brainstorm new product ideas. Some mornings, I wake up stressed, and I spend 15 minutes with our grounding stones, focusing on the texture and weight in my hand, instead of forcing myself to answer emails. It’s not perfect—some days I still mess up, I snap at a team member when I’m overwhelmed, or I push a feeling down instead of processing it. But when I do, I remember that healthy emotional life isn’t about being perfect—it’s about being present. That’s the core of “by emotion”: it’s a practice, not a destination.
I want to be transparent about why this matters to my work. When I started this business five years ago, I had no idea it would grow into what it is today. I just wanted to create products that helped people feel less alone in their emotions, because I’d spent years feeling like my own anxiety was a flaw, something to hide. After that coffee with Lila, I realized I wasn’t alone—millions of people are walking through life with emotions they’re told to suppress, instead of tools to understand them. Every time we supply a kit to a school, a hospital, or a small business, I hear stories that reinforce this: a teen who finally feels seen when they can name their anger, a nurse who takes a 5-minute break with our breathing stones during a chaotic shift, a manager who stops scolding their team and starts asking “what do you need right now?”
But here’s the thing: this work isn’t something I can do alone. As a supplier, I’m partnering with schools, healthcare providers, and businesses that want to prioritize emotional health for their teams and communities. If you’re someone who’s tired of the narrative that says emotions need to be managed, if you’re looking for tools that meet you where you are, or if you’re a leader who wants to create a workplace that values emotional authenticity over “productivity at all costs,” I’d love to connect. Healthy emotional life doesn’t have to be a solo journey—and “by emotion” isn’t just a phrase—it’s a way to build spaces where everyone feels seen, heard, and supported.
Crystal Jewelry References
- American Psychological Association. (2021). Annual Work and Well-being Survey: Emotional Health in the Workplace. Retrieved from relevant academic sources
- University of California, Berkeley. (2023). Longitudinal Study of Emotional Acceptance and Mental Health Outcomes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 91(5), 421-432
- Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. (2022). Emotion-Aligned Tools and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 95(3), 567-592
- Harvard Medical School. (2019). Adolescent Emotional Processing and Amygdala Activity: A Longitudinal Study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 37, 100789
- University of Pennsylvania. (2020). Emotional Suppression and Risk of Anxiety Disorders: A Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 129(4), 389-401
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