Today we’d like to introduce you to NiNii, Michaela, Emmaline Burriss, Whalen, Pennington.
Hi NiNii, Michaela, Emmaline, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Your story:
NiNii:
I grew up in a small town in Maryland, where I quietly struggled with anxiety, depression, severe loneliness, and suicidal thoughts. At my lowest point, my world became so small that I could barely leave my house. I never imagined that the person I was then would eventually become someone who traveled the world alone, built a community, hosted wellness experiences, and helped create spaces where other people could feel connected and alive.
Six years ago, at one of the lowest points in my life, I made the pivotal decision to move to Austin, Texas. I didn’t have everything figured out—I just knew I needed to change my environment and, ultimately, my life. Austin became the place where I began rebuilding myself.
Since moving here, I’ve hosted meditation and breathwork experiences, produced a transformational music festival, traveled solo, and helped build a community centered around connection and personal growth. Along the way, I discovered something that changed the way I understood healing: play is powerful.
We often think healing has to look serious—meditation, breathwork, sitting in a circle and talking about our feelings. Those things matter, but I learned that there is another doorway into healing: laughter, movement, adventure, silliness, and play. When you combine the intentionality of wellness with the freedom of play, something deeper happens. People let their guard down. They connect. They remember who they are.
That realization became the foundation for Feel Day.
My connection to this mission is also deeply personal. I lost my ex-boyfriend to suicide, and that loss changed me forever. It reinforced how important it is to create spaces where people feel seen, connected, and reminded that they belong. That’s why 10% of Feel Day’s profits go toward suicide awareness.
For me, Feel Day isn’t just an event. It’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned from surviving some of my darkest moments: healing doesn’t always have to be heavy. Sometimes, healing looks like laughing until your stomach hurts, meeting a stranger who becomes a friend, dancing without caring what you look like, and remembering that life can actually feel good again.
Emmaline:
I grew up as what some might call a carnie kid. My maternal grandpa started a carnival business when my mom was young, and all 7 of his kids learned all the ins and outs of how to run it. To this day my mother and many of my family members still work on carnivals across the country. Because of this background, I was taught early on how to provide entertainment and make things fun. Starting as a teen, for 10 years, I spent my summers running carnival games, selling glow lights, and learning how to create memorable experiences for people. One of the best parts of that time of my life was seeing people (especially adults) loosen up and just play. Seeing that spark that play ignites is something I have taken with me in my current life as a co-owner of Feel Day.
Something else I have brought with me is a passion for community and making a positive impact in the mental health space. Throughout my life, I’ve been surrounded by people navigating mental health challenges, and I’ve seen how heavy the darkness can become. I’ve watched people lose touch with their joy, their identity, and the parts of themselves that once felt alive. I myself have been swallowed by this same darkness, and one of the biggest things that pulled me out of it was community. In 2021, I discovered a beautiful and loving community in Austin that helped me understand just how much genuine support and connection can help someone.
Last year, I joined Feel Day first as a game leader. From the beginning, I knew the mission resonated with me, but during our first three-day weekend where I saw the impact it was making, I felt the alignment in a deeper way. I saw just how much Feel Day is connected to my purpose. Then, a few months later, I was asked by my good friends Micheala and Ninii to come on board as a co-owner. It could not have been more perfect for me.
Feel Day isn’t just a business, it’s a movement. We utilize play and wellness in a way that helps adults remember how to let go. As a mother of 2, it is an absolute joy to witness adults tapping into that childlike essence I see in my own children. I believe all adults need safe spaces to laugh, move, connect, and remember who they are. Feel Day is one of those spaces, and I’m grateful to help build the kind of change our world needs.
Michaela
I grew up in a small town in Western Massachusetts. At 15, when I began struggling with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. I left home at 18 and moved to upstate New York, where I met someone who openly shared her own story with me and introduced me to positive psychology. That experience became the beginning of a much deeper spiritual and personal journey for me. I discovered Transcendental Meditation, energy healing, and a more holistic approach to living, eventually becoming certified in Reiki, breathwork, and yoga.
At the same time, I built a career in social work, spending more than a decade working with people experiencing crisis, trauma, homelessness, and mental health challenges. My personal healing and professional experience began to intersect. I understood both the systems people were navigating and, on a personal level, what it felt like to struggle internally.
That combination led me to create a community in Austin called Insid3out. Over the past five years, I’ve led more than 400 community events and six retreats across the U.S. and Costa Rica, creating spaces centered around connection, wellness, vulnerability, and personal growth. I saw firsthand how much people can shift when they have a place where they feel safe enough to be themselves and connected enough to know they aren’t alone.
In 2025, I lost my brother Christopher to suicide. Christopher was a wild card. He was joyful, playful, generous, and full of light. A world as I knew it was changed forever, a piece of me was lost that day yet a new mission was found. “Don’t give up. Keep Hope Alive”It reinforced something I had already come to believe through both my personal and professional experiences: mental health cannot only be addressed when someone is in crisis. We need more spaces that cultivate connection, joy, purpose, belonging, and hope before people reach that point. Not to deny that the darkness exists but to not let is consume our lives to where it’s all we see.
I often think about how powerful it is to experience something rather than simply be told about it. When you have a real moment of connection, laughter, belonging, or joy, it becomes tangible. For a moment, the story of anxiety or depression has been telling you loses some of its power because you have experienced something different. My experiences is why I am still here today.
So Feel Day is a culmination of my life experience. It’s less about becoming anything and more about being. Not a promise to fix anyone. Not a weekend that magically solves mental health. But an experience that reminds people of what is still possible, a glimmer of hope to carry us through beyond the weekend and beyond the practices. A reminder that they are not alone. That they are worthy of joy. That they can be playful. That community is still available to them. That there is a version of themselves underneath the burnout, fear, grief, and responsibilities that is still there.
I believe community is one of the most powerful forms of medicine we have, and that we suffer less when we stop trying to do life completely on our own. FEEL DAY is our way of creating a space where people can come together, share an experience, and leave feeling a little more connected to themselves and to each other.
Sometimes, you don’t need someone to tell you that life can feel good again.Sometimes, you just need a place where you can actually feel it.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Obstacles/Challenges:
NiNii:
My biggest obstacle has been imposter syndrome—the constant question of, “Who am I to do this?”
I think that question is more common than we admit, especially when you’re trying to build something rooted in vulnerability and purpose. There were so many moments when I looked around at people who seemed more experienced, more established, or more qualified and wondered if I had any right to be the one creating this.
Eventually, I realized something: maybe I wasn’t despite my experiences the right person to do this—I was the right person because of them.
I know what it feels like to be isolated. I know what it feels like to not want to leave your house. I know what it feels like to lose someone to suicide. And I know what it feels like to slowly find your way back to yourself through community, adventure, connection, and joy.
I stopped seeing my struggles as evidence that I wasn’t qualified and started seeing them as part of my qualification. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think anyone does. But I know what it feels like to need the kind of space we’re creating—and that gives me a deep understanding of why it matters.
Sometimes the very things we think disqualify us are the things that make us uniquely equipped to lead.
Emmaline:
I am very blessed to say there hasn’t been many obstacles or challenges for me in my journey with Feel Day. I think the biggest thing I could say would be time management. As a mom to two young children and a full time graphic/website designer, I wear a lot of hats. And adding Feel Day co-owner to the list was no question an absolute YES. However, this meant I had to adjust my schedule to be able to give our movement the focus it deserves. Today, after about 5 months of being a co-owner, I can happily say this new hat has settled into my life naturally and beautifully. It never feels like work when so much passion, fun, and love exists within it, and I get to share it with two of my best friends.
Michaela
My biggest obstacle has been my own personal capacity. I genuinely love being in community, bringing people together, and building Feel Day into something meaningful. It lights me up, and sometimes that makes it easy to overlook just how much I’m taking on.
I had to step away from my life for a year to care for my mom through cancer, just six months after my brother passed away. Those experiences came after an already difficult season in my life where I had been in burnout for an extended period of time. Finding my way back to myself has been a journey of its own.
My instinct is to push, push, push. I know how to show up, get things done, and keep going, even when my tank is running low. And when you love what you’re building, it can be hard to recognize when something you’re passionate about is asking more of you than you actually have to give.
A big part of this journey has been finding the balance between building something I love and being honest about my capacity. There’s a difference between building from a place of genuine energy and pulling from reserves that need time to be replenished.
Feel Day is rooted in connection, wellness, play, and creating space for people to feel more alive. I want to build it in a way that reflects those values, not in a way that requires me to run myself into the ground to make it happen.
I’ll always have a big vision and a desire to bring people together. The challenge is making sure I’m creating from a place that’s sustainable, giving myself the same care and consideration that I want Feel Day to offer others.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Feel Day is an immersive wellness and community experience built around a simple idea: we all deserve to feel alive, connected, and present in our own lives. Inspired by the nostalgia and freedom of summer camp and Field Day, Feel Day brings adults together through play, movement, music, nature, laughter, wellness experiences, and meaningful connection. It’s a space to step outside the routines, responsibilities, and pressures of everyday life and remember what it feels like to simply be yourself, have fun, and connect with other people.
At its heart, Feel Day is about community as a form of wellness. We believe mental health isn’t just an individual issue, and that connection, belonging, play, and shared experiences can be powerful parts of taking care of ourselves. Feel Day isn’t about fixing yourself or escaping your life for a day. It’s about creating moments that remind you that you’re here, you’re not alone, and there is still room for joy, curiosity, friendship, and possibility. Everyone deserves to go to summer camp.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Advice for those starting out:
NiNii:
My biggest advice is to stop trying to become the version of yourself you think people will take seriously, and start letting people see who you actually are.
Authenticity is one of the most powerful things you can build a brand around because people don’t connect with perfection—they connect with people. So much of what people respond to in our community is actually our goofy, unfiltered, playful side. We don’t try to make ourselves look cooler, more polished, or more “professional” than we are. We let people see us as real human beings, and that creates trust.
My second piece of advice is: don’t build it alone.
There’s a temptation, especially as a founder, to believe that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I’ve learned the opposite. The right people won’t just make the work easier—they’ll make the vision better. Some of the most meaningful parts of Feel Day exist because we brought different people, perspectives, strengths, and ideas into the room.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you start. You just need to be willing to show up as yourself, take the first step, and let other people walk alongside you.
The thing you’re building might start with your vision, but it doesn’t have to end with you.
Emmaline:
For anyone considering building something, I advise that they ask themself if what they are building has these 4 elements: what they love, what they are good at, what the world needs, and what they can get paid for. This comes from a Japanese concept Ikigai, which means a reason for being, or purpose. If you have these four elements, you will not fail.
Michaela
1. Be authentic.
Don’t try to fake the funk or create a facade. At some point, pretending becomes harder to maintain than simply being yourself. The world doesn’t need more perfection. It needs real people doing real things, showing up as they are.
2. Keep showing up.
Don’t allow what’s in front of you to dictate where you’re going. There will be seasons when things feel heavy, uncertain, or impossible. Keep taking the next step. Your circumstances are not the final word on what’s possible for you. If you don’t show up for you first, how are you going to attract others who align with what you offer.
3. Have a WHY that is bigger than the obstacles in front of you.
When it all feels too hard, come back to your why. When you’re tired, discouraged, or questioning whether you can keep going, let that purpose pull you forward. Sometimes you won’t have the strength to push through the obstacle, but you can find strength in remembering what you’re moving toward and why it matters. Your why becomes a tether to Faith and acts as a grounding force against whatever comes your way.
Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. That’s it. We are greater together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.feeldayevents.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feeldayevents
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FeelDays
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@feel.day.events
