Feel Day 2026 Schedule
Three days of Connection, Community, Wellness, and Play!
Meet Your Feel Day Team
Michaela Whalen - Co-Founder
Michaela Whalen holds a BA in Human Services and is a community leader, Mental Health advocate, and a Wellness Facilitator. She has hosted more than 400 events and coordinated monthly community service projects that bring people together with intention and purpose.
With over a decade of experience in Social Work supporting individuals navigating crisis and trauma, Michaela witnessed gaps in traditional support systems and recognized the need for spaces that prioritize connection, safety, and emotional well-being.
This insight led her to focus her work on evidence-based practices that strengthen community and support mental health.
As a certified Breathwork Facilitator and Yoga & Meditation Teacher, Michaela integrates trauma-informed approaches with accessible wellness experiences.
She creates environments where people can reconnect with themselves, reduce stress, and build emotional resilience. Her passion is fostering community and expanding access to meaningful, restorative experiences that inspire connection, growth, and belonging.
Ninii Burriss - Co-Founder
NiNii is a Registered Nurse Manager and community-builder whose personal journey through anxiety, depression, and loss ignited her commitment to creating spaces for healing and connection.
After overcoming years of mental health challenges through meditation, yoga, ecstatic dance, and the renewed joy of play, she discovered her passion for hosting transformative events.
She has since led meditation and breathwork gatherings across Austin and co-founded Ecstatic Forest Festival, a two-year success drawing hundreds seeking community and transformation.
Guided by her experience losing a loved one to suicide, NiNii is dedicated to ensuring no one navigates their darkest moments alone. Through
Feel Day and the Christopher–William Scholarship, donating 10% of all profits to mental health support, she is committed to making healing accessible, joyful, and deeply human.
Isaac Bonner - Co-Founder
Isaac’s path has been anything but conventional. He has dedicated years to immersive, lived experience- living in ashrams for nearly a year, practicing meditation and selfless service, teaching English in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, deepening his understanding of presence, compassion, and the shared humanity that connects us all.
His commitment to healing is deeply personal. After navigating severe depression and anxiety throughout his youth, he spent the last decade engaging in trauma work, Eastern traditions, Western psychology, and modern wellness practices. Isaac has led men’s circles and personal development workshops, creating spaces where people can reconnect with themselves and each
other.
His firsthand exploration across countries, disciplines, and inner landscapes revealed a guiding truth: without love, connection, and freedom, even the most beautiful life loses its color. With them, everything comes alive.
As Co-Founder of Feel Day, he brings this expertise to building transformative experiences that foster connection, play, and belonging- allowing people to come as strangers and leave as Family
Chris Campbell
Silent Disco DJ Set & Sound Healing
Get to know Dj Cosmic Soup!
Chris Campbell (DJ CosmicSoup) is a 22 year musician, with a decade of experience in the arts of sound healing and Ecstatic Dance DJing.
Chris is passionate about music and vibration as being a tool to relax, revive and renew the body, mind and soul. Proficient with instruments from around the world, a connoisseur of eclectic dance music, and a lover of all things bass - Chris draws all the elements from the CosmicSoup to bring you an exquisite experience every time.
chirp.me/chriscampbell
Emmaline Pennington
Game Leader & Camp Fire Songs
Get to know Emmaline!
Emmaline Pennington is a multidisciplinary creator, website and graphic designer, and devoted student of play. By day, she builds digital worlds through thoughtful design; by night, she’s just as likely to be writing songs, creating art, experimenting in the kitchen, or playing with her kids. Creativity isn’t a hobby for Emmaline, but the way she relates to the world.
Play quite literally runs in her blood. Emmaline grew up in a multigenerational carnival family. Her maternal grandfather built a carnival business from the ground up, bringing joy and play to towns across America. To this day, many of her family members, including her mother, make their living running games at fairs across the country. As a kid, she spent her summers traveling from fair to fair, working game booths, selling glow toys, and learning how to turn a simple activity into an unforgettable moment of joy. She spent nearly a decade running every kind of carnival game you can imagine, which trained her to read a crowd, keep energy high, and make sure everyone feels welcome, whether they “win” or not.
As an adult, Emmaline has carried that spirit forward into everything she does. She has hosted creative workshops at women’s circles, designed original games, and even co-created a full board game at age eighteen just for fun. She’s a naturally competitive person who loves game nights, but her deeper passion is what happens underneath the competition: connection, laughter, and the feeling of being fully alive again. For her, play is intuitive creativity in motion, acting as a doorway back to joy.
At Feel Day, Emmaline will serve as a Game Leader. Her intention is to help adults step into their inner child’s shoes for a while: to be goofy, silly, competitive, joyful, and fully in the moment. She’s known for bringing both structure and play: clear instructions, strong group leadership, and just enough ridiculousness to loosen people up while keeping things grounded and organized.
Emmaline creates emotionally safe spaces by meeting people as humans first. She makes eye contact, shares bits of her own lived experience, and uses warmth and humor to help participants feel at ease. As a mother of two young kids, she gets a daily masterclass in childlike wonder and lets her children lead her back, again and again, to what truly matters: joy, curiosity, and presence.
One of her favorite reminders comes from a Jhene Aiko song: “I’ll take some rain with my sunshine.” Emmaline believes play doesn’t ignore the hard parts of life, but it gives people a way to move with them, together, and still choose joy.
Chandler Simenson
Game Leader
Get to know Chandler!
Chandler brings high-energy leadership, creativity, and organization to every field day she leads. With a background in team coordination, event planning, and years spent working and traveling with a carnival, she knows how to manage crowds, keep energy high, and make games engaging and inclusive. Her goal is to foster connection, laughter, and teamwork while ensuring everyone feels welcome, supported, and excited to participate from start to finish.
Berly Canek
Yoga & EFT For Joy
Get to know Berly!
Berly Canek is a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, yoga teacher, and embodiment guide devoted to helping people reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems, and reclaim a sense of inner safety and self-trust. Her work weaves together trauma-informed movement, breathwork, sound healing, EFT tapping, and somatic practices to create grounded, compassionate spaces for healing and transformation.
This work was born from lived experience. For years, Berly devoted her energy to surviving and sustaining a toxic and violent relationship, placing her own needs, health, and well-being last. Chronic stress, fear, and emotional exhaustion slowly disconnected her from her body, intuition, and sense of self. When she finally chose to leave, she was faced not only with rebuilding her external life, but with healing the deep nervous system imprints left behind by prolonged trauma.
Through her own healing journey, Berly discovered the profound power of somatic and trauma-informed practices. She learned that healing is not about “fixing” the mind, but about creating safety in the body first. As her nervous system began to regulate, clarity, strength, and self-trust returned. What once felt like survival slowly transformed into purpose.
Berly is the founder of Healing Within You, a holistic healing practice rooted in the belief that the body holds wisdom, memory, and the capacity for repair. Her approach is gentle, consent-based, and deeply respectful of each person’s pace and lived experience. She is especially passionate about supporting women who have experienced chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, or toxic and narcissistic relationship dynamics, offering tools that empower rather than overwhelm.
As a facilitator and presenter, Berly brings authenticity, warmth, and grounded presence into every space she holds. Her work is an invitation to slow down, listen inward, and remember that healing does not require force, only safety, compassion, and connection. Through her workshops and teachings, she reminds others that resilience is not something to earn, but something that already lives within them
Learn About EFT Tap For Joy
This is a light, embodied, playful EFT-based experience designed to help participants regulate their nervous system while having fun and moving their bodies.
Rather than a heavy or clinical tapping session, this activity blends gentle EFT tapping with movement, laughter, rhythm, and choice. Participants are guided through simple tapping points combined with playful prompts, sound, breath, and micro-movements.
The focus is on safety, curiosity, and enjoyment allowing the body to release stress without forcing emotional processing. This activity is perfect for a Field Day environment because people can drop in, feel grounded and reset their energy.
Alba Osmanaj
Tumble & Tag Qigong
Get to know Alba!
Living with anxiety and navigating difficult emotions and daily triggers pushed me to search for something deeper than quick fixes. That search led me to QiGong.
Through its gentle movements, breath, and intentional awareness, I found a practice that helped me regulate my nervous system, process emotions safely, and reconnect with my body. What began as a personal healing tool has now become something I teach—so others can learn to meet their emotions with presence, balance, and compassion.
Learn About Tumble & Tag QiGong
A playful, body-based experience blending QiGong with interactive movement games like tumble and tag. We begin by grounding and regulating the nervous system through gentle QiGong, then transition into lighthearted play to release tension, spark joy, and build connection.
This session supports stress relief, emotional release, creativity, and social ease — reminding us that healing can be playful.
Move. Breathe. Play. Reset.
Michele Schalin
Inner Child Meditation
Get to know Michele!
Michele Schalin is a Mental Fitness Coach, author of Mindful Metamorphosis, and creator of transformative programs that help people reconnect with themselves, build emotional resilience, and live with greater peace and purpose. With over 30 years of experience studying the mind-body-spirit connection, she guides individuals and teams to manage stress, process emotions, and reprogram limiting beliefs.
Michele’s work blends neuroscience, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence techniques for healing anxiety, depression, trauma, and self-sabotaging patterns.
Through her corporate wellness programs, she helps organizations cultivate calmer, more emotionally intelligent, and high-performing teams. Each program combines science-backed tools with experiential learning to strengthen communication, focus, and well-being. Designed for lasting transformation, her ongoing sessions and practices empower participants to create meaningful, sustainable change, personally and professionally. Whether guiding individuals, teams, or retreats, Michele’s mission is to help people awaken their inner strength and live more consciously connected lives.
Learn About Inner Child Healing
A heart-centered experience designed to help you deeply connect with your inner child through guided meditation, affirmations, mirror work, and eye gazing. Participants learn to cultivate deep self-compassion, emotional safety, and deeper self-trust.
Michele guides you in a safe and supportive space, to help release stored emotions, nurture your inner child with love, acceptance, and kindness, and connect with other participants.
This experience supports healing, integration, and a renewed sense of wholeness and community.
What participants will experience and receive:
-A deeper connection with their inner child in a safe, supportive environment Increased self-compassion and emotional tenderness toward themselves
-Tools to build emotional safety and trust from within Gentle release of stored emotions held in the body and nervous system Greater awareness of core patterns shaped in early life.
-A sense of integration, wholeness, and inner peace Meaningful connection with others through shared presence and vulnerability.
- A renewed feeling of joy, softness, and self-acceptance Practices using meditation, affirmations, mirror work, and eye gazing that can be used beyond the workshop
Brandon Young
NeuroFlow — How Freestyling Tunes the Mind
Get to know Brandon!
Brandon Young is a certified life and health coach and a graduate in Behavioral Neuroscience who treats growth as both art and science. A lifelong pianist and improviser, he draws on musical practice to make personal development engaging, embodied, and sustainable.
Brandon has a knack for translating neuroscience into everyday language, illuminating how attention, emotion, and habit actually work, and then guiding people to apply that knowledge with curiosity and self-respect.
His style is steady, warm, and practical: equal parts coach, teacher, and creative collaborator. Clients appreciate his ability to create a psychologically safe environment while still offering clear structure and challenge. Whether he’s helping someone build confidence, communicate more openly, or find a reliable route into flow, Brandon anchors the process in accessible tools and repeatable reps.
Away from sessions, he keeps his hands on the keys and his ear for rhythm, because to him, creativity isn’t a side project; it’s a way of staying present, playful, and resilient. Brandon’s north star is simple: help people feel at home in their own voice so they can think clearly, feel fully, and move forward with purpose.
Learn About NeuroFlow
A playful, science-backed session where voice meets brain. Led by Brandon Young, life & health coach, Behavioral Neuroscience grad, and lifelong pianist, NeuroFlow turns low-stakes freestyle into a practical tool for clarity, confidence, and calm.
We’ll start with breath and rhythm, then use simple, judgment-free prompts to improvise words and sounds (no musical experience needed).
Along the way, Brandon explains what’s happening under the hood: creative networks light up, overactive self-critique quiets down, attention stabilizes, and novelty sparks dopamine; fuel for motivation and learning. You’ll practice skills that transfer far beyond the mic: cognitive flexibility, verbal agility, emotional regulation, and social ease.
Expect short demos, call-and-response, and breathing exercises to keep things grounded and fun. To close, we’ll offer an optional “anti-roast” rap exchange; a light, affirming “battle” where participants trade genuine compliments and strengths. It’s a playful way to step outside your comfort zone, practice presence under friendly pressure, and build confidence without tearing anyone down. Consent-based, opt-in, and cheerfully supportive.
You’ll leave with a pocket toolkit; micro-exercises you can use before a meeting, during stress, or when you want to shift from rumination to flow. Come as you are. NeuroFlow is less about performing and more about training presence; one beat, one breath, one brave line at a time.
Tree Magda
Laughter Yoga
Get to know Tree!
Tree is a force of nature, carrying the joy of life itself. She is connected and authentic. Empowering and supportive. She holds a safe space for genuine expression to be seen and heard. Through breathe, laughter, and play, she ignites the spirit of the inner child.
Learn About Laughter Yoga
Laughter Yoga is a gentle, grounding practice that blends intentional laughter with simple breathing and light movement to support the nervous system and overall wellbeing. You don’t need jokes, a sense of humor, or a reason to laugh.
Laughter is used as a physical exercise, allowing the body to receive the benefits even before the mind catches up.
A typical class begins with grounding and soft movement to help participants arrive and feel present.
From there, guided laughter exercises are introduced in a calm, supportive way. often starting quietly or playfully and building only as much as feels natural. The practice flows between laughter, deep breathing, and moments of rest, helping release tension, increase oxygen, and bring the body into a more relaxed state.
Mina Vera
Yoga Zumba Flow
Get to know Mina!
Mina Vera is a transplanted Austinite originally from Jamestown, Louisiana, now living in Pflugerville, Texas with her beloved dogs. Having lived across the U.S.—including Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and Nevada—as well as Baja California, Mexico, Mina’s travels have shaped her deep appreciation for diversity, inclusion, and community.
Yoga has been transformative in Mina’s life. Once stiff and inflexible, she discovered strength, softness, and growth through consistent practice. As both a lifelong student and a dedicated teacher, she’s always learning, exploring, and expanding her edges.
Mina has studied yoga through Sunkissed Yoga Studios, Yogamu (India-based), and Bret Larkin’s Uplifted Yoga programs, earning her 200-hour certification three times. She plans to complete her 300-hour training in 2026 and ultimately become a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT).
She has taught yoga in multiple states and settings—from Texas studios and California beaches to online Zoom classes—and loves helping students feel stronger, calmer, and more at home in their bodies.
Zumba is another longtime passion. Mina has taught throughout the Austin area, bringing upbeat energy, joyful movement, and the occasional mid-class sing-along.
Outside the studio, Mina enjoys hiking with her dogs, training in aerial arts (especially Lyra), pole dancing, aerial yoga—and in summer, embracing her inner mermaid in the pool.
Learn About Dancing Yoga
Move. Breathe. Express.
Dancing Yoga is a joyful fusion of yoga, free-form dance, and mindful movement. This experience invites you to flow through accessible yoga poses while layering in rhythmic, expressive dance to energizing music.
There’s no choreography to memorize, just an invitation to move intuitively, release tension, and reconnect with your body in a playful, uplifting way.
Expect a grounding warm-up, a dynamic flow that blends balance, strength, and mobility, and moments of creative movement that encourage self-expression and emotional release.
The class winds down with gentle stretching and breathwork, leaving you feeling refreshed, open, and fully alive. Perfect for all levels, Dancing Yoga is about letting go of perfection, turning up the music, and remembering that movement can be both healing and fun.
Come as you are. Move how you feel. Dance your yoga.
The Kirtan Space
Kirtan
Get to know The Kirtan Space!
The Kirtan Space offers a unique approach to self-discovery and relaxation through Kirtan, which involves the singing or chanting of sacred mantras. This practice serves as a method of yoga meditation aimed at self-realization, cleansing the heart and mind, and cultivating spiritual love. Their programs are free and supported by donations, making them accessible to all. The intended clients are individuals seeking spiritual growth and community engagement in a welcoming environment.
Learn About Kirtan
Kirtan, the singing or chanting of sacred mantras, or Transcendental Sound, is an easy yet sublime method of yoga meditation that has been practiced since time immemorial. It is the recommended process for self-realization in the modern age and has the gradual effect of cleansing your heart and mind, helping you to awaken and cultivate your inherent wisdom and spiritual love.
Stef Corona & Jasmin Bollavulla
T- Group & Sound Healing
Get to Know Stef!
Stephanie (she her) is a facilitator and guide devoted to cultivating presence, authenticity, and meaningful human connection. With a background in Human Development and Family Sciences, her work is rooted in presence, curiosity and compassion.
Stephanie has been facilitating community circles and group practices grounded in T group, Authentic Relating, and Internal Family Systems. Her approach is experiential and relational rather than instructional. She is less interested in offering answers and more interested in creating spaces where people can notice their inner experience, speak from what is alive, and explore the impact of being in connection together.
Her facilitation style is warm, grounded, and accessible. Stephanie has a particular love for welcoming people who are completely new to relational practices and helping them feel oriented, resourced, and included. Stephanie offers brave spaces for real time relational exploration, where curiosity and self responsibility guide how participants engage with emerging edges.
At Feel Day, Stephanie will be offering a T group inspired workshop. This experience invites participants into moment to moment awareness of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and relational dynamics as they naturally arise within the group. There is no performance and no expectation to share more than feels authentic. The practice is simply to notice, name, and explore what it is like to be here together.
Stephanie believes that connection is not something we manufacture but something we allow through attention, self responsibility, and curiosity. She trusts the intelligence of groups and the quiet transformation that can happen when people feel brave enough to be real.
She is honored to share this work at Feel Day and looks forward to co creating a space of presence, aliveness, and shared humanity.
Get to Know Jasmin!
Jasmin is an energy and sound alchemist serving Austin and the greater Central Texas area. With an educational foundation in psychology and social and behavioral science, along with over eight years of hands-on experience facilitating sound healing, she bridges intuitive practice with an understanding of human behavior, emotion, and nervous system regulation.
Jasmin has guided sound healing experiences in community spaces such as drum circles, group ceremonies, and recurring gatherings, including monthly T-Group and sound bath events she co-hosts. Her work is rooted in the understanding that rhythm, vibration, and sound can support emotional integration, presence, and energetic balance. She weaves together mindset coaching, Reiki, sound healing, music, and other transformative modalities to create immersive and restorative experiences.
Her sessions often incorporate drums, tuning forks, bells, singing bowls, and the human voice, inviting participants into deeper attunement with themselves. Jasmin’s intention is not to heal others, but to cultivate a grounded, intentional space where individuals can access their own inner wisdom, release energetic blockages, and restore their spirit to equilibrium. Her work is devoted to fostering balance, harmony, self-connection, and personal growth through vibrational awareness and sound.
Learn About T-Group
A Brave Space for Real Time Connection
This workshop is an invitation into live, unscripted connection. Rather than focusing on healing or fixing, T group offers a brave space to explore what happens when we bring awareness to the present moment and the impact we have on one another.
Together, we will practice noticing thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and relational impulses as they arise in real time within the group. Participants are invited to speak from direct experience, share curiosities, and experiment with honesty and self responsibility. There is no right way to participate and no requirement to share more than feels aligned, yet the practice gently invites each person to meet their own edge.
T group is not about learning concepts or performing connection. It is about staying present with what is actually happening, including uncertainty, resonance, discomfort, and moments of genuine contact. The group itself becomes the teacher.
This workshop is well suited for both newcomers and those familiar with relational practices. No prior experience is required, only a willingness to be curious, imperfect, and engaged.
If you are interested in exploring connection beyond scripts, roles, and spiritual bypassing, this practice offers a grounded and alive way to meet yourself and others in the moment.
Come as you are. Bring curiosity. Let the rest unfold.
Evolve
Relaxation Station
Get to Know Evolve!
Evolve Social Wellness Space is a groundbreaking new concept that allows people to take charge of their wellness, workout recovery, and mental health.
Evolve has been described as a “wellness playground” where you are free to build your own routine and enjoy the experience with friends and loved ones. Our social wellness space is designed to be enjoyed with others in a flexible format. From cold plunges to Sauna, to Red Light Therapy to Compression and more.
Visit their website at https://www.evolvehumanlabs.com
Partners & Sponsors
