We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Coco Awesome a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Coco, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The story behind the birth of “For When You Are Feeling” goes back to my sophomore year of college. During this time I was silently recovering from being sexually assaulted and I really didn’t have the tools accessible to me to get the help I needed and asking for help was something that was extremely difficult for me. So I turned to a piece of paper and a pen to help me heal the things I couldn’t say out loud.

Whilst doing so I comprised a series of illustrations based off of the different emotions I was feeling at the time and had decided I wanted to put them
into a Mental Health book to show that people can heal without using traditional forms of therapy (i.e. DBT)… After much thought, I decided on naming the book “For When You’re Feeling Your Feelings”.

Initially, I didn’t realize that I had created a platform to release my own artwork, but once I did I found this to be the happiest accident I ever created and is arguably the catalyst towards my infatuation with learning how to make books.

Building my own brand was something I never expected to feel so passionate about— and although I would consider myself a big dreamer, I just hope that when I die one day maybe one of my books could help someone.

Coco, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

For When You Are Feeling is currently a Lifestyle E-commerce brand geared towards generating products for the neurodivergent community.

My Niche right now is Mental Health Work Books but I hope to develop Stim Toys within the next 5 years.

Personally If there is one thing I want someone to take from reading this it’s the following:
– I started building this company in 2019 when I was really struggling with my own mental health and each project I have created has been a way for me to heal my own trauma. By doing so I have learned a lot about myself and how my brain works and have become extremely passionate about wanting to help others.

From an outsiders perspective I could understand how someone may question :“how is this a lifestyle e-commerce brand geared towards generating products for the neurodivergent community?” and the short answer is: I am a member of the Neurodivergent Community and my target audience is curating products for people who think like me, It is not meant to be for everyone.

Right now I am limited to utilizing this platform that I have built to showcase my own art in hopes of making small steps towards reaching my bigger umbrella goals. Those goals include building Stim Toys and other tools that I think could be helpful for people like me. :)

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A story that I feel illustrates my resilience is this one: After recovering from my assault in 2019 I had found out some really difficult things about my Childhood only two years later. Although I don’t feel comfortable sharing the details— the information I had discovered caused me to make some really drastic changes, (especially after newly recovering from my assault that I did not expect to be so hard to recover from).

Ultimately this situation forced me to make the difficult decision to separate from my family. That is actually why I use the word “Awesome” instead of my last name. Although making this decision was one of the hardest I’ve ever made, I know that my childhood self is very proud that I continue to honor her and not tolerate the abuse I faced as a child.

Separating from my family has pushed me out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways and has also been an incredible opportunity for growth. I wouldn’t have made my fourth book without this experience and I hope to continue to advocate for the children who never knew anything was wrong.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

This is actually kind of a funny story. Disclaimer: My major in college was in Graphic Design not Business.

But anyways, I funded my first project with the unemployment money I had received during Covid. My first project was such a learning process and I wasted so much money. That being said, I am grateful for the learning experience and am proud that with each project I have released It has become more cost effective each time.

Currently I fund everything with my savings and or any extra money I make goes back into my building my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.forwhenurfeeling.com/
• Instagram: cocoawes0me
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coco-collins
• Other: https://linktr.ee/shmoco