Car­ol Quash

Peo­ple who de­vel­op emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence (EQ) skills are said to have a bet­ter chance of suc­ceed­ing than those who live on an emo­tion­al roller­coast­er. But since not every­one is open to coun­selling ses­sions to learn about self-aware­ness, self-reg­u­la­tion, em­pa­thy, and so­cial skills, EQ coach Kelline Theophille has found an un­con­ven­tion­al way to help those hes­i­tant to take the tra­di­tion­al route—Promise Jars.

Each jar car­ries a colour-cod­ed col­lec­tion of tools to help man­age emo­tions: scrip­ture vers­es writ­ten on red pa­per, af­fir­ma­tions on or­ange, in­spi­ra­tional quotes on green, and ac­tiv­i­ties on blue.

“But every jar can have a dif­fer­ent theme,” Theophille ex­plained. “For ex­am­ple, one jar could fo­cus on over­com­ing fear, an­oth­er on hav­ing a sound mind. The theme de­pends on what the per­son is deal­ing with and needs help nav­i­gat­ing.”

Theophille holds a dou­ble ma­jor in Psy­chol­o­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, and worked in sev­er­al jobs af­ter grad­u­at­ing. Over time, she no­ticed a trou­bling pat­tern — many peo­ple were al­low­ing their emo­tions to un­der­mine their qual­i­ty of life.

“I would en­counter clients who were falling apart be­cause they couldn’t man­age their emo­tions,” she said. “They were not pro­gress­ing, and it both­ered me. So I start­ed re­search­ing how I could help peo­ple man­age their emo­tions in ways that would help them move for­ward.”

Her cu­rios­i­ty led her to study emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence through the US-based Trans­for­ma­tion Acad­e­my — an area still rel­a­tive­ly new in T&T at the time.

She told WE that Promise Jars by Kell, which she launched in 2018, is her “ba­by” — a cre­ative way to reach peo­ple who need sup­port but may hes­i­tate to ask be­cause of the stig­ma sur­round­ing coun­selling.

“One thing I’ve learned is that peo­ple may need help, but our cul­ture makes it seem taboo. Peo­ple think they have to be bro­ken to seek en­cour­age­ment and sup­port, which is not the case,” she said.

Theophille be­lieves every­one needs help nav­i­gat­ing new stages of life.

“Not every­one knows how to be a new mom, a new wife, or how to tran­si­tion in­to a new job. There should be no shame in want­i­ng sup­port to get through these things.”

In­ter­est­ing­ly, many of her Promise Jar cus­tomers even­tu­al­ly seek one-on-one coun­selling.

“I re­mem­ber one per­son telling me, ‘Kell, one of the ac­tiv­i­ties both­ered me, and I need you to help me walk through it.’ That start­ed hap­pen­ing of­ten, so I knew it was time to of­fer for­mal emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence coun­selling. A lot of my Promise Jar clients be­came coach­ing clients.”

To­day, Theophille of­fers on­line and in-per­son in­di­vid­ual and group coach­ing, staff train­ing for com­pa­nies, and works with stu­dents.

“I have a soft spot for pri­ma­ry schools be­cause I used to be a guid­ance coun­sel­lor there,” she said.

She is al­so a re­cur­ring guest on a morn­ing ra­dio pro­gramme, where she dis­cuss­es “mat­ters of the heart” from an EQ per­spec­tive.

“We talk about ro­mance, love, build­ing and fix­ing re­la­tion­ships, han­dling con­flict — all through the lens of emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence.”

The idea for Promise Jars be­gan as a birth­day gift for one of her best friends of 30 years.

“Hav­ing run out of gift ideas, I de­cid­ed to give her en­cour­age­ment and sup­port,” she re­called. “I wrote scrip­tures, quotes, ac­tiv­i­ties, and af­fir­ma­tions. She loved it and said, ‘Kell, why don’t you turn this in­to a busi­ness? Oth­er peo­ple re­al­ly need it too.’”

The seed was plant­ed, and frus­tra­tion with her full-time job helped it grow. On Moth­er’s Day 2018, she be­gan mar­ket­ing the Promise Jars with­in her net­work while still com­mut­ing dai­ly from Fyz­abad to Port-of-Spain for a job that didn’t align with her pur­pose.

“It took off far more than I ex­pect­ed,” she said. “By Au­gust, it was out­pac­ing my job, so I told my hus­band, Cleo, that I was go­ing in­to it full-time. The chal­lenge was ex­pand­ing be­yond my net­work.”

She start­ed In­sta­gram and Face­book pages and be­gan ex­plain­ing the con­cept on­line.

“A lot of peo­ple didn’t un­der­stand it at first, so it wasn’t smooth sail­ing,” she ad­mit­ted.

Even­tu­al­ly, peo­ple be­gan to take no­tice, and op­por­tu­ni­ties opened up. Theophille se­cured a con­tract with the lo­cal arm of a UN agency to cre­ate jars for care pack­ages for women in need and now al­so sup­plies jars for con­fer­ences.

“Peo­ple re­al­ly be­gan to see the val­ue of giv­ing oth­ers en­cour­age­ment and mo­ti­va­tion — some­thing be­yond a pret­ty word,” she said. “My heart will al­ways be to teach peo­ple that there’s no shame in seek­ing help that’s tai­lored to you. Be bold enough, be brave enough to push past what oth­ers may whis­per, and do what you need to do. Just get the help you need — you’ll be bet­ter for it.”