About — Live Better | Jesse Giunta Rafeh

Once I get ________, then I’ll be happy.

Does that sound familiar?

As children, we learn to wait for certain things to happen in order to feel fulfilled. We prolong our happiness based on some external factor we can’t control. As adults, we often adopt the same pattern. We tell ourselves we’ll be happy after we land our dream job, meet the “perfect” partner, and/or make a certain amount of money.

But here’s the truth: it’s possible to be successful in multiple areas of your life and still feel unhappy. Why? It comes down to how you interpret things. The way you view your life has a direct effect on your emotions. And you actually have the power to influence your emotional experience.

As a therapist, my goal is to give you the tools to tap into that power and transform your relationship with your feelings. As a certified success coach, I want to help you clear a path to long-term happiness and create the life you want.

I hold the hope that you can move through whatever challenges you’re facing right now and create a positive future for yourself.

I don’t hold this hope lightly. I’ve been through challenges, too. And I understand what it takes to create a life that feels meaningful and fulfilling.

As the only child of parents who graduated from Stanford University, I grew up facing enormous pressure to succeed. That pressure worked in my favor for a while: I got good grades, served on student council, and had a bunch of friends.

But my life fell apart after I got to high school. My cousin Jason, who was like a brother to me, committed suicide. Not long after that, my uncle killed himself. Within a few years, my other two cousins took their own lives.

As I grieved for my family, I struggled to make sense of my life. I developed severe panic attacks and chronic anxiety. I grew more and more depressed. When I started cutting myself, the therapist I was seeing suggested I go to a psych ward.

Going through my teens, I felt like I was destined to follow in my cousins’ footsteps. Then I met a therapist who changed my life. She not only taught me to feel my feelings, but also how to transform my relationship with my emotions. Thanks to her, and to other great teachers I sought out in my teens and twenties, I began to see myself, and see the world, with new eyes.

I went from a dark, exhausted place—where it took every ounce of energy I had to survive each day—to a place of deep fulfillment and self-love.

Along the way, I grew to love the process of therapy. And I discovered my life goal: to become a successful psychotherapist, focusing on young adults. After going straight through college to graduate school, I became a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and opened my private practice at age twenty-six.

Since then, I’ve helped hundreds of young people successfully transition into adulthood and connect with their deepest desires. I’ve also worked with adults and families, guiding them toward finding healthy ways to cope with their emotions and create lasting, fulfilling relationships.

In 2020, I published Life Launch, a book that combines the most powerful lessons from my psychotherapy clients with stories from my own experience. It’s a 360-degree guide to creating an extraordinary adulthood, and it includes practical, accessible strategies for coping with anxiety and depression, creating your ideal career, and building and sustaining healthy relationships.

What you resist will persist. And what you accept will transform.

When we start working together, one of the first things I’ll share with you is something a great teacher taught me: “What you resist will persist. And what you accept will transform.”

Part of being human is learning to feel the feelings that come up for you. Learning to let go of your defenses and be in your emotions fully is the first step to transforming them.

Another important step in your emotional journey is to develop an awareness of your past to see how it affects your present. Once you get clear about that, it’s much easier to go after what you want in your life.

Together, as we do this internal work, we’ll also address your external priorities, or the building blocks of your life. Together, we’ll zero in on the things that spark your motivation. We’ll work through the blocks that might be holding you back. Then we’ll create a structure to help you stay true to your goals, moving toward them step by step.

Between sessions, you’ll do homework designed to hold you accountable to your dreams. Along the way, you’ll learn how to consciously acknowledge your progress and tap into the joy of going after what you want.

The world is your blank canvas.

Whatever it is you want in your life—excitement, fulfillment, tranquility, growth, love—is within your power to create. Any experience you desire, whether it’s at your job, whether you want to travel, whether it’s finding the love you want, is possible for you. The world is your blank canvas.