Meet Jeanette Brown | Trauma Recovery Coach & Memoirist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeanette Brown and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeanette, Let’s talk about principles and values – what matters to you most?
Authenticity. Only when we examine our own truths can we separate fact from fiction. Writing memoir and searching fearlessly for the truest truth I can find about myself and my past has helped me heal in ways I never imagined. It has liberated me from the weight of so much that wasn’t mine to carry. The process of seeking our own truth is life-changing. My future is better for having embarked upon this journey, and I encourage everyone to embrace authenticity. The truth makes the very best writing. It also makes sense. And it gets to smarter answers faster. The truth is way more efficient than the fictions so many of us create and project about ourselves and others. Authenticity is the answer to some of the world’s greatest problems. Only by owning our past can we hope to improve our future.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My business, Don’t Sum Me Up, is also my response when people try to define me, put me in a box, limit me with a stereotype, or otherwise underestimate the unique combination of superpowers my life experience has helped me develop.

I am a polymath, much better when I am doing more than one thing. In fact, living my best life involves pursuing several simultaneously.

Don’t Sum Me Up is both the name of my business and what I tell people who try to put me in a box way too small to hold me. We all contain multitudes. It is when I show up as my full self–with my many different passions and pasts–that I do my best work. I am not alone in this.

I help empower others to embrace their many parts instead of exiling the facets that make them most unique. Often, what we were conditioned to hide and feel shame about is exactly what makes us one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.

As a trauma recovery coach and memoirist, I help people explore the parts of themselves they have silenced. I invite people to examine the stories they tell themselves using writing, meditation, movement, culinary therapy, curiosity, grief, and gratitude. Whichever and however many of those things call to them.

We are all our best selves when we can show up as our whole selves. We are best healed by what we are naturally drawn toward.

I share the healing practices that have helped me assemble the pieces of my past into a mosaic far greater than the sum of its parts. In hopes others may use them to create their own healing masterpieces.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
My tour of San Diego would include a bike ride through eucalyptus-shaded Balboa Park and a visit to the Fleet Science Center, snorkeling with sea lions in La Jolla, visiting marine life at Scripps, lunch along the water, an afternoon at the San Diego Zoo, canyon swinging, a day trip to Tijuana, drinks at the Coronado, and definitely fish tacos for several meals.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have worked with a host of incredible coaches and others providing support through a grueling several years of pandemic, divorce, financial hardship, and housing instability. So grateful to them all. I could not have done it without the generous support of my stepmother, Alice Hageman; brother and sister-in-law, Roy and Kat Brown; bestie, Sarah Simpson, and writing partner, Sebastienne Mundheim.

Website: https://DontSumMeUp.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DontSumMeUp

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanettegbrown

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/DontSumMeUp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DontSumMeUp

Image Credits
Margarita Barnes