One of my biggest takeaways was what I learned about myself. Sounds simple, but it's much more complex than it sounds. We spend so much time in school learning about other subjects, but we/I have never had a chance to learn about me. You think you know yourself, but Julie has a way of bringing out your true self so you can move forward as you were always meant to be.
Marina ● Client
Just like many others, I've experienced myself as an outsider. I've been lost and confused. I've wrestled to trust myself. I've judged my professional journey. I've pressured myself to please others, at my own expense. (...Sound familiar?)
Yet each of these challenging places, as I began to work with them consciously and compassionately, eventually opened up new areas of growth, aliveness, and agency. My healing process brought more love, clarity and connection into my life. It also set me on my current professional path as a coach and facilitator of healing.
Each of your challenges, too, are like doorways to creating what you're longing for. They may actually be nudging you in the direction of your soul's purpose.
Coaching Experience
My training has taught me how transformation works, and how to facilitate it for others.
- 1Celebrating 10 Years as a Coach <> Since 2012, I've been in ongoing coach training, from foundational to advanced, while working with non-profit leaders, doctors, lawyers, activists, business owners, college students, writers, artists, event planners, and more. I'm committed to my own ongoing growth and self-realization, so I can also help others to do the same.
- 2Trauma Informed Coaching Certification <> I'm certified (through Moving The Human Spirit's ICF-Accredited program) to coach clients who have experienced trauma, and are in trauma recovery. This allows me to discern where a client is on their healing journey, what they likely need from the coaching process, and how I need to show up as coach to facilitate post-traumatic growth. It also gives me greater ability to educate my clients on trauma and healing, if necessary.
- 3Great Story Mastery <> I trained with Lucid Living and Coaching Transformation over a period of 2+ years, creating an embodied understanding of emotional fluency and the negative ego (the part of us who inhibits our growth and expansion). Integrating this ICF-Accredited program on a deep level now enables me to spot where clients are unnecessarily holding themselves back, and help them heal and expand their agency.
- 4Great Story Coaching <> With Lucid Living, I trained in this year-long, ICF-Accredited program, to coach clients beyond frustrating patterns and into their real potential and their soul's dream for them. Full of compassion and insight, this work is powerfully transformative. It's a process that can have clients remembering and trusting in who they really are, and its emphasis on ownership and responsibility also has one relating to life from an empowered place.
- 5Co-Active Coaching <> My life-coach training and certification is with the ICF-Accredited Co-Active Training Institute. I spent a year of in-person training learning coaching foundations, and refining my skills through their rigorous certification process. Co-Active Coaching is inherently creative, and designed to give power to the client, while always evoking the possibility of change and transformation.
- 6Leadership Training <> I completed Co-Active Training Institute's year-long leadership immersion program, along with about 25 others in my cohort. This work taught me aspects of how transformation works (I can confidently say it changed my life), attuned my awareness of the relational field, and set the bar high for the courage I would then bring to my coaching practice, for the sake of my clients.
- 7Organizer Coaching <> Before becoming a life-coach, I got my start as an Organizer Coach. This foundational year long + program (also ICF Accredited) gave me a wonderful introduction into coaching, and how empowering and fun it is to lead a client to discover their own solutions. This strengths-based coaching gave me language to recognize the gifts of my neuro-divergent clients- and to create systems that honor and harness their natural way of doing and being (as opposed to forcing them to be different).
- 8Master of Fine Arts <> My background as an artist took me to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I completed a 2 year Master's program. Here, I explored the art and potential of collaboration, and created new ways for people to relate to one another through furniture and space design, communication games, event programming, and play. I include this under 'Coach Training' because my background in art gave me deep understanding of the creative process; I use this knowledge to help guide clients as they navigate their own creative journeys.
Coaching Style
I celebrate my client's natural gifts, and nurture the transformation needed to realize their calling.
- 1Focusing On You First <> You cannot successfully create a change to your work life (that makes you happy) without knowing yourself. It's not about fitting into the options 'out there' for living/working, but choosing opportunities that allow you to live into your vision. Your identity is not defined by your work. Your work is a vehicle for expressing your identity, which is always shifting.
- 2Transformation and Healing <> Anytime we feel stuck, or in a pattern, we will unconsciously recreate the same experience until we shift something inside. Underlying wounds, beliefs, and parts of us who are crying out for love and acceptance really must be tended, in order to create real, sustained change. This is the most liberating and exciting possibility of coaching. It has us feeling renewed and experiencing our wholeness. Healing reconnects us to who we really are, and opens up new levels of agency.
- 3Respecting Individuality <> Having grown up feeling like an odd-ball, I treasure when eccentricity shows up in others. I carry a deep love for individual expression, and a deep longing for our world to enable each of us to walk our own walk, freely and safely and in acceptance. I know what it's like to sacrifice parts of you to fit in. When we own who we are, we free ourselves while also creating safety for others. It's courageous work, and I'll always support it.
- 4Teaching the Creative Process <> The creative process underlies everything we want to create in the world of form. There are ups and downs, and each stage has its purpose and lesson. I find many people give up way too early in their process, because they lack a context to interpret what they're experiencing. I make sure to help my clients see that, while they may not be conscious that progress is happening, it is. Developing this awareness is so helpful to sustaining belief in your vision.
- 5Harnessing the Spiritual Self <> What often goes unnamed is the fact that our deepest longings, our hunger for expression, our compulsion to seek, our simple desire for happiness or freedom is spiritual in nature. If you're my client, you don't have to think of it that way. But I find that for those clients who are willing to own that they are part of something bigger, or who are open to trusting the mystery of life, change can come swiftly and with ease. When appropriate, I love to help clients nurture their spiritual selves.
- 6Lifelong Personal Growth <> Nearly every coaching tool I've been trained in can be learned and used by the client to support themself. This is why I often share frameworks and pause to educate my clients in coaching. This impulse also blends well with my passion for creating visuals and instructional materials to express and enable understanding.
Personal Joys & Commitments
These are some important aspects of my life, currently.
- 1Crafting & Fun With Family <> I love spending time with my nieces! When we all get together to craft, or cook, or bake, or hang out and watch movies... it's some of the most fun I have. There's always laughter, silly jokes, and good food. They even took my bio photos for this site. Didn't they do a great job?
- 2Food Pantry Volunteer <> Most Saturdays, I spend 3 hours sorting and organizing canned goods and produce to be dispersed to local residents. I find it grounding and reassuring to do this simple yet physical work among neighbors.
- 3Anti-Racism Self-Work, Study and Action <> I believe it's my personal responsibility to discover where inherited, unconscious biases, habits and complacency show up in me, and to transform this, so that I can act in integrity with what I know is right. I'm learning to better spot systemic racial inequalities, and to align my voting power, financial decisions and action with creating change. I think that collectively, this work is essential to building a new, healing-centered, mutually liberating world.
- 4Nature Walks <> I live near some beautiful nature spots, and spend time in them almost every day. I've come to lean into nature for relaxation, clarity, support, and even wisdom. I've also developed a love of photographing nature! All photos on this site are taken by me and come from my favorite spots, unless otherwise noted.
- 5Collective Healing Journey <> I've participated in a global online group, building individual and collective healing competencies with Thomas Hubl. I'm learning to bring spiritual attunement and presence to healing conversations, personally and professionally. To me, exploring how we can be healing agents for one another, in everyday ways, is super fulfilling!
- 6Mentor to Coaches in Training <> I've assisted coach training courses taught by Coaching Transformation for the last 3 years. Through this work, I deepen my own understanding of the principles & practices, and enjoy deeper connection with this community.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
What's Important to you About Your Future?
That I realize my gifts
THAT I HAVE THE COURAGE TO DO WHAT I KNOW IS RIGHT
THAT I HEAL THESE BLOCKS THAT KEEP ME SMALL
THAT I LEARN TO STAY EMPOWERED
THAT I HAVE TIME TO ENJOY THE PRESENCE OF PEOPLE I LOVE
THAT I LEARN TO SHINE WITHOUT FEAR OF REJECTION
THAT I DO WORK I ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN
THAT I DEVELOP THE COURAGE TO FOLLOW MY INTUITION
THAT I SPEND MORE TIME FEELING LIFE'S MAGIC THAN I DO IN STRESS
THAT I TRULY KNOW WHO I AM
THAT I KNOW MY PURPOSE VISCERALLY- AND TRULY FEEL IT
THAT I HEAL TRAUMA THAT I'VE INHERITED, AND BECOME FREE
Want to talk? Here's how it works:
1.
Book a consult.
Book a consult to find out if my coaching is a right for you! It's free, and it's the best way to get clear on how to move forward.
2.
Fill out a form.
After you book your session, I'll send you questions to answer, to help us both get clear before our call. I'll ask you to return answers to me an hour or more ahead of our call.
3.
We'll talk!
We'll talk for up to an hour, and I'll help you gain insight on what you're experiencing, and if my coaching is a fit for your needs. If it's a fit and you choose to move forward, I'll initiate your start up tasks, and we're off and running.