About Julie

How did I get here?

Ever since I can remember, people have opened up to me.  Often times complete strangers will tell me their life stories.  Many people have told me that they had never before told anyone what they just revealed to me or that they are private people who don’t open up to others, but they felt safe doing so with me.  Some have told me it is because I am the most authentic person that they know.  Because I am not hiding who I am, they don’t have to hide who they are.  My sister said that it is because I ask a lot of questions and seem truly interested.  I am in fact very curious and have always loved digging in deep with others.  I seek to understand.

Although history has always told me that I was a good listener, I wasn’t really a great listener until I took my spiritual direction classes.  This was where I learned to listen for what wasn’t being spoken and for what the Holy Spirit might be saying.  This was getting in touch with intuition.  My motivation was no longer curiosity but to help others find their truth.  I found that it was easy to make connections and remember what clients told me from session to session. Watching people grow in love and faith through spiritual direction sessions has been one of my greatest pleasures.

Deep listening was healing others (and myself) but I began to notice more moments where it did not feel like it was enough.  When people’s anxiety or grief were too much in a session to talk through, I sought for something more to help them.  In my own experience, I knew that physical touch is one of the most healing things.  Yet I didn’t feel called to learn massage.  I didn’t know another profession of touch until I accidently experienced Reiki.

One day, while receiving a massage, I had an energy shifting, mind-clearing experience.  I have had many massages but none quite like this.  When I asked the massage therapist about it afterwards, she told me that she had performed Reiki on me.  Although that violates ethical guidelines of consent, I needed that to happen, because I had been a skeptic.  I thought Reiki was just the placebo effect, but now I knew that energy work was real.  As an educator, my first instinct is always to learn more about what I do not understand. So I learned all that I could about Reiki.

After Reiki opened the door to energy healing, a friend told me about another energy therapy called Healing Touch. This appealed to me because it was the only accredited energy healing in the nation.  I decided to learn how to do it.  Initially, this was just to satisfy my own curiosity, but then I thought I might use it on my family and friends.  I loved the idea of not needing any tools except my hands– so I could easily do it any time, any place.  After giving sessions to family and friends, and experiencing it myself, I realized I wanted to give this gift to everyone.  Here was the way that I could help those clients experiencing anxiety or grief when listening wasn’t enough.

I find Spiritual Direction and Healing Touch to be complementary modalities for healing the mind, body, and spirit in a holistic way. I love to provide a sacred space for a soul to be its true self. 

We are often the best teachers and empathizers of that which we have been through.  Particular struggles that I myself have had, and now help others with, include: learning self-love, finding balance with boundaries, discerning situations and decisions, breaking down barriers that isolate and lead to loneliness, and learning how to manifest abundance. 

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