Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 341 - Julie Farnsworth
Transcript
- speaker-0: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. If you run a business, listen up because my friend, Dr. Elise Rigney, just dropped something every entrepreneur needs. Elise is who we trust for our tax strategy and she put together a free 40 minute breakdown of the new big, beautiful bill that will impact you this tax season. This thing changes a lot. Deductions, depreciation, write-offs, and most business owners won't understand it until it's too late. We've used her strategies ourselves and they work. So grab her free training at the link in our show notes and get ahead of this bill before it hits your bottom line. There's a moment in every man's life, especially for veterans, first responders and men called to lead when the uniform comes off, but the mission doesn't end. Too many try to navigate that transition alone without structure, accountability or brotherhood. That's why I'm proud to partner with Missions Purpose, a community built for men who refuse to drift. Inside the school platform, You get live calls, challenges, frameworks, and disciplined brotherhood that pushes you to rebuild purpose, direction, and daily structure. If you're ready for the next chapter of your mission, click the link in the show notes to join us inside the Missions Purpose Community on School. You were never meant to walk this road alone. What's up, everybody? Welcome to this week's edition of the On Purpose Podcast, where you know it's our mission to get you moving, get you thinking. Get you inspired a little bit. And this week I'm excited to be joined by Julie Farnsworth, a lifelong helper, advocate, and social worker who has spent more than 30 years standing up for people who often go unseen. From her early days as a 12 year old volunteering in a nursing home to decades of work in foster care, adoption, and mental health, she's dedicated her life not just to helping others, but giving them a voice. And what I really love about Julie and what drew me to her is her honesty. about what this caring has done to her life and her compassion to turn inward instead of giving to realize she had to nourish herself to get back to where she could give others through neuroscience, self care and deep personal work. She's rebuilt her life and discovered the brain's incredible ability to heal and rewire. And we have mutual friends in common, which makes me think that this community is working when they're sending me people that have inspired them. So Julie, I'm honored to have you on this show. I'm grateful for your work and I can't wait to share your story with our community. speaker-1: Thank you so much. ⁓ I'm so honored, so honored to be here and honored by everything that you just said and just excited to share my personal journey and story. so, yeah, I'm really looking forward to just getting my message out there and continuing to do this lifelong work, which is kind of leading me on this next path in my journey, which is being here, so. speaker-0: It's amazing. I love it. And now, this your first podcast? that what I remember? It is my first speaker-1: First podcast. speaker-0: All right, well our goal is to set the bar so high that every other podcast you go on from here on out just can't even compare to us. speaker-1: I, yeah. Already feeling it, yes. speaker-0: All right, Julie. Well, thank you so much for your story and for sharing it and not being perfect. That's one of the things I always try to stress is like, we don't have to be perfect to share our story. People are going to resonate in the struggle and they can't do that if we don't share it. So I want to thank you for being you and sharing all sides of that. And I look forward to diving into that and sharing the journey with the community. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. speaker-0: But, but before we do, I gotta warm you up. I like to have a good warm up to let me know what we're in for. Are ready for your warm up questions, Julie? speaker-1: ⁓ gosh, okay, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, see you didn't notice are coming that's perfect All right Here we go first one. What's something you've learned about yourself lately? speaker-1: Oh, that's a good one. So I think at the age of 54, I have finally realized that I don't have to pretend to agree with everybody. I don't have to try to keep the peace with everybody. I'm allowed to stand up and speak my own voice and advocate for other people and not worry about it and not worry so much about possibly offending anybody or ⁓ you know because I think at the end of the day those wouldn't necessarily be my people so I think just not not being afraid to ⁓ to speak my mind when I feel like I need to so I think that would be a big one. speaker-0: Okay, that's a good one. like that. All right. Number one second one. What's a small habit or ritual? That's been giving you energy recently speaker-1: Okay, yeah, so I have a couple of them. So I do a gratitude journal. So every day at the end of the day, I'll do three things that I'm grateful for. Even if they were just something little that happened throughout the day, like I had my favorite pizza maybe, or I saw like a really cool sunset. And also, being intentional with looking for glimmers throughout the day then too kind of combines that gratitude piece. you know, just looking for something. ⁓ I'm looking at the window and I'm seeing like a cool bird fly by and that like just gives me a moment of like, wow, yeah, I noticed that and that was really cool. ⁓ So just trying to be. mindful and intentional about noticing little things in my environment. That's a huge speaker-0: That's a good one. You call it glimmers. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a good one. All right, third one. Who's someone in your life right now that's influencing your thinking or inspiring you? speaker-1: Okay, well, so I definitely have somebody that is always inspirational to me, actually two. ⁓ One of them is living and one of them has passed, but they're both my grandmothers. ⁓ So I'm picking them rather than somebody ⁓ that's in our public ⁓ right now that everybody would know. ⁓ But those are two strong women in my life that I really just draw a lot of my wisdom and ⁓ way of seeing things, way of doing things, way of living my life. ⁓ So, yeah, I think that that would be my answer to that because I'm not going to get into like Maya Angelou or, know. I mean, I love her. But yeah, I'm a sucker for like inspirational women with good quotes. So obviously, you know, she would be one that resonates with me. But yeah, yeah, very. So my one grandmother that's living is 101. She'll be 102 in June. speaker-0: That's a good life. speaker-1: Yeah, and the other grandmother who passed, ⁓ she was in her 90s. She was a social worker and had a huge influence on me, ⁓ on my life, ⁓ in the work that I do. Just such an inspiration. An amazing woman for her time. ⁓ She got her master's in social work. ⁓ at a time when women weren't even going to college. And ⁓ she was a director of a foster care and adoption agency. And I didn't even know that until ⁓ later in life because I ended up working in the same field after graduating from college. So, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. One more, one more warm up question for you, Julie. When you think about the season of life you're in now, what word or phrase describes that? speaker-1: empowered. speaker-0: Ooh, that's a good one. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Why do you say that? speaker-1: ⁓ Well, I'm going to go back to what I was saying, ⁓ you know, just in terms of my outlook on things. ⁓ You know, I think women in particular can kind of go through life trying to keep the peace and being a people pleaser and doing things because that's the expectation and that's what we're told to do. but I think when you get into your fifties, maybe, or I don't know, maybe just all of the, the life experiences, ⁓ kind of make you like reframe that a little bit and, ⁓ question some things and, and think, well, I don't think that's necessarily the way I need to. to live maybe the next half of my life. can go from being the meek 23-year-old me out of college and starting in social work to the 54-year-old me with a strong, powerful voice. It's kind of been growing over the years, empowered, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I like it. You feeling warmed up? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Awesome. Let's, if you don't mind, know like sometimes we want to start from the beginning and tell me about like when you realize this, as far as your calling and social work and you knew like this just was going to be part of you. But I actually want to skip forward because you said something is super interesting to me and that is the empowered aspect and realizing that you don't have to be a people pleaser and you, don't have to be things that you don't, that don't align with you. What brought you to that decision? How did you push back against the idea of conforming and just kind of staying quiet if it wasn't fulfilling? speaker-1: Well, I think it came at a little bit of a cost to me, actually a lot of a cost to me because I had spent my whole life being that people pleaser, putting everybody's needs before my own, naturally wanting to help people and not realizing that at a certain point, you can't help anybody else if you don't take care of yourself. how I have come to feel empowered ⁓ comes on the other side of being very vulnerable and dealing with my own trauma and my own result of putting all of my needs to the side by working with people who really had all these traumatic stories and things that I was constantly taking on and helping with, ⁓ but never really stopping to like treat myself the same way I would treat one of my clients. ⁓ It ended up landing me in a deep depression. ⁓ I was in the hospital for a week in an inpatient program and on the other side of having to actually rely on somebody to help me. ⁓ So I started to take a look at what was I actually doing for myself. And it was really not much. I was doing everything for everybody else. ⁓ You know, I had lost my sister six years prior. So this was like a year and a half ago that this all kind of hit me and came crashing down on me. I had never really dealt with that loss because I was busy helping everybody else. So I started to do little things ⁓ that I knew worked for my clients. And that was like I mentioned, practicing the gratitude. ⁓ But it was hard. And I really knew what some of my clients had experienced with having that breakdown. That ⁓ trauma that kind of builds up in your body really can manifest in ways that your body just kind of is like, okay, we can't do this anymore. So yeah, on the heels of that, I was able to work through a year or more of just talking kindly to myself, ⁓ taking a step back from things that felt draining to me, ⁓ consciously paying attention to things that were going to bring me some. happiness, bring me some joy, putting my needs before other people's needs. That was a totally foreign concept to me. ⁓ So yeah, mean a lot, a lot of work that I did on myself to kind of get to the point that I'm at now. speaker-0: Let me ask you something, Julie, because that's, ⁓ I think that's one of the biggest challenges for people, know, our first responders, our mental health professionals, our veterans that are used to providing for others, Providing, whether it's, you know, security, comfort, treatment, safety, to stop and go, wait a second, I actually need something here. I can't give anymore. What? And I like when I was researching, I like a term that I saw you use quite a bit and that's called vicarious trauma, right? That we experience, but we don't share much about. Can you talk to us about what you would define vicarious trauma as and how did you know when it was time for you to step back and go inward that you had no more to give? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So I had heard about vicarious trauma. And I think anybody in helping profession probably has been talked to about it or is familiar with the term and maybe warned about a little bit. ⁓ So of course, you know, there's ways to kind of safeguard yourself. ⁓ And a lot of it is by taking care of yourself and practicing self care, ⁓ which I really was not doing. But, you know, I think years and years and years of dealing with other people's stories. Like I was the keeper of ⁓ everybody's grief and loss, the keeper of the stories. And I felt humbled and honored that people were trusting me with all of these. things and I think what ends up happening is because like I said, I was 23 ⁓ first starting this work, ready to change the world, help everybody and then fast forward all these years later and your body really does store all of the things. ⁓ And it starts to feel like you're traumatized too. And I can remember I was doing individual ⁓ mental health therapy at the time. And I can remember I was seeing clients like one on the hour, every hour, eight hours a day. And that was okay for the first couple of years. And then like that third year, ⁓ I can remember just feeling like my body was so relating to everything that they were telling me. I just didn't have anywhere to go with it anymore. ⁓ And I can remember thinking, okay, so not only is this not fair to my clients, because I'm not really being effective, because I'm really over-empathizing. over feeling, ⁓ feeling the trauma. And so I think it hit me, okay, this is this is definitely vicarious trauma, because now I'm affected. Now I'm feeling it now I'm having repercussions. And that's when my body really truly like it started to shut down. Like I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating. ⁓ I actually quit, I had to quit. ⁓ being a therapist ⁓ and I didn't work for three months. So yeah, I think your body ⁓ from the little like neuroscience that I know behind it, like thinking of the trauma and everything that I had been hearing about and exposed to really, really awful, horrible stories, it starts to form like layers. And if you don't, do something to protect yourself and protect your energy, will be drained. You will break down. speaker-0: Yeah, it starts becoming your reality too, speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, right. Because you're basically... Yeah, eating, sleeping, breathing the trauma. speaker-0: Right. Even though you didn't, you didn't go through the trauma yourself, you're still experiencing by listening to it and processing. Like you said, not having outlets, not having outlets to reset yourself. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, I think when you first get into the field, into social work or mental health or helping anybody that has ⁓ trauma, you're a little bit naive, I think, just about what trauma even looks like. ⁓ if you haven't actually gone through it. And I did, you know, I had some things in my childhood that, I mean, everybody has traumatic things, ⁓ but some more than others. And of course, you know, working in foster care, children separated from their birth families because of abuse and really, really horrible scenarios. ⁓ I think helpers have a tendency to just do and keep doing. And you kind of put the the trauma to the side because it's like, if you went there and really focused on it, you couldn't do the job. So it's, yeah, I think it really is true that you can your body does kind of just take on some of that energy just from feeling it. speaker-0: Think about this right like we always we know we are the stories we tell ourselves Right if my mind circles and loops that I can't do this. I can't do this. I'm not gonna be able to do it Right, right. So if I'm processing trauma, that's all I'm hearing. Those are the stories I'm telling myself that becomes my real world you said something that I want to explore real quick Julie that is This idea that we need to come our traumas in today's world and like mine isn't as bad as so-and-so so I really have it okay but what I want to get at there is like our traumas don't need to be compared what's traumatic to me doesn't have to be traumatic to you but there's still work I can do on it so how would you tell our audience that's like well I had it was pretty normal I had this but it's not as big as it's not as bad as what's happened over there so I don't have to do any work what would you tell to somebody that's thinking like that speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, your body and your brain doesn't care. Because trauma is going to feel like trauma to you, regardless of whether you're seeing it as as something big or something little. So, ⁓ you know, what I was referencing in terms of children being taken out of their birth families, obviously, that's huge trauma. But, ⁓ you know, A traumatic experience for me was the loss of my sister ⁓ to cancer when she was 40. ⁓ Comparatively speaking, if I'm going to compare being taken away from my birth family as a child, yeah, okay, like that's more traumatic. But my body and my brain don't care and they can't distinguish between the level of the trauma. they're just feeling it and they're going into a mode to protect myself. And so this is where we could kind of shift into like the neuroscience and ⁓ what you tell yourself and what you believe and ⁓ how your brain is wired. So ⁓ yeah, I don't know ⁓ what you know or what you want to talk about in terms of that. speaker-0: Take us out. Well, take us down that because you what I love about this, Julie, is that you you go from being the provider to needing the service. So you're you're learning on both sides of the spectrum here, right? You're you're you've been doing this for so many years. I wait a second. I need to reprogram me. So, yeah, talk us through was it neuroplasticity and what our brain can absorb and what how we can create new pathways by changing what we're thinking and what we're doing. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. So at some point, I think, you know, maybe within the last five years, I started to realize that I was seeing things with some of my clients and some people in life that they had had all of these horrible things happen to them. ⁓ But somehow, they were able to overcome them. ⁓ And sometimes I could attribute it to like, okay, well, I was a positive person and I was believing in them and maybe they had never had that before. So that in and of itself could make the difference. But what I really started to focus on and realize that people that were kind of stuck, in their trauma and not able to move forward were people that were looking at it in a different way. So they were focused on all of the negative things, all of like, why me? And this is terrible. ⁓ you know, I can't believe that this would happen to me. And it's not fair and all of the things that you would say to yourself. But if they weren't able to see things differently, like, okay, what was the reason maybe, like maybe I can flip the script and I can look at it differently. That's when they would get stuck. So the neuroscience part of this, which ⁓ I did end up then pursuing because I started to like. I'm a lifelong learner, so I'm like, okay, ⁓ what's going on here? What's going on with the brain? And so I took a ⁓ certification course and I became a neuro change practitioner. And that was so amazing because as soon as I learned all of this and I started giving these like little mini neuroscience lessons to some of my clients about why they were stuck. and why their brain was still thinking these things. ⁓ And what they could do to actually rewire their brain, because like you said, your brain is plastic and it can form new circuits, ⁓ new channels, new ways of thinking, but it does, it takes some work. So you need to be consistently flipping that script. So instead of concentrating on all of these negative things, you're starting to work on the gratitude. You're starting to think, okay, the way I'm talking to myself is really a big factor here. I'm gonna talk to myself like I would talk to my favorite child or how I would want somebody to talk to me if I was a child. ⁓ Just practicing that daily. Even for a month, you can see the difference. You can feel the difference. And I know firsthand, a year and a half, and I felt like I was a new person because your brain does really know how to heal itself. Our brains and bodies were built to endure pain, but they were also meant, if we can like kind of tune into it, meant to heal ourselves. And we know that now the mind, medicine that is really coming more into, ⁓ know, even for doctors, I think, realizing like, okay, you have a positive mindset over something, and it might even be more effective than medication. So, so I get really excited about the neuroscience stuff, because I know it's true. speaker-0: Yeah, it's all but it's not new Julie like we've known this forever, right? Like that you go back in lots of history even the Romans they had the placebo effect like where they didn't give people medicine but they told them they did and they fixed themselves. So it's interesting to me that we're going back to things we've known. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: and is having a new outcome. I'm excited that more people are getting exposed to this. And, I think sometimes we struggle right away. It can't really be that simple. It has to be harder than this. You know what I mean? And there's, which is also a dangerous slope for us to tell ourselves because then it allows us to have an excuse for why we're not actively creating our own mental health. speaker-1: Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, so that was the other thing. I think I was looking for other tools because as a therapist, somebody could come and see me and we could talk and talk and talk every week about the same problem. And I'd see them for a year. And we're still talking about the same thing. So. Yeah, okay, you have me as a support person and you have me listening to you and giving you feedback. And maybe you need to keep processing this. But at some point, if you really want to change, you can't just keep talking about it. You have to actually do the things and the things are not. They're not huge things. really they, they just need to be consistent. And I'm not saying, you know, some people might need medication for certain things, but I know firsthand psychiatric medications, that's a whole other world. I tried many different ones when I was depressed and anxious and, ⁓ and they, you know, some served a purpose, but, but a lot of this, the mental health aspect really is. just what we are telling ourselves, what we can do to bring ourselves some level of control, because a lot of this can feel out of control. But once you realize like, ⁓ that maybe that's why I'm stuck or maybe, you know, like my whole life, I heard that I was a bad kid. And my parents told me that all the time. But you know what, like, no, that's not true. So I'm going to work on that and I'm going to tell myself and talk to myself like I'm a little kid and say, I'm a good person. So simple things like that. it is, you can see like studies of your brain when it's depressed versus ⁓ the imaging of it versus when. It is ⁓ functioning ideally and you have all the correct chemical balance going on there. But ⁓ yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, really. speaker-0: So let me ask you this. So you started rewiring your brain and you were doing things like affirmations and gratitude journaling and self care and slowing down. Which of those practices, cause to me those are like basic things. Like we pretty much have always known that that stuff is good for us. We just don't make time for it. We shift gears from where we lose sight of it. Which of those surprised you and how much it helped you? speaker-1: Hmm. Well, so I think the self-talk for me, ⁓ if you start to challenge your thoughts and really pay attention to how many times you think of yourself in a negative way, or how many times you say, ⁓ my gosh, that was so stupid, or I always do that, or I can't believe I did that again. And you stop it. I think one day, I was very intentional. like, I'm gonna write down how many times I have a negative thought about myself. And it was eye-opening. know, I think sometimes we just don't realize that We do have these, know, we are our own worst critics a lot of times and we're, you know, we can be very hard on ourselves. So talking to myself kindly and focusing on positive words and positive affirmations, positive affirmations are actually extremely important. ⁓ I listened to a couple of them. had my favorite ones, ⁓ on loop and I would listen to them every night before going to sleep. A lot of times I would fall asleep listening to them, ⁓ which is fine, but your brain is still taking in all of these positive things. speaker-0: Yeah, you mentioned that earlier and that's one of the things that I I've shared as much as I can as if you're saying stuff to yourself that you wouldn't just walk up on to walk up on a stranger on a street and say that to them. Or you wouldn't go to your friend and say what I'm thinking about myself. Then you shouldn't be telling yourself that right? Like there's no, we got to fix that. So would you mind sharing like what some of those affirmations were that you had on loop? speaker-1: Sure, now I can share them. speaker-0: I'll park it, yeah. speaker-1: And I will say too, and this seemed kind of silly to me, but I have become a big fan of it now. ⁓ I had a picture of myself as a child and I taped it on my mirror. And just that visualization of that's me as a child. And I still am. me and I'm still that. ⁓ So what do I want to tell me at that age? So the positive affirmations are I trust myself. I love myself. I believe in myself. I trust my intuition. I'm powerful. ⁓ I have the ability to ⁓ make good decisions. Those were all kind of like the self-love ones. ⁓ So, you know, there's so many different ones, but I think those for me personally were really helpful. And I want to say, you know, like, I do feel that practice kind of led me to feeling like I'm the person that I always was meant to be. I was always in there, but I never really believed it or talked to myself that way. speaker-0: What was the revelation then that at what point did you come to and be like, wait a second, like I owe it to the little girl me to live this life fully because the little girl me went through all the things she went through so I could have this day. speaker-1: Yeah, what made me make that connection? speaker-0: Yeah, what would you I love that right because we I like to do it both ways, right? I like to think about like what would little Jared want me to do today because little Jared went through all the stuff he went through so I could have today Yeah, and that future Jared At some point is probably gonna sit back and go man. Whatever it is. You're facing today I wish I could have done that one more time, right? So there's there's an onus like do it because that's made shape future me, too So when did you come to that realization and what was that first thought like when you looked at your little self and was like being honest with who that person was versus who you were being now? speaker-1: So, yeah, I think just the belief in myself and my capabilities and what I think deep down I knew but was like always pushing down because I didn't want to be the one like that was in the spotlight or... Um, I didn't ever feel like I had anything important to say and like, nobody would want to really listen to me. And, um, you know, the, the kid in class that would just kind of be sitting in the background and not even though I had something to say. And, um, I remember thinking, Oh, I wish I could get the nerve up to like raise my hand and say something, but not believing in myself that. what I have to say is just as valid as that kid in the front of the class, but I just didn't, I didn't have the belief in myself. And it's crazy because here I was like half my life helping other people and giving them words of wisdom. And they were listening to me and thanking me and telling me that I had made a difference, but I still wasn't really believing that I had important things to say. It's just, it's wild. So I think like that was when I started to think like, wow, I wish I had known this about myself back then, but I had to kind of go through what I went through to get to this point. And that's kind of where I focused on, okay, so this is really truly a gift that I got. from going through everything that I've gone through, to come out the other side, be resilient, ⁓ be able to see little things in life that had I not gone through all of this, I would not really maybe be paying attention to or focused on. speaker-0: What and what was that different version of you that emerged from this? speaker-1: Well, let's go back to the empowered word. So here I am on a podcast and never in a million years what I have thought this is where my life was leading me. Things started to kind of come together and make sense for me. ⁓ Like what I have been doing since I was 12, ⁓ volunteering in a nursing home. speaker-0: Ha speaker-1: observing my visit her clients as a social worker. It just all started to come together and it does and did lead me to feel like I'm in charge of me and getting this word out to other people. And that's when I really started to think like, okay, I do have a lot of important things to say. And so now that I have kind of realized that and found that all of these things have kind of just come together and kind of emerged, I guess. I feel like I want to just reach as many people as I can because I'm so passionate about where I've been, where I am now, where I've seen people that I've worked with get to. And I know what it's like to struggle and feel like it's, you know, you're just stuck and things are never gonna get better. So. I think, yeah, I think it's like a whole new, it's a whole new life at 54 to go forward now. I don't know, just keep going with this calling that I realize now is such a big part of my identity. speaker-0: So how do you, what do do Julie when you get scared again? When, when you realize that stepping into who you want to become and this calling is scarier than staying where you were uncomfortable. What do do for yourself to keep making sure you move forward? speaker-1: Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think I kind of come back to that self talk a bit. ⁓ Because this is totally uncharted territory for me. And this is scary. And I've never done anything that was like, so personal. And this is all about me. Like it feels uncomfortable. But then I remind myself no. This really is not just about me. This is about what I know can help other people. And that is, that's always been my goal and will remain my goal. So I think that pep talk to myself when I start getting scared and have the doubts creeping in is to remind myself that I have a story to tell and I have things that I know could help other people and that's ultimately what I want to do. know life is short, life is fleeting, it can change in an instant. I learned that from watching my sister ⁓ be so sick ⁓ and pass away at the age of 40. ⁓ I think that was also a big moment for me where I realized like, you can't just sit back and watch life. kind of happen. You have to, you have to do what you feel called to do. You have to do what you feel passionate about doing, whether it's scary or not. So I think that's a that's what I'm going to keep telling myself. Yeah, it's, it's too important. Life is too short. I will regret not doing this. If I keep saying I'm scared and I don't have the confidence in myself. ⁓ So I just have to keep reminding myself, keep looking at that picture of the little girl on my mirror and telling her that she can do it. speaker-0: Yeah, that's such a powerful imagery to look back at your little self and kind of live up to what they had hoped you'd become. Right. Cause our little version of us has all these big dreams and aspirations for who we're going to become. I so easy to lose sight of that and the day to day grind that we go through or some of the limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves or others put on us and to challenge them. And quite honestly, if it's not scary, If you're not afraid every now and then, you're probably staying in where you've always been. speaker-1: Yeah, right. Which has been a lot of the way I've lived my life. But yeah, it's scary, but it's exciting at the same time. you know, I've got the butterflies in my stomach and my chest just knowing that I can do this and I want to encourage other people to. have confidence in themselves and know that you have the ability to get better, to not only endure hardships and live life, but to actually end up thriving ⁓ despite all of that. And everybody deserves that. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You deserve it for yourself, right? And what I love there is have the confidence to do it, right? And here's where I think we struggle. We only we have the costs to do it if we know the outcome. If I know I'm going to be good at this, I'm willing to do it. If I don't know that I'm going to be good at it, I might not do it. And one of the things is having confidence. Just do the thing like maybe you suck at it. Maybe you're going to fall down and scrape your knees. Maybe you can get bruised, but you're going to learn and just. Maybe you learn you don't like it and you never do it again. Or maybe you learn you like it, but there's a little pivot I need to make. speaker-1: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think a lot of this is kind of trusting your path or your journey that you're on. so my grief coaching that I am launching within the last two weeks, because that's my latest endeavor of my lifelong learning series is a certified grief coach. And I have named it after my sister. who identified as one free soul. My grandmother nicknamed her that when she was little because she kind of just did her own thing and she was happy. She didn't conform to the rules necessarily and she lived her life like that. And she made jewelry and she sold it on Etsy and she named her jewelry brand, her jewelry store, One Free Soul. And so when I was thinking about what was I going to call my grief coaching business, and I thought about it for like, I don't know, a month or more. And I was taking a walk and I remember I looked down and I picked up this red leaf. And as soon as I picked up the red leaf, I was like, one free soul grief journey. That's what I'm going to call it. So the journey, the journey is like, I don't know. I don't know where this is gonna take me. This is like the next path, ⁓ the next road, but trusting that in some way, shape or form, it will work out and kind of enjoying the ride, I guess, right now. speaker-0: So let's stay on that for a second. How do you enjoy the ride when you don't know where it's going to go? speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah. If you had asked me that even like a few years ago, I would have been like, that's a really that's a good valid question. Because I'm an over thinker, and a perfectionist. And I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. ⁓ But how do we know that we're ever doing the right thing? Like we have to just trust that speaker-0: Right, that's ticket, speaker-1: we're doing the best thing for ourselves. And the best thing for ourselves is to honor what we're passionate about, what we feel called to do, what we have been thinking about for years and years and years, and finally decide it's now or never. I'm 54, halfway through life. I guess if I live to be the same age as my grandmom right now. So, yeah, I think how do any of us know where our path is going to lead? We just have to trust that we keep moving forward, one little step at a time, one day at a time, and just have faith and believe in ourselves that we can get through hard things because we've gotten through hard things before. ⁓ And looking for those glimmers like I talked about, know, when you maybe you are having a really crappy day. ⁓ But there always is something, something little. The coffee I had this morning was delicious. I got it ⁓ at a specialty ⁓ Spanish grocery store. And I don't I don't know what it was, but it was super strong and I loved it. And I'm going to look forward to it again tomorrow morning. speaker-0: That's awesome. Julie, what would you say as we get ready to wrap up? What would you say or hope people take away from your story, especially those who are in the caregiver realm that constantly put themselves behind others? What would you hope that they take away from our conversation? speaker-1: I would say that I understand that need, that calling to care for others, but you can't be there for others if you're not there for yourself. It sounds a little cliche, but it really is true. can't just assume that you can go through day by day and keep dealing with all of these hard things that you deal with in these professions and not do anything for yourself. So I really feel like that is that's a huge piece that everybody, whether you're 23 and just starting in the career or my age after doing it for so many years, you just really have to treat yourself the same way that you would treat somebody that you're helping. And I think that's hugely important, maybe even more important than the people that you're caring for because if you're doing that, then you're able to help so many more people and you're not getting... depleted and drained and one day ending up in the hospital like I did. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Julie, where can our audience follow you, connect with you on your new journey and just be part of what it is you're creating. speaker-1: Yeah, okay. So I would love people to join me. am right now I'm on Facebook, One Free Soul, One Free Soul Grief Journey, and on Instagram, the initials of One Free Soul Grief Journey. So it's OFSG26! speaker-0: We'll put the link in our show notes and we'll tag you up on Instagram. We'll make it easy for people to join you there. speaker-1: Yes, well, OFSG 26 because we're in 2026. speaker-0: Julie, thank you so much for coming on our show. Thank you for sharing your story and trusting us to share your story. And thank you for what you're doing. The world definitely needs it. And we're super appreciative of you. speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me. So excited and really honored. So thank you. speaker-0: When you're training with purpose, your fueling can't be an afterthought. That's why I use NeverSecond, the simplest, most reliable system I have found for staying energized, hydrated, and steady through their long efforts. Their C-Series carbs take the guesswork out of performance. No stomach drama, no complicated mixing, just clean, consistent fuel that actually works when the miles get long. If you want to train with more intention and recover without feeling wrecked, check out NeverSecond. Click the link in the show notes to get dialed And remember team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. We'll see you all again next week.