A Letter from Julia

I didn't set out to create Return to Self. I found my way into it. For a long time, I thought I was doing what we are all taught to do.

Be responsible.

Be a good mother.

Be a good partner.

Work hard.

Look after everyone.

Keep going.

Make it work.

And I did.

I built a life. I raised children. I loved deeply. I worked. I carried things. I adapted. I became very good at being what was needed.

But somewhere along the way, I lost touch with the woman underneath all of it.

Not completely.

She was still there.

I just couldn't hear her very well.

Then life began asking different questions.

Who am I when I'm not trying to be everything for everyone else?

What do I actually want?

What matters to me now?

What happens when I stop overriding what I already know?

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

What would it feel like to come home to myself?

I didn't find the answers by becoming a better version of myself.

I found them by slowing down enough to listen.

Through movement.

Through stillness.

Through food and ritual and ordinary days.

Through nature.

Through relationships.

Through creativity.

Through writing.

Through making mistakes.

Through beginning again.

And through finally understanding that I wasn't broken.

I didn't need fixing.

I needed space to hear myself again.

That journey became Sacred Defiance.

And from the story came something else.

Return to Self.

I don't believe women need another program telling them what they're doing wrong.

I don't believe we need another list of things to fix about our bodies, our minds, our lives or ourselves.

And I don't believe wellness should feel like another job.

I wanted to create something different.

A place where we could learn to inhabit our bodies.

Nourish ourselves.

Create space.

Listen.

Connect.

Discover what matters.

Bring it into our lives.

And, when life inevitably takes us away from ourselves, know how to come home again.

That became the Seven Pillars of Return to Self.

Not rules.

Not steps.

Places to return to.

I'm a woman who has lived a few lives already.

I've been a daughter, a mother, a partner, a therapist, a woman starting over, a woman building again.

I've known what it is to lose myself inside responsibility.

I've known what it is to stand at the edge of one life and wonder what comes next.

I've learned that transformation isn't always dramatic.

Sometimes it looks like making dinner.

Going for a walk.

Sitting quietly.

Saying no.

Saying yes.

Writing the thing you've been afraid to write.

Laughing until your stomach hurts.

Taking your shoes off and standing on the earth.

Making something beautiful from what you already have.

Choosing to be present for your own life.

That's the stuff I'm interested in.

The real stuff.

The ordinary moments that, when we actually inhabit them, turn out not to be ordinary at all.

You may simply need the space, tools and permission to come back to yourself.

You don't have to arrive here knowing what you need.

You don't have to do everything.

You don't have to start at the beginning.

Look around.

Take what speaks to you.

Leave what doesn't.

Move slowly if you need to.

Begin anywhere.

And if you wander away --- because you will, because we all do ---

come back.

I'll be here.