Featured Wellness Woman Julie PoRker Passionate, Mindful, Transformed I first met Julie PoRker when she was a guest on my show “The Wellness Journey Podcast Series”. Have you ever had that feeling that while you have only known a person a short Rme, that you feel you have known the person much longer than that? This is the feeling Julie and I both had aJer our conversaRons on and off the air. Julie is as transparent and honest as they come. Here willingness to share her journey and help others with their own transformaRons is inspiring. AJer surviving some serious health challenges, Julie made a decision to go aJer what she really wanted to do. Julie took the leap of faith and immersed herself in a different way of living and being. The result is her wonderful book “Life Falls Apart, but You Don’t Have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm In the Midst of Chaos.”, and her Mindful Methods for Life trainings and a beauRful transformaRon into a life she lives and loves. What made you decide to make a different choice in your career/business/lifestyle at this stage in your life? In 2006, I began exhibiRng symptoms of a possible brain tumor. The wrong words kept coming out of my mouth. I’d say ‘capRno’ instead of ‘cappuccino,’ ‘maginal’ instead of ‘magical,’ ‘bunkey burvey’ instead of ‘topsy turvy.’ I went to a neurologist fearing the worst. AJer a thorough exam, the doctor asked me about my life — what my days consisted of, my family constellaRon, my schedule and volunteer work. I was a typical baby boomer, sandwiched between three adolescent kids (including idenRcal twin daughters) and aging parents. He asked me whether I had ever heard of Mindfulness-Based Stress ReducRon; I hadn’t. He suggested that mindfulness training was what I needed in order to improve my health. I dove head first into full-blown mindfulness training, taking more than a dozen courses and exploring mulRple avenues of study over the next several years, including the groundbreaking new pracRce of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC). In 2014, I was in the first small group of people trained to teach Mindful-
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