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Julia Vaughn Smith

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I have spent my life trying to better understand myself … not only for my own benefit, and those around me, but also to help others better understand themselves, where they have come from and where they wish to be. I have done this  through a pyramid career involving clinical nursing, education, management, organisational consulting, coaching and psychotherapy with each building on the other. I became a writer to help me distill a lot of what I know, and to integrate  what a lot of others know, to help people become more fully themselves free from the entanglements from the past. I find writing the best way to work through my thoughts, experience, reading and learning, so that I can bring it all together in ways that hopefully bring new understanding, insight and ways forward.

My aim as a writer is to bring compassion, curiosity, and the spirit of enquiry, inviting readers into a conversation with the material. I also aim to ground it in lived experience and in the writing of others. One person said my writing reads as if I have  walked the path and am inviting others to join me in that walk. I liked that!

As well as writing, I run online workshops for coaches on trauma and will be offering events for Daughters who want to know more and engage with stepping out of entanglement. I also talk to groups and to individuals who are interested in understanding emotional trauma and its lasting impact.

In the last 15 years I have been learning about trauma from a range of people including Professor Franz Ruppert, Thomas Hubl, Gabor Mate, and Richard Swartz, Bessel van de Kolk and many others. My current learning and development is through deepening my understanding about personal, ancestral and collective trauma. We were born into traumatising societies and I believe we must all do what we can not to replicate that trauma in how we live our lives.

Before becoming involved with trauma related thinking I undertook a  training in family constellations and have also been involved in systemic constellations. This offered me much insight into family and multi-generational dynamics.  As with so many processes family constellations is not without its controversies either and I am not involved in that world now.

In the past, I  have had a varied career as a nurse, education and training policy strategist for the NHS, organisation consultant in health care, leadership and group process consultant, provider of leadership development programmes, small and  large group facilitation, and ILM accredited provider of Executive and Management Coaching qualification training.  I was a psychotherapist, with an MA in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy, an Executive Coach and Supervisor. I have been able to work with a very wide range of people, in many different settings  facing similar and very different personal, work and organisational challenges. I remain accredited by APECS as an Executive Coach and Coach Supervisor.

I live by the sea in East Devon, and am fortunate to  be surrounded by beautiful scenery.  I love walking, dabble at image making and read a great deal.   I am so grateful to my husband and friends for making life joyful.

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