Highlights from Juliana’s Conversation

Tell me about your youth. Where did you grow up, and what lessons do you remember being taught that influenced your life?

I was born near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I lived there until I was about seven. And those were probably some of the most profound years of my life. My grandmother raised me. And I experienced the world in a much more spiritual way because of my grandmother. To me, that was really special.

Coming to America was a very painful experience. It was something that I resisted. My mother was with a very abusive man. He would definitely abuse her in front of me and in front of my sister. I think because my mother had experienced so much abuse, she also became abusive through her own trauma. 

Not only did I have to adapt to a completely foreign world, I also had to learn how to navigate a very, very complicated personal life. I had to learn how to survive in what felt to me like a violent world for a long, long time. Fast forward years later, I would finally run away. So my upbringing is very, very traumatizing. And to be honest with you, I'm just grateful that I'm where I'm at. 

My grandmother and that spiritual connection that we had, I feel like that helped carry me through those very traumatic experiences I would have later in life. Without that, I feel like I would have fallen apart. But there was something there, something there that helped me survive, that helped me through.

I was a very sensitive young child. I was already very different from my other peers.

What societal or cultural expectations do you feel challenged by in your current life? What are the “shoulds” you feel in daily life?

The shoulds definitely had to do with being more American. Just acting American, being American, basically pushing aside my own culture and my own ancestry in order to, to fit in and survive and get along in an educational system that was not made for me.

I think that in more recent years…it's been this realization that there's kind of my mainstream side, the side that I show to the world, and then my more private, authentic, true side. And there's definitely a divide, right? The me that people see. I know that they have their assumptions. They don't know about my childhood, they don't know about my trauma, or my upbringing, or even where I'm from. They don't know what I've been through. They don't really know me authentically.  

What do you think that trying to meet other people’s expectations has kept you from doing in life?

I think that growing up I never felt like I could truly let my light shine. My mother sent me away when I was 14 because she was jealous of my light. That is an example of how even family members can subtly pass on to you this instinct to shut down who you really are, to deny to yourself who you really are. 

I think that we all want love. And in wanting that love, I think we can seriously compromise who we really are. That is something that is really challenging, is learning to be ourselves, learning to be authentically ourselves, and to feel as though we are worthy of love as ourselves.

There are the more societal expectations that get pushed on to you. You know, as a mother, as a teacher, even as a writer.

Am I wrong about who I think I am? Am I wrong about what I think my desires are? Am I wrong about what it is I really want to do? Am I wrong? Are they right? You know, you always question that. Am I wrong? Are they right? Am I missing something? Is this really my intuition? Or am I just fooling myself? Am I wrong to think this? I really had to work with that over the years, knowing what it is I want, but in hearing what others think I should want, questioning what I want and doubting my intuition, doubting myself, doubting my own dreams and my own passions.

Luckily, I feel like I've reached this point where I'm caring less and less what other people want me to do, what they think of me. I feel like I'm less of a people pleaser. I don't know if it's this point in my life, being in my 40s. But I feel like I'm moving closer and closer to just being like, whatever. So you're gonna think I'm this or that I should do this or that. I don't care. For the first time in my life, I'm starting to feel comfortable with that.

If you could immediately release yourself from three shoulds in your life without any negative consequences, what would those be?

I know that the first should I would release myself from is this idea that I should be more conventional, that I should fit in, that I should be normal, that I should have a normal job, that I should be like most people. That is just not me. And it never has been.

The only reason I have struggled to live a more authentic life is because of fear. And so I am definitely working on shedding that fear and moving towards my more authentic self and my more authentic life….I mean, that one just trumps everything because I feel like if I can achieve that, then I can really achieve anything.

What practices have you done in your past and what practices are you doing now that have helped you to become more aware of the expectations and should that exist for you?

I feel like for myself this year, it's been so much about stripping away illusion after illusion after illusion about myself. These illusions that I've taken on that don't even belong to me, right? But they feel like they belong to me. And so I have to do the work of stripping them away so that I can see clearly who I am and what I want.

When I was pregnant, I began to explore mysticism and spirituality more. I had a very strong vision of what I wanted my pregnancy to be like. And I wanted to manifest that.

And so that's when it began. I began connecting with the moon and the earth and my more spiritual side. And I began visualizing every day what I wanted my pregnancy to look like…It was very spiritual and profound. …And in that moment, I felt it was this really ancient primordial feeling I felt connected to women before me, not that I knew who they were, but I felt connected to this larger web of existence. And it was like, life and death surrounded me in this very powerful, transformative way. It was absolutely beautiful. It was another profound spiritual experience. But that's when it really began.

I would go on to explore psychic work and shamanism and energy work. And, and Reiki in the form of energy work. I was really interested in just exploring my spiritual side as much as possible. Shadow work was something else that I was really interested in. Dream work, Jungian theory was really interesting to me. Anything that I could draw to myself and explore, I was right there doing that - developing my intuition, developing my sense of who I really am, in this world of, of what I'm really about. And it was profound, it was beautiful, it was home.

Unfortunately, when I began to work, and I felt like I had to become more grounded in this life, in that more material sense of, okay, I'm working, I'm making money, I'm providing for my child, I lost touch with a lot of that…I didn’t have the support system to do it in another way. So right now, I'm in the process of coming back home, of finding my way back to that place. 

What practices are you doing in a way that feels aligned with how you want to be living but might be in conflict to your own and others expectations?

I'll just emphasize that fear is so powerful. And it's also such an illusion. I've lived so much of my life feeling afraid to be myself, and to put forward the most authentic part of me  - and also the most open, adventurous, curious parts of myself. In letting fear take over, you completely shut down those parts, and you start to walk through this world as a more cynical, closed off, just boring version of yourself. That's what we have to break open. That's what I want to break open.

If you imagine a life where you were living with complete support, not just for who you are but for the exploration of who you are and who you are becoming, what does that look like and what does that feel like?

I feel like I am in the process of developing that vision. I'm putting together a vision board that pulls together some some of this.

I want to get to the other side in part so that I can inspire others to do the same. What more beautiful thing is there than that? In the meantime, I want to authentically share my journey through my my writing and my little videos on Instagram. I want to share my journey with others who resonate. I really, really want to touch people with my words and my own experiences. I know that spiritual transformation is absolutely a possibility. Especially for those who have experienced trauma in their lives, who have experienced hardship, I know that transformation Is possible. 

Is there anything else that you want to impart from your life wisdom to those struggling with the weight of shoulds and attempts to be freely and authentically themselves?

I would just say to start with that little voice inside of you that you usually shrug off. We all have that little voice inside of us.

I think we need to listen to that voice closely and see what it's trying to tell us, because more often than not, I think it's trying to tell us something about our own dreams, our own desires, and about what we're missing because we're so so busy those shoulds. We're so busy.

We get caught up in it. We buy into it completely. But I think that voice is always there for all of us. We just become practiced at ignoring it. I think society teaches us to ignore it. We really need to learn how to hear it so that it's loud and clear. We need it so that it becomes part of how we grow and transform and move through the world… It's by starting to listen to ourselves.

Bonus Questions

What song or songs do you listen to that make you feel powerful and free?

I honestly just listen to whatever. I listen to a lot of yoga music, meditation music. It keeps it keeps me calm. It helps me return to my breath throughout the day.

Describe an outfit that would make you feel all the ways you want to feel

I love feeling my own goddess vibe. I also love dressing in more earthy colors, and just kind of blending in with nature makes me really happy, too. I love wearing more flowy feminine - form-fitting but also kind of graceful.

(If you have one) What is a favorite quote of yours?

I love Rumi. He makes me feel very spiritual and connected to that part of me. Michael Singer, has some really great quotes, too. I would say just any quote that helps me connect to my more spiritual self.

Random Notable Quotes

• I have fluctuations throughout my life. I have times when I feel very free of my past and very spiritually connected. And I have other moments when I feel very, just kind of stuck in a lot of what's happened in my past.

• My dream is to become more and more and more authentic. Not to lean away from it, but to move towards it. , And I feel like part of my struggles right now, have to do with shedding those skins that I no longer need, so that I can embrace this future me so that I can step into that authentic person, me, and just be within that space completely without shame, without embarrassment, without self-consciousness, and without any kind of like really restricting attachment to old ideas I have about myself and who I should be and who I have been and so on.
  

• This is like my life's dream, my life's goal. I mean, what more beauty is there than feeling like you've arrived, you finally arrived, you're finally there, you're finally in that space where you're like, wow, I am completely at home and myself and in my world. And I am doing exactly what I dreamed of doing.
  

• That's why I feel I'm here on this earth right now, is to get to the other side of that (fear). It's not just to live this existence. Sadly, I think a lot of people give up on that, especially as they get older. I just want to say, nobody should give up. There's always something on the other side, you just have to believe that it's there and start reaching for it, even if it's a little bit at a time. Keep moving towards that, whatever that is. I just see so many people who have given up on themselves, given up on their lives. And it's, it is the saddest thing. They just give up, they're just deflated. And I feel like I've gotten close to that myself.

• I know that we can get to the other side so that life is a completely different experience one that is not dictated by our wounded selves but one that is guided by our wise selves. I think people are hungry for their own spiritual transformations, but we don't know how to get there