julia berry

Julia Berry is dreamer, word-nerd, lover, and spirit-relative in pursuit of joy and expansion. She is a weaving of many things and attributes who she is to the other beings before, around, and arriving after her. Julia is rooted in heart intelligence and chooses to let her heart guide her and for her emotions and experiences to be her teachers. She has walked a winding path that explores the fluidity of “truths” and is drawn to respect the complexities of relationships, communication and love (thank you Dr. Joy DeGruy for clearly connecting these three concepts). Julia loves to learn and grow and to examine what it is to be human and to remain curiously engaged in life.
Julia is a Black woman, mother, sister, friend, teacher-student and community member. She learned early on about the function of narratives, such as socially constructed narratives, internalized narratives, and limiting or liberating narratives. This revealed the desire for her to understand and expand her consciousness and "professionally'' led her to a career in education. She completed programs that allow her to teach communication arts and literature, special education EBD, to be a school administrator, coach, yoga instructor, reiki healer and business owner; in addition to numerous trainings and certifications that influence her perspective and capacity as a visionary and transformational leader. She was an educator for years with youth who have received adult criminal charges or were in the midst of treatment. As a teacher she centered love in her classroom and spoke up about normalized ways of being in our learning environments that marginalize and harm the youth (truly, all of us, as we are all connected). Julia intends to carry-on the ancient practice of cultivating the inherent genius each human holds because of our connection to ancestors. This way of being was sometimes perceived as "rocking the boat"; overtime, she recognized this perception was a reflection of “swimming in waters” that dehumanize and disconnect us from knowing our value. These earlier recognitions in her teaching experience inspired her curiosity into the relationship between systems, communities and people.
At some point Julia saw opportunities to impact transformation in the education system through engagements with adults. She learned that the brilliant fire of many children had been (and continues to be) stifled and smothered by toxic ideas, beliefs and practices (and many co-creations like organizations, institutions, policies, etc.). She moved out of the classroom into a variety of leadership roles in educational settings where she had the honor of engaging adults in learning experiences through one-on-one and small group coaching, one-time and series workshops, curriculum and content development, change management and strategic planning. Although historical and contemporary "truths" and philosophies have consistently been incorporated into her work, her focus has evolved and transformed over the years into a passion for guiding people in relationship with themselves and others to increase their knowledge and capacity to create more liberating life experiences.
Julia specializes in learning and development, consciousness transformation, curriculum development, and integrated experiential engagements. She has worked in and partnered with a variety of public, private and government organizations. Currently, she is eager to work with people to deepen discourse and engagements that explore our individual and collective consciousness, the beautiful struggle of our human experiences, healing, and connection with self and others, all while utilizing our intuition and understanding of embodiment.