04: Julie Parker - Beautiful You

Julie Parker is one of Australia’s foremost
life and business coaches and trainers, with more than a decade of
experience, inspiring hundreds of clients and thousands of people
to create beautiful lives and businesses. She is the CEO and
founder of the Beautiful You Coaching Academy. Julie
passionately trains and supports heart-centred, gifted people to
bring their talents and love of giving into the world, as life
coaches. Julie is a published author and TedX speaker and has
shared the speaking stage with amazing ladies such as Clare
Bowditch, Christina Re, Gretel Killeen, Carolyn Cresswell and Gala
Darling. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the
Australia Day Citizenship Award and Business and Professional
Women’s Woman of Achievement Award. Julie appears regularly in the
media including Today Tonight, A Current Affair, Sunrise and The
Morning Show; as well as in publications such as Grazia, Cleo,
Cosmopolitan, Fitness and Health and national newspapers. She is
also the Editor in Chief of the fabulous Inspired Coach Magazine.
Julie lives in Melbourne with her husband, stepdaughter and two
much loved adopted cats. Was not having a child due to a
personal choice or circumstance? Julie’s story is a
mixture of both. She had always thought that she would have
children and be a biological mother, but by her early to mid-30’s
she hadn’t met the man who was to be her future husband and she
started to think differently and accept the possibility of not
being a biological mother.  Around the same time, she started
having gynaecological issues. Shortly thereafter, she met her now
husband who had a child from a previous marriage. From the
beginning, he was honest with Julie that he didn’t want to have any
more children, and being convinced that she had found the man that
she would be with for life, having children wasn’t as important to
Julie anymore.  What was more important was building a great
life with her husband and being a good stepmother to his
daughter.  Her desire to have children greatly lessened,
something she came to very much be at peace with. Overall, Julie
felt that not having a child emerged to be due to her
circumstances, but in the end became a life choice. “The
experience of being a woman in the 21st century is so very
different to what it was like.” In deciding not to
be a biological mother, were there any processes that you had to go
through? There was an interesting response from a
friend and her mother and Julie had to think very carefully if this
was something she would regret. She spent a lot of time by herself
and had to dig deeper within herself, as she realised that she
needed to be the one who had to be okay with her decision. Julie
has always been taken aback with people’s response when they hear
that someone has decided not to have children, noting that it is
interesting because they don’t respond the same way if people
decide to have children. Some responses
Julie has found have been that she might have been compromised in
some way and she had to them that she was fine. Julie was most
concerned about her mother’s reaction to not having children but it
came back as a surprise to her.  She asked Julie, “are you
happy?” to which she answered “never ever been happier in my life”,
“Well then, carry on with that! Children do not a marriage make.
It’s all about your partnership.” On her relationship with
her stepdaughter:  Having been a part of her
stepdaughter’s life for over 7 years now has been very fulfilling
for Julie. Although she does acknowledge that a step-parent’s role
is not an easy one at times, she feels very blessed.  A big
reason for that is because her husband has always been a great
father.  Some people suspect from someone who may not want to
have any more children, that they are tired of being a parent or
that it was difficult, but that wasn’t the case at all with her
husband. He was at a stage in his life where he was very happy
forging a relationship with his daughter and just didn’t feel the
need to have more. It seems that there may be a lot of young women
out there who thought that having a child would fulfill them and
Julie wonders that if they had to make the choice over again, if
they would have chosen differently. Everyone is different in their
perception of what a beautiful and fulfilling life ought to be.
It’s obvious that Julie, through her work in helping other women to
be life coaches, utilises her own nurturing and mothering qualities
in this way. Unfortunately our society tends to look at women
without children as: Someone who couldn’t love
others; A mean person; A threat
in some way; Someone who doesn’t like
kids. A definition of a Mother = to give rise to or to
produce.  We all do that in different ways. What
brings Julie fulfilment in that way?  All life
coaches that train with Julie are women who want to birth their own
business or emerge as a life coach. She has been able to help
others create a business or a life which is surrounded by heart and
compassion. Julie feels that this is exactly what she was brought
here to do. She feels that she helps people give rise to that in
their lives and step out into the world with new found confidence
and skills to establish their businesses. How do you
support yourself on a physical or mental level? Julie
has never been much good with routines. She feels that if she
sustains a lovely practice that will keep her topped up. Other
things that Julie does to nurture herself: Use oils on her body;
Meditation; Warm baths; Good wine; Being outdoors in her garden;
Spending time with children; Doing her work. She enjoys meditation
but also she surrounds herself with incredible and supportive
people. She has already cut ties with those who have brought her
down in the past. On social
infertility:  there seems to be a growing
phenomenon with women who are accomplished in life but can’t seem
to find a man who they would want to have a family with. There is a
growing group of women who are empowered and well accomplished in
life and at the same time, there seems to be more men who don’t
want children as well. It’s creating a mis-match. Another issue is
that people stay at home longer and struggle to purchase their own
homes. There has been a report on the average cost of raising a
child to be just under half a million dollars. It is astronomical
to raise a child in our society nowadays. On top of the expenses
you also have to be the best parent that you can be. We need to be
very clear about our life decisions and at the same time respect
other people’s decisions. Unfortunately there are still so many
people out there who are very judgmental about others decisions to
not have a child. On a practical level, Julie is very busy with her
business and travelling.  If she had a small child she would
have had a lot more to juggle. She realised that if she had had a
child, her business would have been very different from what it is
now or even potentially may not have happened. On the
legacy she wants to leave: the hope that she had
inspired people to truly embrace and love themselves for exactly
who they are and the choices that they make. She feels that this is
really what she needs to do is to help people realise that they are
enough. These are people who are natural born givers and helpers.
You can find out more about Julie and her work here.