From $55 Shame to $225 Sovereignty: Julianna on Leaving Martyrdom Behind.

Ready to set your fee? You choose the dream, we'll do the math. Download our FREE Fun with Fees Calculator here 👉🏽 https://www.leaninmakebank.com/free

 

In this episode, we’re speaking with Julianna Vermeys, a Portland-based somatic therapist and LIMB grad who took a long, brave road from burnout and martyrdom to freedom and clarity in her practice.

Julianna opens up about the chaos of running a full-time private practice, teaching, supervising, parenting two kids, and secretly sliding her fees all the way down to $50/session—all while living in a body that never got to rest.

If you’ve ever felt like your nervous system is boiling from the inside out, or that you’re doing more for your clients than you can offer your own children, this episode will crack you wide open.

 

In this episode, Julianna shares:

What it felt like to supervise, teach, parent, and see 25+ clients a week—while secretly charging as little as $55;

How pandemic stress, somatic signals, and a deep moment in child’s pose forced her to confront the unsustainable cost of her giving;

The impact of growing up around fame and wealth—but without access to it—and how that fueled a martyr mindset;

What she had to face in herself in order to stop sliding her fees and finally charge $225 with full integrity;

Her insights on intergenerational trauma, agency shame, and the oppressive therapist training models that keep us small.

 

Resources mentioned:

LIMB Academy

FWF Calculator

Julianna’s Website

 

More about Julianna: 

                                                                                           

Julianna is a somatic therapist and clinical supervisor in Portland, Oregon. For nearly twenty years she has been dedicated to exploring the integration of human experience with clients and colleagues who are willing to understand themselves, their trauma, grief and suffering beyond the realm of problem solving. She recently integrated her work as an educator, therapist and supervisor into a three day embodiment retreat for other therapists (stay tuned for more!) She is also a writer completing her memoir using therapeutic insight to tell her story;  a mom to two amazing children, a dedicated daughter and friend. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Tiffany(00:00):

(00:01):
What a moving interview you're about to hear with therapist Juliana Verma. Juliana, a therapist based in Portland, comes to this interview with depth, curiosity, transparency, massive growth. You're going to hear her journey. You could even hear it in my voice. I feel all grounded. She's a, she works with the body somatic therapist. I felt moved many times throughout this interview. She's gonna talk about her experience going from seeing a ton of, you know, clients in private practice, plus doing supervision, plus working as an adjunct professor and working in a graduate program. Just unable to get her footing. Unable to get her bearing. And especially this really amped up for her and, and a lot of us during the pandemic time. And she just felt like she couldn't settle. She, she was constantly moving and boiling and on this hamster wheel, unable to catch her breath.
Tiffany(01:07):
And she realized she was giving more to her clients and her clinical work than she was able to give to her, herself or her children. And she realized something had to change. She couldn't go on like this. At the time she was, she had what she called her secret. She was secretly sliding her fee all the way down to, you know, $50 per session. And her highest fee was a hundred dollars per session. And she realized she couldn't do it this way. She talks a lot about the role of intergenerational trauma and how it impacted how she was showing up clinically, the fee she was charging how she was parenting. She talks at the end in the deep dive section, you're gonna hear about how she was a child in a world of fame and celebrity and wealth in close proximity to it, but not having it.
Tiffany(01:52):
And so this this dissonance between being part of a family where there is wealth and fame and money all around, but not having access to it. And how that set up a martyrdom mentality in her. You gotta serve and sacrifice and you're not gonna really get paid for it, right? You're not gonna ever really be recognized monetarily for your service. She's gonna talk about what it took to go from secretly lighting all the way down to $50, to having a consistent practice where she's now charging 2 25 across the board doing the work she loves, offering retreats for therapists working on her memoir, really showing up in the world fully. You're going to be moved by this episode. You're going to feel a sense of possibility if you're in a place where you, you recognize that your fees are too low and you know it because you're not really able to show up fully as a parent. Your body is on high alert mode at all times, and you can't quite ever have a sense of peace or groundedness. Not consistently. You're doing all the things right, it seems like. And yet you're not taking care of your health. You're having bad habits. You're just kind of going, self-care isn't working anymore. You're gonna love this episode. So, without further ado, let's dive in.
Intro (03:13):
I think there's a difference between saying what your fee is and like fully committing to it. I believe in this like, law of attraction, but you also have to take action. I don't think I do enough to help other people, despite being, despite being a therapist, I was worried that I'd end up only serving wealthy people. You Know, I was being so delusional about my actual cost, right? I wasn't actually paying myself a real salary. Now that I am charging more, I'm not lying to myself. This is ridiculous. Completely broken, man. If people knew who they were, do what she's doing, like she's doing this.
Tiffany(03:56):
Alright, everybody, I'm here with Juliana, who, you know, we just introduced Juliana. Hello. Welcome to the money sessions. Hello.
Julianna(04:04):
Thank you for having me.
Tiffany(04:07):
My Pleasure here. Mm-Hmm .
Tiffany(04:09):
Today we are gonna talk about your path to charging premium fees. Mm-Hmm
Julianna(04:14):
.
Tiffany(04:15):
How this impacted your clinical work and also how this freed up your time. How does that sound?
Julianna(04:23):
So good.

(00:22):
Tiffany(04:23):
Okay. Well, looking forward, we already have like low energy. We're coming in with deep. This guy gonna be deep, so I'm like, oh man.
Julianna(04:31):
It's not gonna be, it'll be deep, but not low.
Tiffany(04:34):
Not low.
Julianna(04:35):
Rich,
Tiffany(04:36):
Rich. This is gonna be, you already can tell folks this is gonna be rich. Okay. Juliana, take us back to the days before you made these changes. Tell us a little bit about what your practice was like. What, before,
Julianna(04:49):
Before I made these changes. Well, this is, as I said, this is a long and winding road I've been on. So I've been chugging away at a private practice since 2006 and kind of started out the practice. With this whole idea, I kind of came from the movement world and thought I would do a private practice that was, you know, accessible to people like me who couldn't afford and didn't wanna go to insurance-based therapy. Kind of wanted to work outside the bounds, a little bit of typical clinical counseling. After working in agency setting, I've heard your stories. Mine are not so different, . And I had to work like two other jobs in order to keep my sort of dream alive of what I wanted for my private practice. I was also a young mom, so I had little kids. So before I really did the hard work of getting brave and doing the premium fees, I had to hobble together like three different jobs pretty much consistently while raising my kids and taking care of my mom who also has health issues.
Julianna(06:18):
You know, so all the things I was offering to everyone were hard to come by for myself. And then the pandemic hit, Ooh, I was teaching adjunct faculty. I was working a job, like a part-time job at a graduate in a graduate program here in town. That wasn't really part-time. I had a pretty much full-time private practice. I was also doing clinical supervision. And, well, so was just a quick bit about what I do. I'm an integrated somatic therapist. So I bring the work of therapy into the, the present and into an embodiment practice. So we're doing the deep dive into systems and intergenerational trauma from a place of knowing what's happening in our bodies and in our experience in the present. Using the work of neurobiology and mindfulness. I don't teach those things so much as utilize them as a clinician anyway. Hard to do those things when you're totally burned out, and not feeling great yourself, not really having, I didn't really have the time to take care of myself in the way that I knew I needed to. So then the pandemic hit.
Tiffany(07:40):
Lemme ask you, so at the time that the pandemic hit, you had almost a full-time practice. So how many clients were you seeing around that time?
Julianna(07:48):
Including supervisees? So I'm also clinical supervisor for associates here in Oregon and Washington. At the time, I was seeing 24 to 26 people a week, and my supervision was often 90 minutes. Obviously I'm supervising to help them with all their clients.
Tiffany(08:12):
And and you were doing adjunct work and you were working at a, a graduate clinic.
Julianna(08:18):

(00:43):
So right before the pandemic, I had some spidey sense and I decided to leave that position in November right before.
Tiffany(08:26):
And how old were your kids at this time?
Julianna(08:28):
Hmm. 12 and nine.
Tiffany(08:32):
Holy mackerel. So for folks listening, can you talk a little bit about like just your busiest day? Talk a little bit about what it we're already not deep. We're already deep diving. I don't mean to, but I just wanna know like, what was a day in the life of mm-hmm . At that time.
Julianna(08:46):
Yeah. Well, so then that would be locked down. So it would look like, get up, get dressed as best I could. We also got a dog. 'cause Everyone got a dog during the pandemic, like a puppy dog. So we had that. Let's see. I would get myself dressed. I would take care of the dog. I would get the kids ready for their online school. My mom, who had moved in with us had like a, some health issues, so I had to check in on her. And then I got into my room. My office is my bedroom, you know, like so many of us. And I had like a little corner that I tried to like wall off so that I could not be working when I was in my bedroom. So I would go, I'd turn on my sound machine, I'd say goodbye to everybody.
Julianna(09:37):
I'd close the door and I would like see clients back to back, to back, to back to back. Sometimes I'd be running groups for clinical supervision and I'd see clients and, you know, during the pandemic everybody's, and here in Portland there were the fires. And I mean, it was mad. It was mad. And then every time I'd have a break, I would leave to go to the bathroom and it would be like, mom, mom, mom, mom, dog, mom, daughter. So I would just collect myself, eat real fast, help everybody with everything, and then hustle back.
Tiffany(10:12):
Well, I was listening by the way. Juliana was saying, I'm, I would just collect myself and you're waving your hands in the air and you're grimacing with your face, which it does not, it did not look like collecting to me look like I'm just like my, even listening to you, my nervous system is like, yeah, I'm being up. Go out there, mom, my mom bark, bark, bark your mom asking for things. Go back to clinical work. So at the end of the day, whoa.
Julianna(10:35):
Oh, I have this hilarious moment where I went into a child's pose. Like I got down on the floor, , I laid down in child's pose, and I'm like laying there like, you know, breathing fast, thinking to myself, why isn't this working?
Tiffany(10:52):
?
Julianna(10:56):
I was like, oh. I mean, that was a big shift for me. That moment was a shift for me to say like, these practices of taking care of yourself aren't necessarily to make you feel better. They're to help you get grounded to know what's actually going on. And so those were the moments that I started actually preparing for. Now, I think the clinical work we're doing now in the state of how things are in the world really is around how can I, like I have done the work now to be I to show up in a way that says, you know, this isn't about making us feel better. It's about helping us feel contained enough whole enough to be able to sustain hard times. 'cause Things didn't stop being hard after lockdown, after I got my amazing office and got some space from my family and my dog , you know, and was able to bring my work into a premium fee practice where I'm not afraid at the edges all the time. You know, life's still hard and full. But I've reduced my extra work, my other work.
Tiffany(12:14):
Take us back. I, I love this. I love this phrase. I'm not afraid at the edges all the time. So back in this, you know, you're in this child's pose on the floor, it's pandemic time. So things are particularly intense given what came before. Yeah. What were three signs that told you like, okay, this really has to change this, this is unsustainable. Yeah. What were red flags?

(01:04):
Julianna(12:41):
Oh well, the number one thing was what my body felt like. Like I was just sort of a river of like rtic hot, boiling energy. You know, I couldn't slow down. I would take walks and I just couldn't, I couldn't land. So that was number one was just my health. The other was, I was just really having a hard time doing what I needed to do for my kids. You know, kids really struggled during the pandemic, and I could see that I was like doing more for my clients than I was for myself and my kids. So that was a huge red flag for me. And the other I guess was I just wasn't, I was down, my habits weren't good. I wasn't eating very well. I wasn't, you know, I I was just sort of on that hamster wheel.
Tiffany(13:52):
Yeah.
Julianna(13:54):
No thanks.
Tiffany(13:56):
No, thanks. So what, what, you know, you, you knew you had to do something differently, really. You had to make some intense shifts When you thought about the changes ahead, the changes you had to make. What scared you about doing things differently?
Julianna(14:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that always scares me the most is fear of judgment. Fear that I would be seen and then judged. And and then what? I mean, , the nervous system responses, well, then I'll die, right? Of course, I'm not gonna die. But that's sort of the, that's the how big it felt.
Tiffany(14:36):
What, when you thought about okay, first of all, we know this is visceral. It's not like you're really thinking like, yeah,
Julianna(14:41):
No, I really, that's right. Yes.
Tiffany(14:43):
Did you have any sense of, like, when you thought about being seen, being judged, did you have any picture of what that looked like? Who was looking at you, who would see you? Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Julianna(14:54):
Yeah. It's funny you said it just as I was thinking about, you know, I was teaching adjunct at a graduate program for counseling psychology for years, and sort of embedded in that academic world for a while. And in a, you know, very antithetical to my natural way of doing the work and being embodied and all of that. And I think the paradigms and the constructs that new counselors are being trained to believe like I just always found myself at odds with the way that people were being taught. Like, I would start classes and then I would have students coming to me saying, you're the first professor who's telling me that I can do my own thing or know, stay inspired. And it was very, it's very much like, you're gonna go work in an agency for, you know, $17 an hour, you're gonna slog away seeing 40 clients a week.
Julianna(15:57):
Like, this is just the, you gotta do your time. And I just knew, I mean, there's no way I could have sustained that for myself. And so that, I think that's where I was worried the most judgment would come, was around the sort of shared community, other therapists kind of policing each other. And I, I don't think that was new. I think I always had that. I kind of stayed a little bit isolated for too long. But because I was connecting with people who were trying to break away from that, I felt just a little bit braver.
Tiffany(16:38):

(01:25):
Yeah.
Julianna(16:40):
Certainly with during 2020 and the uprising of Black Lives Matter, I was involved in doing some training work and connecting with people who really wanted to expose the way supremacist systems keep us oppressed in this kind of work and keep us kind of passing it on to clients. And I started thinking about like, gosh, we can only do as, we can only help people out of their own oppression as much as we've helped ourselves out of our own oppression oppression. So like working in an agency setting or a place where we're scraping by or not able to take care of ourselves, we can only then really help our clients elevate their own potential. And it almost feels like that's by design, that we're just, we're capped, so then they're capped and then we just stay in this machine instead of getting better and yeah. Evolving.
Tiffany(17:44):
You're giving me goosebumps. Mm-Hmm . As you're talking, I'm feeling both. Like when you're talking about the, what you saw in the graduate education, I was feeling like just dumb, like a sinking in my chest. That that is still, that that's what's going on. I haven't been around those institutions for a while. So just and inspired that you were able to start seeing this mm-hmm . And start thinking you wanted to do things a different way. Mm-Hmm
Julianna(18:08):
. Well, I think I was already doing them different always, but I just couldn't get behind myself. I couldn't have my own back.
Tiffany(18:17):
Mm-Hmm. AhuhJulianna(18:18):
Because I was so afraid of being judged and then shut out or pushed out or, you know, we're so often, so many of us therapists are walking around, like, looking over our shoulder, afraid we're gonna get in trouble. Afraid. No. Well, you know, if we do that thing, I mean, there's a reason why everyone loves that show shrinking, right? Like,
Tiffany(18:37):
I don't, I don't know that show,
Julianna(18:39):
You know, just, you're not supposed to be brave in the work, in a way, weirdly. It's like you gotta keep your head down, stay low, just do what you gotta do. Write the treatment plans and get the CPT codes, right? And don't make a mistake. 'cause Then someone will notice you. And then what, like, these are the things that kept kind of creeping on me, even though I was like, on the other rails was like, sorry, like I gotta do it this way. So I kept at it, but I was sort of split, I guess, in the year. Mm-Hmm .
Tiffany(19:18):
What were you when you had your practice, what were you, what back then, what were your fees? What were you charging?
Julianna(19:24):
Oh, yeah. , well, pre, pre lockdown I was like, already doing clinical supervision, helping people bring their fees up and do really, like, really dedicate themselves to their private practice. And I was secretly sliding to $55 a session.
Tiffany(19:44):
Ly sliding. I love that. So you were sleek secretly sliding down. So
Julianna(19:49):

(01:46):
My fee was like 85 to a hundred, a hundred I think at that point.
Tiffany(19:55):
Holy mackerel. So your, your fee is secretly 55 ish to 100 is your stated fee. Supervision been in the field since 2006, seeing so many people being a professor, being a mom to your kids in lockdown. So folks listening by the way I'm sure the, the, some of you listening are like, holy mackerel. That's why I'm at, yeah. There's no pandemic right now, but still there's this hamster wheel. I really, I really liked how you pre how you spoke about you couldn't actually settle constantly internally, broiling and roiling. Just like you couldn't, your nervous system couldn't settle down. So now for folks listening, there is another side. Juliana, what are you charging now? What does your practice look like today?
Julianna(20:43):
Today, today it's beautiful. Today I charge 2 25 with some plans in the next year to increase my fees.
Tiffany(20:51):
Let me ask, are you secretly sliding down anymore? No. Secret sliding .
Julianna(20:56):
Okay. No more sliding. Actually, it was only this fall and you and I did a thing live thing with you on Instagram that got me over the hump. And I was doing some work with my own therapist around it. And was the harder part was telling my sliding scale clients I could not slide anymore. Like I did so much important work of realizing the way that I was still like, stretching over my own boundaries for the sake of other people. And realizing how detrimental that was to my clinical work and what kind of modeling that was. And, you know, it was hard, but I think the fear was that there's this weird, like, it's not so much just judgment, it's like scrutiny that I was afraid of.
Tiffany(21:47):
Interesting.
Julianna(21:48):
You know? And I'm vulnerable as a clinician. And so like, you know, I show up in my own beingness. And so, you know, I was sure that they would like see all the fear I was going through, but really when it came down to it, I just stated like, I'm not doing sliding scale anymore after nearly 20 years as a clinician. That's not something I'm, I'm able to offer anymore. No apologies. And it went fine. So anyway, you know, some people reduced, I wish I could say that. It like got me down to my perfect number of, you know, 12 clients a week. I thought it might, there's this, you kind of expected an attrition, but that's not what happened. People don't wanna stop working with me. And so that was a really great opportunity for me to witness that I was putting the obstacles up, not my clients.
Tiffany(22:51):
Yeah. They wanna see you. They wanted to keep doing this work with you. Mm-Hmm .
Julianna(22:55):
So my picture today is I see about 12 to 15 usually a week. I'm not doing as much clinical supervision as I was before. I really wanted to make some room. I've been working on writing a book and I started a, a dream of mine has been to do a embodiment retreat for therapists for years. I did my first one this fall.
Tiffany(23:18):
Yay.
Julianna(23:20):
And I just knew that I needed to create space in order for me to be able to do that.

(02:07):
Tiffany(23:27):
What is your, what do you feel, you know, we were talking about before this kind of like, you are on the floor in child pose and you just settle. How do you, in, in your body, how do you feel in the day to day now with your kids? How are you showing up as a mom, a parent now?
Julianna(23:42):
So much more present. I mean, sometimes I find myself on the hamster wheel. Like we all struggle with, you know, rote behaviors, right. Learned behaviors. But I think it's just given me more, not just space time space, but like energetic psychic space. Yes. To have changed some intergenerational patterns to be able to show up more consciously, to be able to make a choice in the moment. Like, am I gonna be busy this way? Or am I gonna slow down and show up for my kids, even if it's a mess or I don't have it under control or, you know, does it mean anything, you know, I just feel a lot less of that pressure to be something
Tiffany(24:29):
I feel moved. 'cause You're, you're, you're putting to language my whole, I do all these like talk to my therapist or do business programs and they're like, what do you want for people? And I know that I'm supposed to like the, the external promises, like make more money and work less time. But really it's what you said around becoming conscious and being able to make a conscious choice. Changing intergenerational patterns like that doesn't go well for marketing. But I get moved because that's actually what, that's what I want on the deepest level for our people, is to become conscious and to be able to make conscious choice. So I appreciate you sharing that and saying that and that you did the work to get here, to continue to do that work.
Julianna(25:07):
Yeah. It was really never about money. Because the truth is, is that I'm sure everybody has been through limb and is doing some of this work realizes we still have our patterns with money. We still have our stuff. My husband and I are constantly like, oh, here we are again. No matter how much we're waking making, we're still in the same like, oh, you know, , but we can name it now and we can know that's not us. That's not reality. That's just our, our conditioning our patterns. Yeah.
Tiffany(25:40):
Well, I, a a que a new question I've been asking folks, I don't even know if I told you about this one. So surprise, maybe I did. I hear often from therapists who are in the place where you were before mm-hmm . And they're saying, okay, this all sounds great, but how, I don't believe I can actually find those 12 to 15 people who 2 25. How, how has that, like how do you find the people or how has marketing come into play in this premium fee, cash pay practice?
Julianna(26:08):
Well, I'm not sure I'm a great candidate to answer the marketing question. I do have something to say about that piece of how do I find the people. I've never, I've never really mar marketed myself. Like, I mean, I had public classes for, I have a public facing experience. But you know, the reason why I wasn't ever on insurance panel, it wasn't just because I was like, no way. There's no CPT codes for what I do . But also I never really had the time to do that. 'cause I always had clients coming in one way or another. There was always somebody. So what I would say is we get stuck in this idea one that like, we're in control of finding people, which I don't know, maybe there's a woo woo edge to that. But there, after doing this for 20 years, it does seem like we kind of move in and out of just finding each other. And I do think that, you know, after working in clinical supervision for such a long time, helping people build private practices, we do, I just notice we get in our own way, right? Like, it really wasn't until I said no more extra work
Julianna(27:31):
That my practice got super solid. So, you know, like believe in yourself when you're marketing whatever that looks like for you, it don't do the things that don't feel aligned. So like if social media is not your jam, I've never been on social media as a clinician. I am as like a mom and a friend, you know, and follow people like you. But that was never the place that I was gonna do business because it just didn't feel aligned. It felt like I had to step outside of myself to do that. Or truth be told, it kind of launches me into some intergenerational stuff, which we may or may not even get to talk about today. That like I have to be mindful about. I would just appreciate that. Share with people, like be mindful about what marketing feels like. Integrity. Yes. What feels aligned. So maybe it's you teach a class somewhere, you know, wherever you're interests are if you're into parenting or if like, you know, I taught workshops, I did trainings in graduate programs, but also taught workshops in yoga studios. And built this retreat. You know, I
Tiffany(28:52):
Just pause for a minute. You, you're, I love when, when I love this , you, you started out by saying, I never marketed, but then you go on to talk about all the ways you're involved in, in creating transformation for your community. Teaching in grad school, offering supervision, teaching yoga. In yoga, you actually just in an aligned way, in a way that brings you joy and connection. You are actually out there in the community serving and being seen and putting yourself front facing, which is marketing,
Julianna(29:23):
I guess. So. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so
Tiffany(29:25):
That you just feel like you're doing what brings you joy and getting in front of the people who wanna hear what you have to say. Right.
Julianna(29:30):

(02:28):
That's
Tiffany(29:31):
Beautiful. Yeah. It was never a, I don't hear their a stress. I gotta market. I gotta do social media, da da. You're just like, how do I get, how do I serve people without, and then you added, but not sacrificing my own wellbeing and my own finances. I'm gonna serve and I'm also going to set the standard for what I need in my life to show up fully, money, time, et cetera. And
Julianna(29:56):
I'm gonna try and show up in spaces where I don't have to like, make excuses or promises or yeah. I just feel these days the visceral is more around the, like, the no to the spaces that are telling me. Like, you can't possibly know what you're doing. Feeling like you have to prove it with your, this many peer reviewed articles. You know, the, the 20 years of practice that you've had is not enough. You know, that sort of not enough experience. Like, I guess I just feel a lot more freedom now to be able to say no to that and then trust the guidance of the training I have done. And the people I really, the people I've served, just the, the people that I have cared for and treated are for me the markers of success.
Tiffany(30:54):
I can tell you're, you're a satic embodied therapist. The whole talking about touching, touching my chest, touching my body. I'm usually like, in my head, I don't have a body in this whole time. I'm like clutching myself. Let's take a few minutes. I think it's important to talk a little bit about your history. This kind of, the contradiction in how you grew up with, well, I, I won't go into it. Talk to folks a little bit about the role money played
Julianna(31:18):
Mm-Hmm
Tiffany(31:18):
. Your life in your early years.
Julianna(31:21):
Yeah. I'm so glad you called it a contradiction. It did just feel like I just lit was marinating in dissonance. So I grew up in la sort of adjacent to pretty, like a pretty famous part of my family. But part of my fam family is big in entertainment. My dad was in the entertainment industry. And so there was a lot of like, wealth and fame in my schemas that there was sort of this sense of like, you are famous or you're, you've failed.
Tiffany(31:58):
Mm.
Julianna(31:59):
Wow. And obviously just living in LA there's a little bit of that , right? Like that's the striving. And, and then money you know, on the oth on the flip side. So then I was a product of divorce, of sort of ungrounded work life balance. There wasn't any of that. My dad was on the road a lot when I was little. I was sometimes on the road with him. My mom, you know, then had to keep a job making very little money, you know, in the seventies, late seventies and eighties as a woman. Really like making no money, no paid time off. Like, talk about that same feeling I had during the lockdown. It was basically the same way she lived her life, like barely scraping by to have enough money for groceries, and thank goodness for school lunches and after school programs that were inexpensive.
Julianna(32:59):
And so we just sort of li I lived in this weird stream of, you know, you're supposed to want all these things over here, need all these things over here with fame and money. My mom was keeping us stable with her job, and then my dad and my mom were in and out of being together. He had mental illness and that led to drug addiction. And so we were sort of in and out of the chaos of having, you know, a little stability and then it getting sort of knocked out from underneath us. And then trying to c claw ourselves back. And I really learned that you were of service to money, basically. Like there wasn't your own. We want, my parents wanted so desperately for us to be able to explore being artists and doing what we wanted to do. But really what was being modeled was we're kind of slaves to money. And the bills.
Tiffany(34:05):
Julie? Well, I have so many. I wish we had another hour. I have so many.

(02:49):
Julianna(34:10):
Well, I'm writing a memoir all about it, so . Yay.
Tiffany(34:13):
Okay. Okay. I'm, I'm really glad that that's the case. Are you gonna have this memoir done? What's the situation here? .
Julianna(34:23):
Well, I've just recently been asking myself, when is a memoir done? Yes.
Tiffany(34:27):
Right. Because
Julianna(34:28):
We just keep on growing, keep on learning. We keep on editing, you know, especially as people who are therapists who are engaged in their own self work. Like, it's a constant evolution, which is beautiful. But I'm hoping in the next year I'll have some traction. You know, that's a funny thing about the fame piece is that I do have to put myself out there in order to be seen. Like, doing something like this podcast is a, a risk for me because it asks me to put my foot back in something that ex, you know, requires that I stay awake to the way that my trauma stories and strategies show up. And I want to be able to move into a more outspoken role around the ways that we succeed and transform and not so much overcome, but kind of integrate. But it means I have to be ready and awake to when I'm gonna find myself in those same streams of like, scrambling for something, right. Being seen or being accepted. You know, fame is so much different than art. It's so much different than what we've been talking about. And so I am grappling with my own writing teacher, my own writing coach around what it means to write e even if no one likes it, no one could
Tiffany(36:06):
Say, no one reads it. But I'm, I'm like, I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna read it.
Julianna(36:10):
Thank you.
Tiffany(36:13):
Okay. my, this is a, the final question and then we'll, and then we'll let folks know how they can learn more about you, how they can get into your orbit when thinking about this your close proximity to fame and wealth and celebrity and all these external markers of success that the world sees and says, this is success. You've made it and having the inside internal experience of poverty, I'm getting goosebumps, struggle, chaos disconnection. How did those things play into how you set your fees and your clinical work initially?
Julianna(36:52):
Mm-Hmm . Oh, initially it was, you know, my dad was a music producer and a manager. And I mean, he was brilliant and remarkable human being. But nobody, he was never in liners on records. He never got credit. He barely, sometimes barely got paid. Wow. And and then, you know, my mom worked her butt off and barely got paid. And so there was this kind of mar maybe like, sort of like a martyr type. Like, I'm doing this 'cause I love it. I don't really care about the money. And the shift for me was, I'm doing this because I love it. And in order for me to keep doing it, because I love it, I need some cash. Yes. , yes, I need the money because if I'm not taking care of myself, I'm not able to do it in the way that feels like love. Yeah.
Tiffany(37:52):
Yeah. I'm struck, I'm also very struck by your observation in your scrambling, the more scrambling, underpaid days, you were aware that you were giving more to your clients than yourself or your kids. And I think about you, you've mentioned multiple times this breaking this intergeneration intergenerational cycle of martyrdom to actually be a be present for your kids in a way that your parents were unable to be present for you because of this,
Julianna(38:20):

(03:10):
And not because they didn't wanna be, they just couldn't grow out of it. Yeah. You know, how many people are listening who have dealt with clients or with themselves dealing with Im, you know, emotionally immature parents. Right? How much of that is because the systems that we operate inside of are telling us that we don't deserve it or weren't, you know, like treat us like children, treat us like parasites, whatever it is, right? Like,
Tiffany(38:52):
Wow,
Julianna(38:52):
This was the moment for me to grow up.
Tiffany(38:57):
Wow.
Julianna(39:00):
Thanks so much to you. Like, I could not have done it without you showing up the way you've been showing up for reels.
Tiffany(39:10):
Thank you for saying it. It's very I'm really struck by this grow up. You had to grow up. I can relate to that very viscerally of the moment when it's the realization of nobody's gonna do this for us. Nobody's going to save me, you know, no, the parent's not gonna come or whatever the go, whoever it is the fantasy, like, I gotta grow up, grow up, and all the loss and, and mourning in that, and all of the potential in
Julianna(39:37):
That. Yeah. I gotta say, I do have to say this piece. So I think, you know, from our offline conversations that my, I've been dealing with my mom being towards the end of her life, and a few weeks ago I was on a walk with my dog, who I love, who I'm glad I got when she was a puppy during the pandemic. And I was walking trying to endeavoring to feel myself as a woman, not the child of my mom and dad. Like, who, and this is part of my memoir work, like, who are we? Who am I not of these systems or of these parents or as this caretaker? Who am I when I'm not these identities that I like scramble to be fulfilling? And it was a really cool exercise for me to see, like, can I feel myself not as these things that people think I am or that I think I am.
Julianna(40:50):
And from a clinical perspective, to be able to endeavor, to be embodied in that way, I think makes it possible for us to be present with our clients without projection, without the constructs that we think we know who they are, what they need. But I couldn't take that walk that way if I hadn't made the space for me with my fee change and with my practice change to be able on a, you know, Tuesday afternoon to be able to take the dog for a walk. I mean, I know that almost sounds cliche now with all the resting success and all the things that we've been, you and I have been endeavoring to participate in. Like, that is what so many of us know we need in order to elevate what we are offering other people
Tiffany(41:46):
That does not, this does not sound cliche, the sounds moving and novel and true, true and hard. So hard for so many people to access. Mm-Hmm
Julianna(41:59):
.
Tiffany(42:02):
I we're gonna end on that for folks listening. That is the listen to that

(03:31):
Julianna(42:07):
Woods.
Tiffany(42:08):
Yeah. Who, how can people find out, how can people work with you, learn more about, you get, get a hold of this memoir when it comes out?
Julianna(42:15):
Right? Well, I do have a website. It's just my name, juliana verma.com. I have a timid substack that I've just recently started with. Little bits a writing. I'm still trying to decide if that's a place where I wanna spend some energy, but that's a place that you go
Tiffany(42:37):
There. How do they find you there?
Julianna(42:39):
My handle is non-linear journals. And then, you know, my hope is if I do get some traction with my memoir, when,
Tiffany(42:51):
When, yes,
Julianna(42:52):
When then I'll start, you know, promoting it. Maybe I will have an Instagram page, maybe I will. But meanwhile there's a contact on my website. I'm pretty easy to find that way and yeah, on my substack. That's it. And then, you know, other people, if you're in Portland my website, I try to keep up to date with things that I'm offering retreats. I'm hoping to offer another retreat by next fall. Would love to fill a retreat with therapists who wanna spend the weekend in being embodied and understanding how that impacts their clinical work.
Tiffany(43:32):
This is fall 2025. Mm-Hmm . Okay, folks, if you're listening and you're moved, I've been moved this whole time. If you're moved by what Juliana is saying, if you resonate with her words, her journey, how she's thinking about her life, how she's feeling about her life and what's happening, I highly encourage you to be in touch, get into this fall workshop, this fall retreat. It will be in Portland
Julianna(43:57):
Maybe
Tiffany(43:58):
Or maybe not. Okay. Wherever it's gonna be, folks. I, I encourage you to get in touch, Juliana. Thank you. What a pleasure. And we'll hopefully see each other in San Francisco next week.
Julianna(44:08):

(03:52):
Yes. I can't wait.
Tiffany(44:10):
Thank you.
Julianna(44:11):
Thank you so much.
Outro (44:15):
All right. Whatever you're doing, I want you to pause. If you're driving, pull over. If you're chopping a carrot, put that knife away. If you're making sweet love to your woman, well, I mean, that's, that's, That's kind of flattering in a weird way. Huh. You can go, you can just go ahead and you can keep doing that. But for the rest of you, if you learn even just one thing of value today, please share this episode with even just one therapist who could benefit from the message. Here's how, if you're listening on iTunes, click on the episode and you'll see a small purple circle with three dots. Click on those dots and you're gonna see the option to share at the bottom of the list. Click that, and you can just go ahead and share it on Facebook, or you can even just text it to one therapist who you know needs to hear it. If you're listening on Stitcher, just tap the triangle icon on the upper right corner. It's next to the menu that displays your upcoming playlist. You'll see the option to share the episode you're currently listening to right on Facebook. Look, it's time to get the word out. We gotta spread the message. Thank you so much, and we'll join each other again soon.