Videos
Julie is a regular speaker/interviewer at community events in Northern California. She also teaches online cooking classes in a mission to bring fun and new inspiration to those who feel daunted by complicated recipes––or soulfully drained after decades in the kitchen.
The Cost of Family Secrets: Why Sharing Your Hardest Parts Makes You Whole
If you’re keeping secrets from yourself or the people in your life, ask yourself why.
Growing up, we weren’t the kind of family who had dark secrets. We were the people in insurance commercials, a happy family of five. Our childhood was wrapped in love and play. While our older brother was out doing cool things, Danny, my little brother and I, were a team, racing our bikes around the block, building forts, making lemonade stands. But no amount of love protected Danny. As he grew older, his extreme sensitivity to the world’s unpredictability and roughness began to crush him, until, at the age of 14, he disappeared into a darkness.
Mental illness was not part of society’s lexicon back then, and we were at a loss about everything but this: we would do everything possible to help Danny—and no one would know. We assumed his funk was a phase, and we wanted to shield him from the burden of people thinking that something was “wrong with him” when he came out of it. The weeks turned to months, and as denial gave way to desperation, my family––my whole, loving, perfect family––began a harrowing, fourteen-year slow-motion trauma. In private. I was 18.
More than 30 years later, I’ve come to terms with the cost of keeping the family secret. And in my talk at Rosh Hashanah Services this year at Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, California, I shared with our community a part of myself almost no one knew. I also shared what I’ve learned about the insidious cost of family secrets.
We live in a world where it’s easy to curate a certain version of ourselves, to build a brand of choice. But brands don’t really work, do they? Brands don’t allow for the truth and complexity of who we really are.
Interview with Dr. Edith Eger
Dr. Edith Eger is one of most profound and amazing human beings you will ever learn from. She talks about learning to live free from the bondage of trauma, judgement, grief, resentment, anxiety, depression, victimhood, every ill there is. She was sent to Auschwitz at 16, forced to dance for Dr. Mengele, survived the Austrian Death March, and was found on the day of liberation lying on a pile of corpses. She came to America with $6 in her pocket, got a masters in psychology at 50, a Ph.D. at 60, published her first book at 90, her second at 93, has been interviewed by Oprah, Brene Brown, Deepak Chopra, knew Eleanor Roosevelt and was the keynote speaker at Victor Frankl’s 90th birthday. As you’ll see, I was so in awe of her I could barely keep it together! Dr. Eger’s books are The Choice and The Gift, available everywhere, and they will surely change your life.