Make time to celebrate your wins and feel joy. A cold plunge will help you change state if you want to jumpstart your joy muscle. Be grateful and count your blessings every day. You must expand your bandwidth for emotion to be most resilient.
Resilience has been described as the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Times are not easy now. How do we develop greater resilience to withstand the challenges that keep being thrown at us? In this interview series, we are talking to mental health experts, authors, resilience experts, coaches, and business leaders who can talk about how we can develop greater resilience to improve our lives. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julie Cielo. Julie Cielo is the epitome of resilence. A suthrivor of childhood trauma and poverty, severe scoliosis, autoimmune disease and Epstein Barr virus, estrangment, divorce, rape, and attepted murder, Julie built a successful six figure Wellness business by age 26 and healed herself of all dis-ease before forging an entirely new catagory of beverage in the industry with zero experience as a female. Meditating for over 30 years, Julie is a pioneer and iconoclast breaking barriers, living a life of service, and reinventing herself with her third career at age 48 as a trauma-informed Life Coach & Yoga Therapist, author, speaker, gut health expert & autoimmune sur-thrivor, as well as an astrologer.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I grew up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, deeply influenced by homesteading and overcoming childhood trauma. As a child medium, I left home with just $800 to attend mortuary college. Following my first out-of-body experience, I was guided to “Choose the Light” and became a massage and yoga therapist in the ’90s, before the internet era, without any advertising. I was leading worldwide retreats before they became widely known. After leaving a twenty-two-year marriage and surviving an attempted murder, I reinvented myself in Los Angeles and founded one of the first non-alcoholic drink companies in the US, called Ferm Fatale. After closing it due to making some bad business decisions, I reinvented myself once again, pursuing my truest passion as a trauma-informed life coach, utilizing my skills as a yoga therapist.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
As a trauma-informed life coach and yoga therapist, I help clients get to the root of their trauma, creating a customized guided hypnosis to help them begin to transform their limiting beliefs. This supports the rewriting of their life story in order to claim the future they desire. I have seen clients obtain instant results from rewiring their nervous system and subconscious mind. It’s miraculous work!
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I am incredibly grateful to Tony Robbins for helping me remember who I am. After I exited my last company, I was feeling like a failure because I didn’t sell it. He helped me remember what a resilient champion I am, to always focus on success, not failure, when we are aiming to grow. He reminded me of what I am capable of when I am focused and aligned in my purpose to serve.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Resilience comes from adaptability, perseverance, and believing in yourself when you don’t yet have proof.
Courage is often likened to resilience. In your opinion, how is courage both similar to and different from resilience?
You can have courage to rewrite your story and your identity. Resilience comes from failing after you have had courage and having the courage to get back up again and again.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
My aunt stands out as a prime example of resilience. She was a dog groomer working in her basement when she said, “I wish this clipper had a vacuum,” and then went on to invent just that, becoming a multimillionaire. Despite facing personal challenges, (her husband molested her grandchildren and she had to pay him alamony) she kept going. Her ability to persevere through hardship and continue moving forward is why I chose her as a symbol of resilience.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
When I first entered the beverage industry, the editor of BevNet told me to run and not do it. In hindsight, I kind of wish I had listened to him, but in all seriousness, my only regret is choosing the wrong business partner. Despite that, I’ve come back from it stronger than ever.
Did you have a time in your life when you experienced one of your greatest setbacks, but it ultimately helped you create resilience? Can you share that story with us?
I would say I am doing that again now. I wasn’t sure I would recover after closing the beverage company I worked on for nearly nine years. That was a very challenging project because people thought I was crazy.
Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resilience? Can you share a story?
I remember coaching my mother behind a dumpster at age eight, encouraging her not to commit suicide. Even at that young age, I knew I had the ability to help others. Despite the difficult adult situations I was put in, I recognized my capacity for greatness.
How have you cultivated resilience throughout your life?
I have cultivated resilience by taking pride in my accomplishments, even without receiving credit for them. You must be your own best cheerleader and never expect applause for what you do. The key is to do it for the sake of being in service, period. Facing numerous hardships and believing in myself regardless has been crucial. I’ve focused on discovering my new purpose, believing I could be successful again, and not allowing perceived failures to derail me.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Have a daily practice that you do no matter what or where you are. I always meditate, read my devotional, and have a plan for the top 3 things I will focus on that day.
- Daily exercise and an 80/20 diet are crucial. You need a vehicle that runs well, and putting self-care first is essential for long-term success.
- Have a vision for your life in the four main areas: Health, Career, Relationships, and Time, and recite your vision daily. This is key to getting into the vibration of your new story and identity even before you have it. This builds incredible resilience.
- Work on your limiting beliefs and don’t live in denial expecting things to change on their own. I suggest hypnosis, tapping, or somatics. I create custom hypnosis for my clients as I find it most effective for changing these patterns.
- Make time to celebrate your wins and feel joy. A cold plunge will help you change state if you want to jumpstart your joy muscle. Be grateful and count your blessings every day. You must expand your bandwidth for emotion to be most resilient.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would encourage more people to give more freely. The law of reciprocation and circulation works, but we don’t give to get. We give to make a difference. Pick one cause or someone less fortunate than you and give back daily for 10 days and see what happens at the end of those 10 days and let me know.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
I would be overjoyed to meet a literary agent who could help me publish the book I am currently writing called ‘The Rewrite: How to Turn Trauma into Triumph,’ get published and made into a movie. It is about my personal story of resilience + my 12-week personal transformation program.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Please visit www.juliecielo.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!