Member Article

Julie stresses she can help working mums

ONCE she went home feeling “stressed and shouty” but now Julia Harris is aiming to stop other working mums suffering the same fate.

A former civil servant in a high-powered job, she juggled intense work pressures with being a mum to Ellie, 18, and 12-year-old Will, plus all the other jobs that were waiting at home. Eventually, she needed time off work because she was suffering from stress.

But when Julia decided to take a life coaching course, she realised she could help other working women and stop them falling into the same trap that she had.

She said, “I believe that as Working Mums we face challenges that many of our male colleagues do not face or understand. Women have a tendency to strive towards being all things to all people. We do this at home and at work and we often put ourselves last in the pecking order.

“A few years ago I had a job that was draining the life out of me, although I didn’t realise it at the time.

“When the day came that I finally fell off the edge, broken and burnt out, I realised that it wasn’t ‘good stress’ and loving my job that had kept me going for so long. It was adrenalin and the sheer stubbornness that ‘I can do this!’”

Julia, from Marsden in South Tyneside, decided to use her can do attitude to set up her business aimed at helping people, and especially working mothers.

The 44-year-old qualified as a Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, specialising in stress at work.

She said: “Doctors can provide medication, counsellors listen but I provide support for working women by showing them how to develop strategies to deal with the stresses of work while being a working mum so they can be calm, confident and in control again.

“I know what it’s like to be in a situation where there is pressure at work and then you come home and have to deal with all the work of a wife and mother.

“It makes you ‘stressed and shouty’ – and I know from talking to other women that’s a phrase they can relate to.”

Julia initially wrote the eBook Stressed to Refreshed to help women and has now developed the 30 Days to to Calm, Confident and Back in Control course, aimed specifically at working mums in corporate jobs.

The course, which costs £97, helps women understand why they become stressed and shouty, discover how they can nip the problem in the bud and then develop the tools to stay calm, confident and back in control.

Julia is taking her concept online with a 30-day Internet course, where, if the client needs extra support, she can log on and give one to one advice.

She said: “My aim is to eventually take my business into the US, to help even more women in high-end corporate jobs who face the same pressure to succeed at work and home.

“I aim to give women the coping mechanisms they need so they can stay in the jobs they love – and stop getting stressed and shouty.”

ENDS www. Julia-harris.com

Photo shows: Julia demonstrating the problems associated with stressed and shouty behaviour

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Keith Newman .