There’s no need to go it alone. If you're curious about my transformational coaching programs, reach out now and schedule your free 60-minute Wayfinding Session, where you will:
Explore the struggles and longings that are alive in you right now.
Get clear on which of the major midlife hurdles are derailing your “prime of life” experience .
Discern the most impactful thing you can do to start finding your way forward.
Book your Wayfinding Session below by selecting a date and time that suit you and providing the information requested. You will be sent all the information you need in a follow-up email.
(Please note that for the time being, due to COVID-19, all Wayfinding sessions are only available by phone or Zoom.)
Meet Julie Henderson, M.S.
Midlife Mentor, Creative Depth Coach, and Intuitive Healer
Julie has been helping people find their way through their pain since 1994, first as a licensed massage and craniosacral therapist, where she discovered, honed, and expanded her intuitive healing skills. During those 27 years of working with hundreds of clients she witnessed first-hand the profound impact of mental, emotional, and spiritual stress on the body.
In a beautiful synchronicity, her own midlife crisis brought her back to her academic roots: a Masters Degrees in developmental psychology where she had focused on adult development and aging, with a special focus on women's issues in aging.
With a creative and multifaceted approach that honors head, heart, and the creative spirit, Julie now helps women transmute the confusion and fragmentation of midlife into a renewed sense of clarity and vitality, so they can thrive in a life designed on purpose.
For a deeper dive on her credentials and what makes her tick, continue here.
Why I do what I do: The story of my Midlife Wake-up Call
"In 2006, at the tender age of 42, I found myself fluctuating between apathy and rage. I looked everywhere for the cause — my work, my husband, my children — but couldn’t determine a source. And couldn’t see any way out of what I was feeling. I would find myself driving down the road wondering if it wouldn’t be easier, and if my family wouldn’t be better off, if I just drifted into oncoming traffic.
I had no idea what was wrong with me.
Luckily for me, a serendipitous encounter with just the right novel (Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair) helped me realize that what I was probably perimenopausal, and experiencing a pretty classic version of a woman's midlife crisis.
Despite my academic background I hadn’t realized what was happening to me when I was in the midst of it. This is the experience that drives my mission to spread the gospel of midlife not as a crisis to be managed, but rather an invitation to reflection and an opportunity for transformation, and to ensure that no woman needs to go through her own midlife soulwork alone."
“Before I began working with Julie, I was feeling bored and tired with any type of "talk-therapy". I was all talked-out! As a coach, Julie has a fresh and creative approach that has helped me move my life forward in a positive direction.”
Michelle, K.
Columbus, OH
The Evolution of a calling
Midlife Evolution is the next (and hopefully final!) evolutionary stage of my solopreneur journey that began in 1994 when I first started my own business as a massage therapist, dedicated to bringing greater balance, ease, and well-being into people’s lives.
In the decades since, my business has grown and shifted along with me as I learned new modalities and stretched beyond the massage table (pardon the pun 😉). In 2009, becoming a SoulCollage® Facilitator brought an incarnation as Sacred Spiral Healing Arts; choosing to focus on midlife women birthed Our Sacred Pause in 2015, and a feeling that the name and the business needed a little more momentum brought forth Midlife Evolution, LLC in 2020.
Regardless of the name or the modality, my work and my business has sought to be a sanctuary where you're supported in healing into wholeness, and guided to discover what you’re being called to create with your life.
Midlife Evolution is the weaving together of a lifetime of both academic and personal passion for issues of peace and fulfillment, women, aging, art, heart and soul.
It allows me to play off my abilities to both see the big picture and hone into the heart of a matter, and to facilitate healing and transformation in a space of safety and witness!
Here you will discover a clear framework for understanding the forces at play for women in midlife, so you can discern more clearly what's going on in your unique situation.
Here you will find creative opportunities for self-study, classes, retreats, and private mentoring, all which explore the seven essential elements of the midlife renaissance:
Relaxing into an understanding of the mysteries of the midlife passage
Embracing the sacred – sometimes scary – work of healing and reclaiming your lost, wounded and forgotten parts
Learning to follow your own natural rhythms and cycles
Graciously and generously creating space for radical self-care into your day-to-day life
Allowing your innate feminine wisdom to guide your steps
Envisioning your unique, soulful and ever-evolving Life
Grounding your transformation in your physical being
My "street cred"
In all truthfulness, as a personal growth junkie I’ve read more books and taken more courses than I can count, resulting in work that is my unique mash-up of all of them.
The core of my style centers around my training as a Creative Depth Coach™, Sacred Journey™ Process Guide, JourneyCircles™ and MoonCircles™ Facilitator certified through the JourneyPath Institute, and as a SoulCollage® Facilitator. These modalities have further been informed by the study of trauma-focused modalities like Somatic Experiencing, and systemic approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS).
All of this rests on my academic background: a BA in Psychology, with a minor in Gerontology (that’s the study of Aging), from Miami University in Oxford OH, and a Masters degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State, where my focus was on Adult Development and Aging and Women’s Health.
Since 2010, I've spent thousands of hours mentoring midlife women both as individual clients as well as by leading retreats and workshops: supporting them as they heal their wounds, release their stories, and come to know themselves more deeply. I’ve combined the wisdom gleaned from all my study and training with my natural gifts as an intuitive healer to create a holistic and multilayered approach to the midlife journey—one that honors mind, body, emotions, and creative spirit, and helps women forge an everyday connection to their own Inner Knowing.
What I stand for
Here's a summary of the basic tenets that inform my work — my "manifesto" if you will:
I reject the idea that midlife is the start of a downhill slide into old age.
I reject the notion that the best solutions to women’s midlife concerns are drugs, surgery or affairs.
AND
I believe that ease and contentment is each person’s birthright. It’s our natural state of being - if we can just get out of our own way.
I believe the confusion and discontent some women feel at midlife is in reality a call to introspection and transformation.
I believe in doing this work at your own pace and honoring it as a sacred journey.
I believe in the mantra “Trust the Process”.
I believe in the power of being in the company of other women who are equally committed to becoming their best, most whole selves.
I believe in the importance of Radical Self-care.
I believe that we are living in a time of transition in the evolution of human consciousness that is calling each of us to our highest selves.
I believe that becoming our most authentic selves is the first step in creating a better world.
On the personal side
I have been married since 1993 to a man I thought was a summer fling back in 1985. We have (mostly) successfully raised two girls to early adulthood, and are joyfully adapting to a semi-empty nest as they go back and forth to college. Along with our (hypoallergenic) Siberian Forest cat Obiwan, we live in Columbus OH, in a 1960's neighborhood in a house that is 1 year younger than I am, and which I'm always trying to make it a little more "mid-centry modern" than it really is. My dream is to move out away from the city (and the way too close highway) to a place where I can walk in the woods without needing to drive to a park first. Ideally it'll be an A-frame log home on at least 3 wooded acres. And yes, I think about this a lot because my husband will retire within 5 years, and I like to have a plan.
Both education and creativity run heavily through my family tree, and I'm delighted that I found a way to honor both of them in my work. Although it may sound dorky and trite, my work is my passion, and I suspect having my own business has now made me unfit for employment in any normal sense of the word.
Just for fun, here are a few weird and random facts about me:
I love old 1970s-era VW Beetles (especially convertibles)
I love the artwork of Ohio artist Charley Harper.
As a kid I always requested lobster tails for my birthday dinner.
I have a small collection of Hall Pottery ball jugs. (I know, weird, right?)
Whenever possible I listen to reruns of 1970s American Top 40 broadcasts (favorite year 1976).
I like to think that fairies and mermaids are real.
I think I'm often hilarious, but my 2 sisters say I'm the least funny of all of us.
Get to know me better, and meet other cool women like you, inside Midlife Evolutionaries, our free, private community hosted on Mighty Networks.
Rather explore receiving personal support?
Schedule a free 60min Wayfinding Session (valued at $195) to get started.