Ken Huey (00:14)
Today's guest is Julie Alvarado, founder of the Alvarado Consulting and Treatment Group and Simply Healing with Jules. With decades of experience in trauma-informed care and executive leadership, Julie helps organizations and individuals create emotionally safe, high-performing environments. Her work blends clinical insight with deep compassion to drive healing, connection, and lasting change. Jules, thanks for being with us.

Jules (00:43)
Thanks for

Ken Huey (00:44)
Yeah.

Well, you've got quite the background personally and professionally. We served together on the board of Attach for a while.
 Foster care was a big part of kind of shaping things for you. Can you talk a little bit about that? (00:56)

Jules (00:56 — 03:28)
Yeah, absolutely. I think there are... so many bridges in my life that were built from my early and initial experiences of not just working in foster care, but then becoming a foster parent. living on both sides of the desk, both sides of the office, I realized as I was entering this field of fostering that my role as a parent, we had two biological children when we became foster parents, began our fostering career and had two more biological children. And so all of our children have grown up basically in a foster home. And I realized early on that parenting our biological children was different than the parenting it would take with our foster children. And moving from just working as a foster parent or in the foster care field to supporting those who were developing foster care programs, I think compelled me to really look at what I learned as a foster parent that I could also use in the organizational world. Foster parents are on demand full-time and that demand for a foster parent calls for adaptation, flexibility, resilience, working with populations that you had no training, no development for, no skill for learning how to stand on a platform, learning how to live by values perhaps that you have that you didn't know would be called upon in serving foster children.

Sometimes when I'm working with executive directors or leadership teams today and I think about the most important skills that I developed as a foster parent, I see a beautiful segue into leadership. I often say to the professionals and parents I work with today, parents are the most impactful leaders in our world. There is no more important leader in our world today than a parent. And the skills that are demanded ⁓ as a parent for good parenting are the same skills that we're developing in our leadership today. Adaptation, emotional intelligence, capacity to read the impact of trauma or secondary trauma in the responses of a child or a staff member or a board member. And so I think there have been skills that I didn't know I would need to develop as a foster parent that certainly continue to support my work in leadership and organizational consulting and executive coaching with leaders.

Ken Huey (03:28)
In your leadership coaching, you've had some really amazing experiences. You worked with Uber across nine countries. Can you tell us the story of that, how that came to be? (03:38)

Jules (03:38 — 06:16)
Yeah, we have a really funny story, in my group, and it's called Uber Called. because the day that the call came in from someone from their HR division in San Francisco about the need for secondary trauma and toxic stress, understanding and training across their global organization, I thought it was a scam. There wasn't any part of me in my at that time adult development that believed that a global organization would reach out. with interest in. and willingness to develop a trauma-informed, trauma-sensitive workspace at scale. And so as those conversations began and I understood from their training division that the employees at Uber across many countries were really being tasked with creating a global organization, and this was earlier, this was 15 years ago, creating this global organization with local leadership.

And so the values and the culture that were driving leadership across many countries, there was a requirement for those to be blended into this organizational culture. And that created levels of uncertainty. created misunderstandings. It created pain and harm in relationships where, you know, in one culture, men and women were equally brought to the leadership table. In another culture, women weren't invited to the leadership table and I'm a white presenting middle-aged woman being brought in to offer organizational consulting. So understanding the complex need of the macro system but starting at the micro level by really engaging in my own discovery, learning about the cultures, learning about the values, learning about what leadership meant, learning about the expectations between leadership and staff.

and then developing in very unique ways and messaging to different populations the same basic message of how to regulate, take care of ourselves so that we can create a regulated, safe, trauma-sensitive environment regardless of the culture or country or continent that we were working on. It was a huge experience for me over five or six years of developing training platforms that have been translated into nine languages and used in an industry in the private sector that also pulled me out of the majority of my work that had been in public sector. So that was a big learning jump for me as well.

Ken Huey (06:16)
What was something culturally, any story or experience you had that was really an aha moment? (06:22)

Jules (06:22 — 08:26)
Yet there are many of them, but I think the common theme through those was my ability as the coach to model, regardless of the culture that I was in, my capacity to adapt, my capacity to be fluid with what they expected of me, my capacity to stay in curiosity, even if their values rubbed me in a painful way, if their values felt harmful for me? Did I have the capacity to model for them? the ability to stay in curiosity, to understand what made them and what they were made of so that I could use that information to help them become the next version, the next best version of them that they could become. And it's interesting that I often have this conversation with other executive coaches. I think for us to be... highly effective as a coach to another high performing leader, the most important task at hand for us is to always be developing and growing ourselves and to recognize that in this complex, uncertain world. we're going to be called every day to dig in and remain the version of ourselves that we may have worked really hard to become. Right, think about the leaders that we work with, Most of us have worked really hard to overcome hurdles, our own traumas, to become who we are today. But if we get stuck in that, If we get stuck in the need to defend who we are today, there's no spaciousness to become who we're meant to become next. And as I watch this unfold in myself and other coaches working with diverse populations, public sector, private sector, large groups, small groups, I recognize that that's really one of the most important spaces we can pour our own resource into. How do I remain curious about my own growth and development so that I can truly hold that space for you, regardless of what you bring to me.

Ken Huey (08:26)
I think you kind of touched on it, but how does a leader, what would one thing be that a leader would need to do to create an emotionally safe work environment? (08:37)

Jules (08:37 — 11:43)
Yeah, that list is long, right Ken? So let's think about again, the one that I think is always at the top. And this would be the same for a parent who's a leader, an executive director who's a leader, the president of a board of directors we might be working with, a startup company we might be working with. If I as the leader can model for my children, for my partner, for my constituents or my staff, can model both energetically, psychologically, transactionally, relationally, how I want my organization to feel when someone walks in. If I can develop those traits in myself, embody them and live by them, I'm going to develop them across the culture of my organization. I think the biggest trap that we get caught in is believing that if we change, If somebody brings to us an opportunity or an option that's not in line with who we see ourselves or our organization to be, and we're not willing to open up that space of curiosity for opportunity for learning and changing, if we need to control, if we need to take care of our own ego and we lose the capacity to change, we lose the capacity to grow. And I think that's the biggest mind trap for leaders that if they give up, and they change, they acquiesce to an idea that's brought forth that wasn't theirs. It came from someone else that somehow accepting that need to change means losing control or that they won't be seen as powerful or they won't be seen as knowing or as right. And so I think embodying this space that I may be the coach or I may be the leader, I may be the teacher, but I'm always a student first. I'm always open to what I can learn, what I can bring in, how I can change this vision I have of myself, of who I've become. I hear leaders say to me frequently, you know, it's taken me the last 10 or 15 years, Jules, to get here. I've worked so hard to become who I've become. I've come over so many hurdles. I've built this amazing business. And underneath that, there's a tone of, I have finally arrived. And I believe that as coaches, it's incumbent upon us, whether it's our 15-year-old child who thinks that they have just climbed to the top of the biggest mountain they're ever going to have to climb, or our 25-year-old child who, again, life could never get harder. or the executive director in their first five years, first 10 years or 15 years, we tend to look at the past decade of our lives and believe that somehow we've arrived.

What we don't tend to do as often is look at the next decade and really ask, who do I want to become? Who can I become? What is the next version of myself or of my organization or of my company or of my family or of my partnership? And so I think that mind trap of getting stuck in who we see ourselves to be can cost us potential growth and potential capacity to serve even more people than we're serving today.

Ken Huey (11:43)
Call this emotional intelligence. There's a lot that you've just described. But can you tell us of a story where that kind of emotional intelligence and presence changed the direction of a difficult situation or a difficult conversation? (11:57)

Jules (11:57 — 15:37)
Yeah, and aren't the stories that are the hardest to tell the stories about our own need for transformation and growth, right? So there's so many that are coming to mind right now, but I have one in particular who... presents and shows up as powerful and she is powerful in her own right and She's intelligent. She's brilliant. She can message she can brand she can articulate she can create she can develop she can innovate All of those transactional pieces that are needed to do the work we do But as soon as we started moving into this intersection between the transactional and the relational skills that are needed to be a truly effective manager or leader. This wall would go up a little bit. Just this wall would go up and I would see it go up brick by brick. She had the capacity to serve others in a very sensitive way up to a point, And then it was almost like the adaptive strategies that I knew had been built from long ago in her lifetime. Those adaptive strategies unconsciously got called back in for her.

And so I want to use this as an example for the way that we can capitalize on our own understanding of emotional intelligence to help others. I knew that in order to get over that brick wall into the relational field, number one, I had to create the space for all parts of her that showed up to feel safe with me, to feel safe in the space with me. I couldn't just take that brick wall down, but brick by brick, I could create safety in the relational field between me and her. And as that safety grew, as all parts of her were welcomed with no need on my part to fix her or change her or introduce the need that something was wrong, but simply to hold this beautiful adaptive spirit she had that had brought her to this level of success. She had learned how to fight and climb her way to the top, but that fighting climbing was harming her now. So as the safety built between us, as I could stay regulated in the face of her defensiveness, we began to slowly look at those adaptive strategies, how they served her, that they were beautiful, and that perhaps they were strategies she didn't quite need to employ at the same level today.

And that introduction as a coach had to come on the heels of safety, trustworthiness, a level of transparency between us. The capacity to use emotionally intelligent and emotionally regulated interactions with her so that her nervous system could feel safe enough in that co-regulated field between us to really look at ways that she had become harmful to others. but in an effort to protect herself.

And so I think using our own capacity for emotional intelligence to support others in tapping into that. And she has her capacity now to, I watch her now move between transactional and relational in a very fluid way. And I can see in her mind when she's consciously calling for her own evolution. She's consciously, purposefully calling for that shift. that her unconscious evolution, that limbic system that gets kicked up and wants to keep us in those adaptive fight-flight-freeze strategies, that her mind can overcome those when she consciously chooses how to show up in each moment.

Ken Huey (15:37)
So Jules, you kind of present just as somebody ready to embrace whomever is in front of you in whatever pain they're in that shows up maybe as anger and all kinds of crazy issues. That presence. But that's been a work for you and to say you're baked that way doesn't really give any credit to what you've tried to do to show up and become that human. You speak to how have you gotten to where you create that kind of safe space by your own being? (16:04)

Jules (16:04 — 19:36)
Yeah, so I want to say thank you for asking this question, Ken. And if it weren't you and I having this conversation today, I might answer it differently. There's already a sense of established safety between you and me. And we don't know who's going to be watching or listening to this at what time from wherever around the globe.

But I think it's really important for us to remember that before we were parents, before we became leaders, before we became performance coaches, and still today, we are human with a human design. My nervous system does not, cannot stay regulated at all times. I am not like you are not like anyone listening to this cannot stay regulated all the time. Our nervous systems have evolved to protect us, to keep us safe, to fight when we need to, to run away if it's too terrifying, to freeze in the face of terror. And that part of our nervous system is fully online today. So learning about my system can learning about the impact of my own traumas, uncovering events and stories that I survived that I did not consciously remember coming into my own work.

and then finding someone safe enough and I implore leaders to do this. Find a coach who you can do this with today to talk about my stories in safe space so that I could begin to connect. What was it about my own experiences that keep me stuck in that need to fight and I can be a fighter. What keeps me stuck there and also learning about my own nervous system and it's capacity for change and growth over the lifetime. And once I really understood the neuroscience behind change, what's happening in the frontal cortex? What's happening in the limbic system? What parts of me are battling for control right now? Am I going to dig my heels in and demand that I stay stuck in who I am today? Or can I access the skills I've learned and developed to open to a spaciousness, open to the possibility that the person who I think has the least to teach me probably has the most to teach me about something about myself that I'm not willing to look at, that I don't want to look at, that's hard for me to look at.

And so practice every day, every morning. have rituals, have routines, and I have spaces that are private, that are sacred, that are between me and my God, that are just mine, where I can release what I need to and ask to be held by something much more powerful than me. And also to join me when I'm sitting with somebody who I feel my defenses come up around and I feel my own humanness being called into that. unconscious pattern to protect my ego, I call on sources that are bigger than me and I also call on the skills that I've developed. If we as leaders aren't willing to do the hard work, really hard work sometimes, to show up as the best version of ourselves, how can we expect our children to do that? How can we expect our clients to do that? If we're not willing to sit in a therapy session that takes us to our knees, How do we expect someone else to do that in our presence? And so again, I believe it's the modeling by embodying and living what we want to create. Not easy. Every day, it's work every day to stay in this space. And sometimes I don't, Ken. Sometimes I don't.

Ken Huey (19:36)
So executives, you keep saying leaders, I like that better because it's in all facets of life, right? What is one of the first things a leader needs to unlearn to create emotional safety? (19:44)

Jules (19:44 — 22:08)
Thank you. Yeah, again, and I think we've touched on this a couple of times. Most of us have become leaders because we have the common skills that it takes to be a leader. And those are the transactional left brain. Can I complete a task? Can I stay on a project? Can I earn the most money? Can I develop new programs? Can I innovate? And those skills are hard earned, hard learned and necessary to be a leader. But they're really successful. effective leaders in the room will be the leaders that can make that jump from transactional into relational.

Many leaders I work with come in with a belief system that the relational field, that gray field, that fluid kind of softer space in management, in leadership can feel weak, can feel like we don't have time for, can feel like we don't, we can't put resource into developing well-being of our staff when we've got research and development that needs all of our resource and time. And so I think unlearning the messages that many leaders have come in with and not just the messaging. I think it's unlearning the skills that many of us have adapted to to survive in a world that can feel harsh, that can feel unkind. And so developing new skills while we're unlearning some of the harder skills I believe takes somebody from outside of us who can gently point out to us where we have that space. that we can grow into. You can see in me, and I know you've sat with me in many rooms when I'm learning from you and you're learning from me and we're learning from each other, you can see me in that space, through a lens that I cannot see myself through. And so if you can bring to me the spaces that I missed, the attunement that might have impacted someone in that room or the collective in a way that I didn't understand can help me become a better version of myself, but if I'm stuck in the version of myself, I can't hear your message. So I think really unlearning that we already know it all, that's how we got hired in the position, and learning that we don't know much at all. And there's so much more to learn, both in that transactional and relational space as leaders.

Ken Huey (22:08)
Jules, as I introduced you, I did not say that you are a shaman. But really, that should be part of your introduction. And to grow to a place where you can embrace at that level is not something that happens overnight. What is something that's granular, a simple practice, something that somebody can start doing now to take them more towards this connected and present emotionally intelligent living? (22:35)

Jules (22:35 — 26:25)
Yeah, it's such a powerful and important inquiry, Ken, so thank you. Stress takes us out of our bodies. Stress kicks up that automatic, activated, fight, flight, or freeze response before you are even aware of it.

And once we're caught, once that limbic system is caught in the need to defend, our bodies, our entire bodies begin to tighten up to protect ourselves. And as we tighten up at the cellular level to protect and defend, we also lose the capacity for spaciousness to invite another into.

And so the most simple practice, I call it stop, drop, and roll, it's a very simple neuroscientifically backed, mindfully based, and attachment focused practice, stop, drop, and roll, invites us in the moment that we feel our body shift. For some of us, it takes a little bit of work to feel our body shift. But in the moment we feel that tension, my chest is getting tight. I'm noticing that I'm not really listening to you. I'm already preparing my response to you. Or my palms are a little sweaty. My heart rate is increasing. We can say quietly to ourselves, stop. Jules, stop. And drop into one breath.

Can I feel the breath? And you can do this with me and our listeners can do this with us. Can we pause our bodies and our mind for one breath to feel the breath coming in? It's just the force of God. It's the life force. It's a gift that allows us to continue. But can we feel that breath coming in? Can you feel the cool air coming down the back of your throat? Can you feel that gift of life landing in your heart? Can you feel the gift of life landing in your gut? And can you hold that gift for a split second and then allow yourself to release that breath while you release the tension that you're holding in your body? One breath. You have to breathe anyway. We're going to inhale anyway.

But if we focus on that breath coming in and we focus on the landing of that breath and we focus on the release of even an ounce of tension in our body, you've already shifted from that sympathetic system that's keeping us stuck in fight mode to a rest and reset with one breath.

If you can practice that for two or three breaths, you begin to bring your system into emotional regulation where you can tap back into emotional intelligence. I use stop, drop, and roll. So stop dropping into a few breaths. Once you recognize you're regulated again, roll back into relationship. And don't roll back in until you're regulated again. So stop, drop, and roll. I've used this practice in board meetings. I used it recently in a session I was in with a couple where I am certain there is domestic violence and narcissism going on in this couple. But neither the perpetrator or the victim are aware of this dynamic yet. But it had my heart beating out of my chest. I was triggered in all parts of my body, but I'm called to serve their highest good. And so I found myself stopping and dropping, even in the middle of a session, and then rolling back into service to them once I was regulated. Do it with my children. My children will say, There's Mama J stopping, dropping and rolling. We still kind of laugh about that, but practice it today, even in our family.

Ken Huey (26:25)
The name of the podcast is The Voice of Hope. We are, you know, I think any time in history you can always focus on what's negative. There's plenty right now to be alarmed by. There's plenty of dysfunction to go around. But what's just one story of hope or one instance, one thing that gives you hope about the work that you're doing, that we're doing in this world? (26:49)

Jules (26:49 — 29:56)
I have to give you two. hope it's okay.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter, who is a licensed clinical social worker, so the next generation, is working with a very challenged population in our world today from whom resources are being cut. It can feel like there's no hope for these families to stay together, to have enough food, to have shelter, to have safety.

and I watch her struggling, Ken, coming up as the generation behind us. She called me. having had developed the most beautiful response to a family in so much pain out of her capacity to hold hope for people in the darkest times. And I could hear her reflecting what she learned growing up with hundreds of foster siblings. I could hear her calling from that adaptive capacity to find resilience, to find one resource, to find one place that might feed this family for a day, she did not give up. And in a world that is so complex right now and so uncertain and so painful for so many people, that overwhelm could take us down. It could take us out. It feels heavy and it feels dark. And I saw this in the next generation. I felt lit up by her serving one family. And at the end of that conversation, my son called me.

who is a 911 dispatcher, has been for years, works in a field of horrific trauma and crisis and urgency. He got hired to become their training coordinator years ago. And he came to me and he said, Mom. There's so much trauma in what my people are doing. We're not talking about what's happening to their limbic system. This is my son talking about a dispatch center. And how can we, mom, how can we take these people faced with crisis on every time they pick up the phone? It's somebody's worst minute. Every call they answer, it's somebody's worst minute.

How can we bring the relief from toxic stress and secondary trauma even to our first responders in the world we're living in today? And he did his first public presentation last week in Baltimore and talked about the resilience he developed being in a foster home, our home that he was raised in, and taking this legacy that we can adapt to any population can, and both of these children of mine reminded me that there is pain in the world today. There is heaviness. There is darkness. There's challenge. There's torture. There's starvation. There is. And there's also light. And there is light when we remember the smallest flicker of light destroys the darkness.

And watching this next generation come up and remind me as I'm preparing to retire and hand off the baton, the light in them creates light in others. And I think that's what we have to hold on to today. It's not always about how heavy it feels out there. It's about the light we find in here. And I think providing that light to others who can carry the torch with us, that's how we carry on.

Ken Huey (29:56)
You — (30:03)

Jules (30:03)
I think this torch of hope and light.

Ken Huey (30:06)
Fantastic conversation. I could do this for another hour. It would be really fun. People want to get a hold of you. How do they do that? What's the way they find you? (30:13)

Jules (30:13 — 30:42)
I think the easiest way to find us is by emailing me personally. If I don't get to it, somebody will get back to it within a couple of days. Feel free to reach out to me by email at Julie, J-U-L-I, no E, J-U-L-I and the number one at alvarado consulting group, all one word, dot com. Please feel free to reach out to me by email or you can find us on our website at simply healing with Jules. and or the Alvarado Consulting Group.

Ken Huey (30:42)
Fantastic. Jules, always just a pleasure. the presence that you bring allows for this just settling in and warmth that I'm forever grateful for. Thank you so much.

Jules (30:53)
Thanks for having me, Ken.