What the Body Carries: Adoption, Burnout, and Healing with Juliana Matye

Juliana Matye, a former social worker, adoptee, mother, and now a trauma-informed coach, shares her journey from a career in child protection and social services, through personal burnout and PTSD, to finding healing through somatic practices and coaching. Her story weaves together professional insight and lived experience, offering a grounded perspective on trauma, resilience, and the slow process of rebuilding purpose.

Listeners will hear about Juliana’s early life as an adoptee, her years on the frontlines of child welfare, the emotional toll of burnout, and how she came to embrace somatic work as both a personal practice and a vocation.

Key Takeaways

• Early adoption experiences can shape attachment patterns and emotional regulation well into adulthood.
• Frontline social work exposes workers to deep systemic trauma, often without sufficient institutional support.
• Burnout and PTSD may surface most strongly during personal life transitions, such as motherhood.
• Somatic practices offer a path to healing by addressing trauma stored in the body, not just through talk therapy.
• Self-regulation skills—breathwork, meditation, creativity—are essential for long-term resilience.
• Healing is not about erasing trauma but learning to sit with it and reframe it as part of one’s life purpose.

About: Juliana Matye is a Trauma-Informed Coach and Somatic Practitioner with over 15 years of experience helping individuals break free from trauma patterns and create healthy, fulfilling relationships. Her work centres on building the habits, lifestyle, and emotional skills that foster lasting growth, resilience, and deep connection. Through a blend of trauma-informed care and somatic practices, she guides clients in expanding their emotional capacity, regulating their nervous system, and cultivating a life—and relationships—rooted in safety, presence, and love.

Connect at: Website, Newsletter, Facebook Group

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 4:15 Early life and adoption story
• 6:57 Learning about being adopted at age seven
• 15:12 Attachment wounds, loneliness, and codependency in friendships
• 20:26 Early career paths: massage, physical therapy
• 24:04 Discovery social work in university
• 26:39 Early career paths: massage, physical therapy
• 28:56 Confronting systemic trauma
• 34:35 Family reunification work and its challenges
• 41:10 Long-term relationship and marriage dynamics
• 44:23 Becoming a mother during COVID
• 49:47 Triggers, PTSD, and recognising unresolved trauma
• 52:34 Stress leave, beginning somatic practices, and self-healing
• 56:27 Discovering somatic therapy as a calling
• 1:04:26 Tools for healing: meditation, creativity, craniosacral therapy
• 1:08:32 Spiritual awakening and reframing life purpose
• 1:16:42 Adoption—past, present, and future
• 1:19:18 Being a trauma informed coach
• 1:23:39 Somatic meditation as a tool
• 1:24:57 Advice from experience
• 1:26:09 Closing