Ep. #24: From Heartbreak To Hope With Julie Plagens
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Dallas, TX native Julie Plagens is a wife, mother, teacher, blogger, and author. Before she married, she taught speech, drama, and English for three years in the Richardson Independent School District. After she married, she became a stay-home mom. Julie has volunteered for many years locally and in South Texas doing Vacation Bible Study, food distribution, and door-to-door witnessing. Now that her children are grown, she is a substitute teacher for a private school in Dallas and works intermittently for her husband.
Growing up as a self-described “preacher’s kid” Julie felt the pressure to be perfect and to stand in the shadows of her father, who was a pastor for two local mega-churches. The strains of pastoral life and in the public eye took a toll on her family, and Julie painfully cut ties with her parents.
After a heartbreaking estrangement from her parents, Julie realized she was not alone in her feelings of shame and her struggles to interact with family in a healthy way. Julie’s experience with family estrangement formed the basis for her book, Estranged: Finding Hope When Your Family Falls Apart, available on Amazon. Now that she has reconciled with her family, she wishes to help others find hope when they experience a family rift or a full-blown estrangement. When Julie is not talking about forgiveness, she is sharing helpful tips on her blog about family, marriage, school, and faith.
As a self-described creative, Julie offers the following tips to women who are venturing out into the world of business ownership or other endeavors:
Create a schedule for completing related tasks such as writing. Allow yourself to be flexible.
Don’t let fear stand in your way of getting started. Do it scared.
Take things one step at a time, and allow yourself some grace when things don’t go as planned.
Make it a habit to do something toward your goal each day.
Julie lives with her husband of 26 years in Dallas, Texas.
Julie’s book may be found on Amazon and in local Dallas, TX bookstores.