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About Curiously-U
I am Johanna Cliffe
And I warmly welcome you to Curiously-U.
This work began long before it had a name.
At its heart is a simple calling: to create spaces where women can come home to themselves.
Not through fixing or striving, but through connection, curiosity and the courage to meet what is already here.
For much of my life, I believed it was my role to hold everything together.
To carry the emotional weight, to make sure everyone was okay and to keep things moving. Caring for others has always come naturally to me, and it remains one of the deepest parts of who I am. What has changed is that somewhere along the way, I realised I belonged in that circle of care too. Returning to myself didn't make me less compassionate; it made me more whole.
Like many of the women I now work with, my life has been shaped by both joy and challenge. Not by one defining moment (although I have had my fair share of these), but by hundreds of ordinary ones. By learning, unlearning and beginning again. By discovering that every time I returned to myself, even in the smallest ways, something around me began to shift. My relationships softened, my family changed with me, and my work became more meaningful. I stopped trying so hard to become someone else and began remembering who I already was. That journey continues, and I don't believe it ever truly ends.
And perhaps that's the beauty of it.
When a woman begins to reconnect with herself, something quietly powerful shifts. The way she relates to her life, her relationships, her choices and her sense of possibility begins to change. And with that, so does the world around her.
I have seen this ripple effect in the women I have worked alongside, and I continue to experience it in my own life, too. This is the work I am devoted to.
Reconnection. Realignment. Rising from within.
Curiously-U
Curiously-U was born from a deep belief that transformation does not happen in isolation. It happens in relationship - in connection, in feeling emotionally safe enough to be wholly ourselves. Over the years, I have come to understand that what people often need most is not more answers. They need more space: space to pause, to feel, to listen inwardly and to soften into what is true.
Somewhere along the way, I realised that most of us don't need someone to rush in with solutions. We need someone willing to stay: to stay with the uncertainty, the grief, the contradictions, the tears that don't yet have words or the excitement that feels frightening. To stay with the parts of ourselves we've hidden because they didn't seem acceptable.
I have come to trust that when we feel emotionally safe enough to stay with ourselves, something begins to unfold naturally. Not because someone fixed us, but because we finally had room to hear ourselves.
Again and again, I have witnessed women finding the courage to speak something they had never quite found words for before. Meeting parts of themselves they had carried in guilt, shame or fear. Realising, often through the simple presence of others, that they are not alone in what they carry.
These moments are rarely dramatic.
They are often quiet, gentle and almost imperceptible.
Yet they change everything.
This is the space I hold.
My Story
How I came to this work For more than twenty years I have worked in education, from early years practice and family work through to higher education, leadership and adult learning. Throughout every role, one thread has remained constant: A deep curiosity about people. About how we make meaning from our experiences, how we lose and rediscover our voice, and the stories we begin to believe about ourselves. Alongside my professional life, my personal life has shaped this work just as deeply. Over the years, I have found myself entrusted with many of life's tender moments. Supporting the people I love through crisis, illness, uncertainty, profound loss and the ordinary challenges that quietly shape us all. Standing alongside family, friends and those closest to me when life asked more of them than they ever imagined it would. One of the greatest privileges of my life has been accompanying people I love and those that I work with, through some of their most significant moments. Those experiences taught me something that no qualification ever could. That presence matters. We don't always need to have the answers. There is extraordinary strength in simply staying and not turning away when life becomes messy, uncertain or heartbreaking. Again and again, I discovered that emotional safety isn't created by fixing someone's pain. It is created when they know they don't have to carry it alone. Those experiences didn't lead me to this work on their own, but they deepened the way I now hold it. They taught me how to sit with uncertainty without rushing it away. How to trust silence and how to remain steady when someone else's world feels as though it is falling apart. How to hold the emotion without becoming consumed by it. Perhaps most importantly, they reminded me that beneath all our different stories, we are simply human beings longing to feel seen, understood and held with compassion. Over time I have become fascinated by the stories we carry. The quiet stories about who we need to be or about always being strong. About not taking up space, needing to earn rest and putting ourselves last. Many of these stories were never consciously chosen, yet they shape how we move through the world. I don't believe our work is to erase those stories. I believe it is to meet them with compassion, understand where they came from, and gently begin writing new ones that feel more like home. Perhaps that is why this work feels so deeply familiar to me. Whether I was teaching, researching, leading or coaching, I have always been drawn to the places where people begin to reconnect with themselves. Real transformation, I've learned, is rarely loud. It is often subtle. Deeply human, and profoundly relational. How I work Everything I have experienced shapes the way I hold space today: with gentleness, honesty and deep respect for the courage it takes to be fully seen. I believe connection is one of the most powerful things we can offer one another. In a world that often rewards performance over presence, choosing genuine connection feels quietly radical. To sit with another person without needing to fix them, to witness rather than rescue, to listen beneath the words and to create spaces where every part of someone is welcome: that is the work I love most. Through transformational coaching, women's circles, astrology consultations and The Journey Process, I support women as they reconnect with themselves. Together, we explore what is present, what is asking to be understood and what is ready to be released, not as a process of becoming someone different, but as a process of remembering who they have always been. I don't see this as me leading someone else's journey. I see it as walking alongside them, sharing curiosity and presence, and trusting that the wisdom they seek already exists within them. An invitation If you are here, perhaps something within you is already asking to be heard: a quiet knowing, a question, a longing, or a sense that life could feel different. Often, the clarity we seek is not something we need to find; it is something we need space to hear. If my words have resonated with something in you, I would be honoured to listen alongside you. For many years, I believed caring for others meant placing myself outside the circle. What I have come to learn is that true care includes us too, and that is what I hope every woman experiences here. Not another place where she has to become more, but a place where she remembers that she belongs too.
My academic and professional bio
Full publication list can be found here.
Alongside this work, I have spent more than two decades in education as a lecturer, leader and researcher. My academic practice has been shaped by relational, reflective and meaning-centred approaches, with a focus on human experience, emotion and connection. I hold a Fellowship with Advance HE, a Master of Arts in Education, and a BA (Hons) in Early Childhood. My published work in early years education explores emotion, relationships and our deeper connections with ourselves and one another. These themes continue to inform my coaching practice today. Alongside this foundation, I am a certified and accredited IAPC&M Transformative Coach, an Accredited Journey Practitioner, a Women’s Circle Facilitator, and I have trained in astrology with Debra Silverman. These trainings sit within my work as supportive tools, held within a relational, embodied and emotionally attuned approach to transformation.