I’ve always been curious about what’s underneath.
The symptom beneath the symptom.
The reaction beneath the reaction.
The story beneath the story.
I’m Julie Renae Smith, MPT—physical therapist by training, coach, speaker, #1 bestselling author, and creator of the Human Perspective Model™.
For more than 30 years, I’ve been fascinated by one question:
What changes when we can see what we couldn’t see before?
I’ve always been curious about what’s underneath.
The symptom beneath the symptom.
The reaction beneath the reaction.
The story beneath the story.
I’m Julie Renae Smith, MPT—physical therapist by background, coach, speaker, author, and creator of the Pain Bending™ framework.
For more than 25 years, my work has centered on one question:
What changes when we can see what we couldn’t see before?
Today, I help individuals and organizations recognize hidden patterns, translate the meaning they’ve made from experience, and open new possibilities for intentional choice.
Because where the problem shows up…
isn’t always where the problem started.
IT STARTED WITH THE BODY.
As a physical therapist, people rarely came to me because everything made sense.
They came because something hurt.
Something wasn’t working.
Something kept coming back.
Or because they’d already tried the obvious answers and the problem was still there.
So I learned to look beyond where the problem showed up.
What was compensating?
What was protecting?
What had adapted?
What looked dysfunctional—but might actually be keeping something else functional?
Over time, I became less interested in simply asking:
“Where does it hurt?”
and increasingly interested in asking:
“Why there?”
That curiosity shaped the way I practiced for decades.
And eventually, it led me somewhere I didn’t expect.
BECAUSE BODIES DON'T EXIST SEPARATELY FROM PEOPLE.
I started noticing that what happened in the body wasn’t always just about the body.
Stress changed movement.
Fear changed breathing.
Old experiences changed reactions.
Expectations changed what people noticed.
The meaning someone attached to pain could change the way they responded to it.
And the way they responded could change what happened next.
The body was giving me information.
But so was the story.
The body informs the story.
The story informs the body.
Once I saw that connection, I couldn’t unsee it.
THEN I STARTED NOTICING THE SAME THING EVERYWHERE.
Not just with pain.
In relationships.
At work.
During change.
In conflict.
In the stories people told about themselves.
Something would happen.
Someone would notice one part of it.
They’d make meaning from what they noticed.
That meaning would shape their reaction.
And after enough repetitions, the reaction could start to feel less like a response and more like:
“That’s just who I am.”
But I kept wondering:
What if it isn’t?
What if that’s one interpretation?
One perspective?
One piece of a much larger picture?
THAT QUESTION CHANGED MY WORK.
My work expanded from treating bodies to exploring the connections among body, brain, behavior, story, and perspective.
Not because I stopped believing in what I’d spent decades learning.
Because I started seeing more of it.
Pain taught me to look beneath the symptom.
Coaching taught me to listen beneath the story.
Speaking showed me how those same invisible patterns play out inside teams, leadership, stress, change, and performance.
Writing gave me a way to explore them through story.
And somewhere along the way, I realized:
I had been asking versions of the same question all along.
What’s happening underneath what I can see?
THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE MODEL™
That question eventually grew into the Human Perspective Model™—a framework for recognizing patterns, translating meaning, and opening new possibilities.
It begins with something remarkably simple:
Two people can experience the same moment and notice something completely different.
Neither has to be wrong.
They’re standing somewhere different.
The Model explores where our attention goes first, what we make things mean from there, and the patterns that can follow.
Not to put people into categories.
Not to identify the “right” perspective.
And not to tell anyone what they should do.
The goal is to see more.
Because when you can recognize the perspective you’re standing in, you may also begin to recognize what isn’t visible from there.
And that’s where choice gets interesting.
I DON'T BELIEVE PEOPLE NEED ANOTHER PERSON TELLING THEM HOW TO LIVE
That’s probably worth knowing about me.
I’m not particularly interested in handing you my answer.
I’m much more interested in helping you notice the question you haven’t asked yet.
Sometimes that’s uncomfortable.
Sometimes it’s funny.
Sometimes it’s:
“Ohhh. I do that.”
And sometimes one missing piece changes the meaning of everything around it.
My job isn’t to decide what you should see.
It’s to help you see enough of the picture to decide what you want to do with it.
THE ELEPHANTS CAME FROM THE SAME CURIOSITY.
My books, The Elephant Parables™, explore perspective through story.
The Elephant in the Pool — Reflection Distorts Reality asks what happens when our sense of ourselves becomes shaped by what gets reflected back.
The Elephant in the Puzzle — Pieces Create Meaning explores what happens when the pieces we have are real—but incomplete.
And The Elephant in the Sky — Distance Reveals Truth turns toward what becomes visible when we can get far enough away to see more of the whole.
Different stories.
Different vantage points.
Same elephant.
AND THEN THERE'S THE WORKDAY.
Organizations are full of things people can’t see.
The assumption someone makes before answering an email.
The tension carried from one meeting into the next.
The reaction that happens before anyone realizes they’ve had it.
The energy spent appearing fine.
The body sitting in the meeting while the nervous system is somewhere else entirely.
I call that The Invisible Workday™.
My speaking and training work helps organizations make more of those hidden human moments visible—so leaders and teams have more choice in what happens next.
THIS WORK HAS CHANGED SHAPE.
The curiosity underneath it hasn’t.
For more than 30 years, I’ve worked with bodies, brains, pain, behavior, stress, stories, change, and the complicated humans carrying all of them.
I’ve learned that where the problem shows up isn’t always where it started.
That understanding something isn’t the same as being able to change it.
That our interpretations can become so familiar they start masquerading as facts.
And that sometimes the smallest shift in perspective reveals something that was there all along.
There’s always more happening than what you can see.
That’s what keeps me curious.
And that’s the work.
WANT TO SEE WHERE YOU'RE STANDING?
You don’t need to start by changing anything.
Start by noticing.
The Human Perspective Snapshot™ uses ten everyday moments to give you a glimpse at where your attention naturally goes first.
No type.
No label.
Just somewhere interesting to start looking.
PAIN BENDING™
with Julie Smith
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