Tarra Judson Stariell, LMFT and Author of Flashpoints of Awareness
Through these stories you will witness my experiential journey with ineffective defense mechanisms and the discovery and employment of successful alternatives for coping with life’s vicissitudes. They have been, along with the rest of my life my learning curriculum. It is my hope that these stories will serve you in some way, and perhaps contribute to your wellbeing and spiritual awareness.
After 28 years of successfully helping innumerable families and clients navigate through their struggles as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), Tarra now dedicates her time to writing informative, relatable, and page-turning books about her own experiences, both professionally and personal. She hopes to accomplish her life’s purpose of helping others, by reaching a bigger audience from the bookshelf!
Originally named Sandra Linn Judson, Tarra was born while her parents were attending university. However, before her father completed veterinary school, he was called to return to the family farm to assist his own father who had fallen ill. Forced to put his dreams on hold, he retreated further and further from his wife and children.
Simultaneously, mourning the death of her own parents and the miscarriages that plagued her, Tarra’s mother also grew more remote with each tragic loss. Medical traumas and an unaddressed sexual assault suffered at six years of age only added to this young girl’s sense of disconnection. Sadly, what should have been an idyllic childhood spent on a ranch amid family and friends became a time for a lost child to turn inward, fostering the vulnerabilities that would later drive her life.
Her journey from a childhood lost amidst the angst of her parents to a young woman, growing up in the turbulent 70’s took her to ideally serving in the Peace Corps. Embracing the cultural mysticism of this South American country where she was serving, she received a paranormal message warning that, “life as you know it on planet earth will not continue to be the same if humans do not change the way they are living.” Tarra chose to return home to spread that message, believing her mission was now to save the world.
The unhealed wounds and emotional rejection of her childhood grew as she failed in her attempts to share this message. Vulnerable and preyed upon by a psychopath, she fell under the spell of a man who was uniquely validating and offering to help her. She spent the next decade and more as an abused woman, living with others equally desirous to help the world be a better place. However, controlled by his illness and her own disassociation from reality, she left and returned to him in a textbook manner.
How she found the strength to extricate herself, to heal from all the abuse and her shame, and to ultimately help others, is at once compelling and horrifying, frightening and inspirational. She chronicled this journey in her first book.
Tarra returned to school to facilitate her healing and understand the dynamics behind her experiences. With the abuse well behind her, her mission now is to promote well-being and facilitate others in avoiding the pitfalls that consumed her life for so many years. She has incorporated the power of forgiveness in her life, and works to provide her readers with the tools needed to create a life of stability, self-confidence, grounded purpose, and fulfillment – the kind of life in which we can maximize our emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical potential and well-being.
Tarra now lives in the southern California of her childhood. When not writing books, or articles, she loves to travel the world, discovering our common roots among diverse cultures. However, the true gems in her life are family and friends.
The moments she narrates in Flashpoints of Awareness are stories in which she learned to suspend her normal way of ego-minded thinking only to allow a new and more enlightened awareness and ways of behaving and thinking to flood into her mind. Life is so much easier, enjoyable, loving, and peaceful when she practices these lessons. She is sharing them in hopes of the same for you.
