Bright Lights: Julia Williamson and Madeleine Monacelli Help Others Through Singing

Julia Williamson and her daughter, Madeleine Monacelli, help people conquer their fears, heal their bodies, and open to their creative gifts. That journey started in 1999 when Williamson sought the help of an energy healer for chronic health issues she and her 18-month-old son were facing.

The healer, Maggie Landman of Brisbane, Australia, advised Williamson to improve their diet, removing things like wheat and sugar. Williamson and her son were soon feeling better. But Williamson’s life improved dramatically once Landman guided her through a self-healing process called Past Age Clearing and Healing (PACH). Through this meditative technique, Williamson worked to heal emotional wounds, trauma, and limiting beliefs.

“Maggie changed my life,” says Williamson, who also lives in Brisbane.

At the time, Williamson was working a corporate job, raising two children, and longing to sing, which she’d abandoned in childhood due to insecurity. The work she did with Landman improved her energy and outlook. It also led her back to singing.

For seven years, Williamson sang professionally. But in 2007, she gave up performing to launch Voicejam, a singing and healing school, to help people discover their voice. In 2020, she evolved the business into Sing to Thrive.

Williamson works with her daughter, who lives in Brunswick Heads in New South Wales, about 150 miles south of Williamson’s home. Through Sing to Thrive, the mother-and-daughter duo offer a variety of products, such as downloadable high-vibrational music, guided healing journeys with interactive singing, and online singing programs. They give singing lessons and facilitate singing groups, workshops, and retreats. They also provide mentoring and one-on-one healing sessions incorporating the PACH process, the technique that was so transformative for Williamson. Both are certified PACH practitioners.

More Than Music Therapy

Monacelli, 27, explains Sing to Thrive this way: “We help you unlock the power of your voice so you can fully express your authentic self.”

Adds Williamson, 60: “We help people feel free within themselves and not care what anyone else thinks—to speak their truth no matter how confronting a situation is, sing at the drop of a hat, and become the fully expressed version of themselves in whatever creative endeavor they choose.

“The voice is intrinsically linked to every aspect of our lives,” she continues, “so when we live in the moment and share authentically, we don’t waste time in the past and we open the gateway to creative inspiration.”

The approach merges the therapeutic power of singing affirmational, a cappella music with conscious intention to release stuck emotions and build a positive mindset by overriding subconscious, self-sabotaging patterns.

“I have witnessed profound transformations in the lives of thousands of students,” Williamson says. “It’s a simple but highly effective approach for taking back your power to manifest positive change.” It’s more straightforward than music therapy, she adds, “where people benefit from rhythm, music, and vibrational frequency. With Sing to Thrive, all the song lyrics are designed with positive psychology to rewire new neuronal pathways to build a positive growth mindset. The beautiful imagery stimulates the brain’s visual cortex to inspire, and the process naturally coaches the ear through the layered a cappella harmonies, building musicality.” She notes that while Sing to Thrive is certainly both fun and healing, more importantly, it’s empowering. “It creates permanent positive change in the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies,” she adds. “You naturally become a more confident, optimistic, and self-loving person.”

Creating Life-Affirming Music

Williamson and Monacelli work with people from preschoolers to octogenarians all over the world. They also both write their own music, with lyrics that include mantras and positive affirmations.

Williamson began writing music while teaching elementary school-age children in the mid-2000s. “My students were bringing such oversexualized songs that they wanted to sing,” she recalls. “They just didn’t believe in themselves and thought they had to look a certain way to fit in. So I decided to start writing my own material that was life-affirming, helped bring awareness to self, and built self-worth.”

In 2017, with a desire to expand Voicejam, Williamson did a three-month isolation retreat. “Boy did that bring up some stuff,” she remembers. “I experienced abuse in my childhood, and I was still subconsciously protecting myself and keeping myself safe. At the retreat, I was able to clear the patterns that were holding me back from expanding and really putting myself out there.” She saw a vision of herself teaching others how to run singing groups as well as how to heal through voice. She’s now writing programs that teach people to do just that.

When we live in the moment and share authentically, we don’t waste time in the past and we open the gateway to creative inspiration.

“You don’t need music training,” she says. “You just need to be able to sing in key and sing from your heart, and the people will come.”

During the 2017 retreat, Williamson broke her ankle, which gave her more time to heal and work on her limiting beliefs and fears. She then began recording her music.

“That brought up more fears because in the studio you have to be perfect. It was a massive project, and that’s where Madeleine stepped up,” she remembers. “She sang 95 percent of the harmonies. She added so much beauty to the songs. I’ve always had this script where I felt very alone. Madeleine knew me. She knew the music. She was the only one in the world who knew what I was trying to achieve. When she stepped in, it went to another level.”

A Daughter’s Calling

Singing, Monacelli says, “has always been my thing. I always thought that I wanted to be a performer, but I don’t love the music industry and the pressures of performing and the lifestyle of nighttime gigs.”

She was about 16 years old when she started teaching through her mother’s school. “It just evolved,” Monacelli says. “It flowed and felt easy and right.”

Monacelli taught while working as a barista and at other odd jobs. After a couple of years, she quit the other jobs. “They were depleting me,” she says, and she knew the work she was doing with her mother was what she was meant to do.

Like Williamson, Monacelli worked with Landman using the PACH process. “I started to own my stuff and take responsibility for myself,” she says.

Monacelli wants to live a joyful life and help others do the same. “I want to use my voice and help others find their voice and experience joy in the process,” she says.

Adds Williamson: “We are the product of our beliefs. Everyone can create what they want—they just have to believe it, and that’s where singing is so powerful. I inadvertently created a potent recipe to successfully heal through major trauma and fear.”

Recently, the duo launched a new program called Healing Through Voice, which promises to be deeply healing, transformative, and fun.

Healing, Williamson says, doesn’t have to be arduous and painful. Using the power of music, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, visualization, and conscious intention, we empower people to take charge of their own happiness.

“Music automatically makes you happy. Singing raises your vibration and as an active form of meditation, it’s one of the most fun ways to quickly bring yourself back to balance.”

This article appeared in Unity Magazine.