Wendy J Olson is a healing coach, founder, and president of Grit Plus Gumption Farmstead. Wendy believes in the power of story to change and shape people's lives. She walks with women through their stories of past hurts and traumas and guides them to find their own freedom and healing. Through Grit plus Gumption, she serves survivors of sexual exploitation and domestic violence. Having applied all she teaches to her own life as a survivor herself, she is able to guide women with kindness and grace, showing them there is always more freedom to be had in one’s life. She believes everyone has a story, and even if that story is really hard, it doesn't mean the rest of the story has to be.
Wendy J Olson, Healing Coach
Today we’re meeting a real-life healing coach! But wait, what is a healing coach? And why do we need one?
Tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
“My name is Wendy J Olson and I am a healing coach and a nonprofit founder. I walk with women through their stories of past hurts and traumas and guide them to freedom and healing. I am an advocate for survivors of sexual exploitation and domestic violence and work with these women through my nonprofit, Grit Plus Gumption Farmstead. I’m also someone’s wife and someone else’s mom! I love spending time outdoors, am an avid kayaker, and love to go paddleboarding. I love the sun and wish I lived on a beach, but instead I live in North Texas where the weather changes from one extreme to the next in a single day!”
Wow, that’s a lot of great work you’re doing. Tell me, how did you get into this line of work?
“Among the things that I am to other people, I’m also someone living with a chronic illness and PTSD and complex trauma. I came to this work by way of me needing it for myself. I was living in survival mode for many years, just burying my pain beneath each layer of people-pleasing and just getting by that it became so deeply embedded in my body that it resulted in a chronic illness known as Fibromyalgia, partnered with an autoimmune disease. I came to realize that what I was doing was not work, not serving me, and I came to the end of myself in a way. I needed a way out, I needed to be free. And so I started doing my own healing work. First on my body, and then on my soul and my spirit.”
Tell us more about healing your body! Who knew that physical ailments are linked to severe trauma?!
“They are absolutely connected, and I think we’re just coming to a point where more and more people are starting to acknowledge the brain/body connection. My realization came to me through a naturopath here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He listed out all the underlying causes of Fibromyalgia and explained that it was simply PTSD of the body. My body was carrying around too many things I wasn’t willing to acknowledge, and now it was screaming for my attention. And so guess what?! It got my attention.”
So first physical healing, then soul healing. What was that like?
“In one word? Painful. The physical was a real mental game, but the soul felt like being burned with fire every day. The searing and beautiful pain of healing is real. It’s hard and it’s exhausting and it takes everything out of you. But you keep going because you realize there is no going back. There is no old life to return to. There can only be forward.”
What kind of modalities did you use in your healing journey?
“I’ve incorporated a lot of modalities into my life, trying some and experimenting with others. The main one I came to was Story Work, which is a modality taught by The Allender Center at The Seattle School in Washington. The formal name for it is Narrative Focused Trauma Care. Essentially we’re all telling ourselves and others these stories of our lives that are only in part and hardly close to true. We know we’ve been harmed, but we’re so unaware of the harm that we hide it, minimize it, using platitudes and brushing things off as not-that-bad in order to live our lives. But we’re far from present in our own bodies, and we’re far from present in our own stories. This is the method I use with most of my clients.”
That’s incredible! And it sounds like a lot of work.
“It is one hundred and ten percent a lot of hard work. It’s disrupting, and no one wants their life disrupted. So stepping into this sort of work takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength to keep walking this very treacherous, and sometimes dark road. I commend anyone that comes to it willingly. Or that comes to it young! I was deep into my thirties before I ever waved the white flag, but I see so many young women in their twenties already recognizing for themselves this is NOT the life they want to live. And I applaud that. It’s humbling.
What other modalities can you speak to for your own healing that you’ve used or can recommend?
“I have done EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for two years. It’s completely changed my life and lessened my PTSD symptoms on a daily basis. It’s also extremely disruptive and you have to find a good therapist to administer. There is no cure for PTSD, but there is hope with proper care and treatment. Among other things I do daily is a practice of meditation, prayer, grounding, breathwork, and yoga. I also incorporate Somatic Therapy through movement, as well as changes in my diet and exercise routines. Healing is never just a one-and-done thing. It’s many moving parts, all aimed at moving you forward.”
And our last question for you, and I think it’s the most important one…why do we need a healing coach?
“I love this question because it’s so simple: we need each other. We need community. We are intrinsically designed to need people, to need relationship. There’s just no way around it. But most importantly is that we cannot heal by ourselves. You cannot heal yourself. You cannot heal alone.
Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score which I highly recommend, talks about how yoga is great, but yoga in a group setting is better. He called it Communal Synchronicity. There’s something about knowing you are not alone in what you are going through. There’s something about sitting across from someone, sharing a story of great harm, and looking up to see their face and them saying, ‘Me too.’
We’ve all been harmed. There’s just no way around it. I wish it weren’t so. I have two kids and I wish the world would just leave them unscathed. But the truth is they live in a house with two adults who were also harmed, and who will harm, despite our best efforts. I think that’s the hardest thing to accept as a parent.
But here’s the good news. There is harm, but there is also healing. And healing is good, and it is available, and there are some good people who can know the real you, that you can feel safe with, and can teach you about what real love and safety can feel like. That can hold space with you. There’s actually a whole lot of us! We’re all here and willing to listen and guide and just be there. You just have to be willing to raise your hand, raise your white flag, and surrender to the process. And that’s the hardest part.
One of my favorite sayings and I use it all the time, is ‘Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired?’
Well…are you?”
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