Today we’d like to introduce you to Rena Oliver.
Hi Rena, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Wow! It’s been QUITE the journey! I grew up in the fitness industry. My biological father was a body builder, and my mother was a group fitness instructor and dancer. I was also an athlete myself taking dance, gymnastics, and playing softball. I got my first personal training certification by the age of eighteen. I always took care of my body eating right and working out. However, I experienced some trauma as a child that I was ignoring, and my body began to break down in my mid 20’s. It got to the point where I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t get out of bed, and I was in so much pain that I could barely take care of myself. I was in and out of doctors appointments for 3-4 years, struggling to get answers as to what was wrong with me. I even had some doctors tell me that I was crazy, making it all up in my mind, and should go see a psychiatrist. Depressed, scared, and fragile, I finally found a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition, often associated as an autoimmune disease, that affects the central nervous system ( your brain and spinal cord), making it very challenging to live a normal life. It causes widespread pain in the entire body. It changes your ability to digest food or go to the rest room. It even causes muscle spams, constant fatigue, and memory loss. Although I was frustrated with the diagnoses, I was grateful to have answers. Now, I could create a health and wellness routine to help heal myself and get better. I started diving into spiritual and mental work, realizing that was what was missing from my life. I began practicing meditation, breath work, hypnotherapy, and started attending sound bath classes. I was going outside more, journaling, and I even attended a week long silent retreat in the mountains of Yosemite with Deepak Chopra so I had nothing to distract me. It was just me, my thoughts, and my emotions. I was doing everything and anything I could to not only finally face the trauma that I was ignoring for all those years, but to actually learn and grow from it. Slowly, I started to see myself get better. Not only was my body getting stronger, but my mind and spirit were healing as well. It took a few years, but now I feel more resilient and more myself than I ever was before. Although my journey has been challenging, and dark at times, I wouldn’t change what happened to me because now I can use my experience to help others not only with their physical wellness, but their mental and spiritual as well.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road for damn sure! lol. The beautiful and tragic thing about fibromyalgia is that you have to break yourself down to build yourself back up. You have to restructure your entire life from how you think, to who you hang out with, to what you do. It’s almost like being a baby and having to learn how to walk, but the caveat is that you already learned how to walk, but now you have to unlearn it, and learn an entire new way on how to do it. I also took a few years off from being a wellness coach, to try working in sales, but then I realized that the industry was making my mental health decline. So, I switched back into personal training DURING THE PANDEMIC WHEN GYM WERE MOSTLY CLOSED. Which was not any easy task let me tell you! Never mind the fact that the fitness industry is still vastly male dominated, and 80% of the time people want to work with a male coach rather than a female coach. However, I stayed positive, kept working hard, learned how to pivot with the fibromyalgia, now I’m able to work full time once again, and myself, my work, and my clients are thriving !
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I started off as a personal trainer when I was eighteen. Over the last 13 years that has transformed into being a health and wellness coach. I help clients to regulate their Mind Body & Soul, whether this means helping them with their physical goals through personal training and nutritional guidance, their spiritual needs through Vibrational Medicine with crystal bowls, Reiki, and other modules like a tuning fork, or their mental health struggles like working on stress and anxiety management through breath work, meditation, and sleep regulation. I believe that is what sets me apart from others. I believe that mental, physical, and spiritual health are all connected, and I can help people with all three. I am proud of myself for my own journey bringing me here, and having the ability to help others with the same things that I’ve struggled with. I like that I can turn my pain into purpose.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
When I read the book “The Body Keeps the Score” I felt seen and heard for the first time. This book talks about how trauma lives in the body and changes our genetic makeup. For anyone that has experienced trauma, and has struggled with their health mentally, spiritually or physically, this would be a great read for you. Two apps that I live by are the FODMAP app by Monash university, and Nerva. The FODMAP app for the longest time taught me about what foods I could and could not eat with IBS ( IBS is another wonderful side effect from living with Fibromyalgia). The Nerva app has been my saving grace for lulling me into sleep by teaching me IBS focused hypnotherapy. I would recommend these two apps to anyone struggling with the same things. Honestly though, I’ve found that the biggest resources in life tend to be people. For me that has been my family, friends, and some amazing mentors. My mom Sharon was my biggest support, and flew out to LA to take care of me when I no longer could. My rheumatologist, Dr Chen Xie, not only gave me the diagnoses I had been looking for, but had been there for me every step of the way as my health continues to change, and my spiritual healer Shannon Gallant, for not only helping me to work through the trauma that lived in my body through Vibrational Medicine, but teaching me the practice as well so I can help others to heal too.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
all photos taken by Ninni Koeso
