Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivia Young.
Hi Olivia, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. Before we get into questions about your work life, how can you bring our readers up to speed on your story, and how did you get to where you are today?
I moved to NYC and worked with celebrity chefs as brand director, opened 18 restaurants globally post culinary school and food & Wine magazine before starting my fitness concept, a boxing/yoga hybrid with 2 studios, no mirrors, for students to face their internal fight to find flow, 9 rounds on the heavy bag to beat off the music, So the fight becomes a dance fight becomes flow (complex becomes easy), teaching resilience and urging others to get out of the skill of sorts and into the release “flow through the fight” and never to drop your hands, even when it gets hard, never give up on you — into a 15 min vinyasa flow, music changes, etc., postures are held, breath is lengthened, into darkness and stillness death and rebirth balanced empowerment to take with you. The studio doors said, “Everything You Need is inside.” Yet I had no idea what was inside me until Covid closed my spaces, my 3K square foot brand new opening only 3 weeks before shut down, and I was invited to “look in.” And so began a 3-year journey of blowing up everything to understand my “why.” Why did I start boxing? Why was I so driven to hold others in their pain so they could find their power? What was I running from? My life was successful, privileged, and “pretty” on the outside, but inside, everything always felt like a fight. I was led to smoke crystalized toad venom 5MEO-DMT in Janis Joplins old apartment, having never done a drug before, and this was the pinnacle of psychedelics that led me down the rabbit hole to lose me to find me. This led me to do 3 years of deep work via psychedelic-assisted therapy and other modalities to save me and bring myself back to life — after finding 30 years of very violent subconscious sexual trauma that started young and followed me and then all the symptoms that came with it, repetitive patterns, disorders, anxiety, self-hate. So, I spent 3 years and acquired many tools to clean and clear my psyche – many different healing modalities to bring myself back to life through the mind, body, and heart. I had to learn myself wholly to learn to love myself, to start living. I am working on a book that speaks to the journey of learning to love yourself, to “LIVYOUNG,” and to hold space for others via coaching, healing, etc., to support people in their pain as they reclaim their power and pleasure, from existing to living. I speak, teach, coach, write, and facilitate building a community of “self lovers.”
Please talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned. Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh boy, the opposite. The hardest thing I ever did was commit to myself entirely, lose me to find me, uncover 30 years of repressed violent memories, and not shut off but keep digging into me to understand why I always felt so separate from myself, from others, from my heart. The struggles were endless, but I believe that God only serves what we can handle, and as such, perhaps I was more potent than the average bear, strong enough to carry it and soft enough to let it go and not give up on me, just as I taught others in box + flow class, I never dropped my hands, even if I thought about it, and wanted to, I saved my own life. And if I can, anyone can.
Thanks for sharing that. Please tell us more about your business.
I help people learn to love themselves, face their fight to find their flow, through their minds into their bodies to open their hearts. Re: another slide – I started a fitness concept to bring people through this journey physically. Now, I work on the same mental, emotional, and social concepts to rewire the nervous system and heal from the inside out. To heal yourself means to undo all that you are doing that is filling your life instead of fueling you, fighting you instead of moving you forward into your best self: diet, addiction, relationship, relationship to self, physical health, wellness, the way we spend our time, swiping, scrolling, sexting, texting, eating, drinking, dating — The space between what we have and what we want is filled with our excuses, separates you from your potential. In-to-me-see, intimacy requires looking within to realize your tools and answers; everything you need is inside.
What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
No one can save you but you. Everything you need is inside: your tools, answers, everything, but you have to clean and clear the space to come home to you.
Pricing:
- 1:1 healing offerings
- 1:1 coaching offerings
- Self guided courses
- Plant Medicine Integration Pre / Post
- Plant Medicine Ceremony
Contact Info:
- Website: livyoung.co
- Instagram: @livyoung
- Youtube: @TheLIVYOUNGPodcast
