Olive Walton - Breaking Barriers to Strength, Mobility, and Body Love
“In these spaces that aren't traditionally for everyone, the biggest form of protest is to take up space.” - Olive Walton
Content note: This episode and the below text feature frank discussions about eating disorders, weight loss, and working out. Our intro also touches on the current war Palestine and Israel which both Sarah and I recognize as a direct result of colonization and white supremacy. We continue to align ourselves and our work with the liberation of all. If you’re sensitive to these topics, you may want to be mindful when engaging with this episode.
Speaking of liberation, my conversation with Movement Coach Olive Walton is a reminder of how much mental anguish and physical damage shame can inflict and how letting go of that can be transformative. Our society teaches us to feel shame about our bodies no matter what- there’s a constant moving goalpost around appearance and doesn’t often coordinate with health or take into consideration the gorgeous individuality of the way bodies are built and function. Olive understands that everyone who walks into a gym or studio is carrying their own unique history and aims to meet that with curiosity, compassion and kindness rather than with intensity and shame.
“Conversations I've had recently with quite a few people highlight how many people’s firsthand experiences with physical education were pretty negative,” Olive says. Some of us have carried that negativity into adulthood, often pursuing movements our bodies struggle to accommodate and then shaming ourselves for failing to fit into a painfully restrictive mold. “A big part of what I do is break down those barriers, reframe their perspective, and work with a more positive, playful attitude.”
Olive is keenly aware of the affects of shame that many clients bring with them to the gym, having struggled herself with an eating disorder and the body dysmorphia that often accompanies it. “There was deep loathing that I had for the way I looked,” she admits. That personal history led her to create a physical practice that blends joyful movement with curiosity to support clients in creating better relationships with their bodies. She knows that the gym or yoga studio can feel intimidating and works from that space to create a more comfortable and welcoming environment. I can say from personal experience that it empowers everyone to proceed with compassion rather than caution. “I'm still trying to figure out how I got to a place where I'm very comfortable in the gym,” she says. “I think early on, it was pure stubbornness.” It also helps that Olive has “the worst lifting b*tch face,” which keeps the gym idiots at bay.
Above all, “personal training is about patience,” Olive says. She urges folks to quit muscling through the shame and get curious about what their bodies enjoy doing instead. As a yoga teacher myself, I know how impactful it came be when you stop forcing your body into something for the sake of forcing it into something, and instead drop the expectations and get curious about what your body likes, needs and wants. It changes your entire relationship to yourself and is a radical act of rebellion.
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