Women Like Me Stories & Business

Olivia Greenland: What If “Too Sensitive” Is Your Superpower

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 167

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What if “too sensitive” is actually highly attuned, and the fastest path to finding your voice? Julie sits down with energy healer and ceremonial photographer Olivia Greenland to trace the arc from survival mode to self-trust, revealing how small somatic shifts and smart reframes can calm the body, quiet the ego, and let intuition lead.

Olivia shares early body clues —eczema, pain, and hypervigilance—that something was off, then explains how she learned to read her nervous system like a map. We dig into practical tools you can use anywhere: a 10-second bow that softens ego, a power pose that changes state, and body scans that spot where tension begins and how it spreads. 

Olivia’s photography becomes a living lab for transformation: “bad photos” aren’t failures, they’re messengers. By surfacing hidden energy through micro-movements and pairing it with compassionate reframes, clients watch alignment return in real time, posture tall, gaze steady, symmetry restored.

We also unpack why logic versus intuition is a false choice. Olivia blends neuroscience with energy work to show how posture, breath, and language give the brain the data it needs to trust the first quiet answer. 

Anxiety often starts in the body, so we work from the body up to interrupt loops before they harden. When scarcity thoughts appear, she honors the protector behind them. If you’ve ever felt dulled out yet overwhelmed, this conversation offers a clear path to reclaim safety, reframe self-critique, and integrate head and heart so your higher self can step fully into the frame.

If this resonates, tap follow, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show. Tell us: which simple practice will you try first?

Check out Olivia's Website:  https://oliviagreenlandphotography.ca/

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Who Is Julie Fairhurst?

Speaker • Author • Business Strategist • Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a force of nature disguised as a woman with a pen and a business brain built for impact. As the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program, she has opened the door for women around the world to share their truth, heal their past, and rise into their power. Since 2019, she has published more than 30 books and over 350 true-life stories — without charging a single writer a dime! Why? Because women’s stories deserve daylight, not gatekeeping.

With 34 years in sales, marketing, and successful business leadership, Julie knows how to turn storytelling into influence and influence into income.

Her mission is clear and unapologetic: break generational trauma one story at a time and help women elevate both emotionally and financially. She doesn’t just publish books, she builds brands, confidence, and possibility, giving women the tools to rewrite their futures, grow their businesses, and lift their families with them.


Julie's Website




SPEAKER_01:

Well, hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Women Like Me, Stories and Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst, and today I'm with such a lovely, lovely young woman. We've been chatting a little bit before we started recording, so uh you are gonna love listening to this lady. She's got lots of wisdom and uh and lots of good things that she wants to share. So her name is Olivia Greenland, and she um has been doing energy healing for quite some time now, and she's really wanting to use her voice uh to uh to reach out to others in the world that might be struggling and might be hurting. And we're gonna talk about one of the things I underlined uh when I got uh her submission was I want to talk to her a little bit about what she talks about, uh choosing between logic and intuition. So we're gonna touch on that as well. So, Olivia, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it so much. Would you like to tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thank you for having me. Um I'm Olivia and I'm 25 years old and I'm based in the lower mainland of BC, but I love my work that it gives me the opportunity to travel for it because sometimes clients need that debt that a specific destination can provide for them. And I love that aspect of being a what I call a ceremonial photographer and who we specialize on capturing legacy, legacy of women, of business owners, of children, and pets of all shapes and skin, like fur and scales. I don't shy away from any type of pets. And I've worked with I've not just through photography, but through dogs that I've rehabbed and various horses of having problems, and they've really taught me a lot about how to work with people as well, and about being able to map out just an individual, like human or animal, their nervous system, and to find their thresholds and being able to work with them with whatever modality we're using, where we're kind of needing their nervous system and their boundaries like dough, and we kind of push towards it but pull away and push towards it and pull away. And by the end, we have found expansion in their nervous system.

SPEAKER_01:

Interesting. I never even thought about it like that. That's yeah, that's so interesting. Wow. Well, let me ask you. Um, I've got some questions here for you. So let me let me jump in and ask you one. So you talk about growing up in survival mode. So, what were your first clues that your body was speaking a language that you had learned, but but not fear?

SPEAKER_00:

I think, you know, I think like at like looking back on things now, I think it can be traced back almost to like the moment that I came out of the womb. I think a lot of things, I think a lot of things transferred through to me because when we're in the womb, it becomes pretty powerful because there's a moment where when we're pregnant with our our children or a woman's pregnant with their child, and if it's a girl, they're actually carrying like all of their future generations within that girl as her eggs form within that baby, and there's a lot of energy in the womb, it's like a sponge, right? And so if your mother has anything which she does, because it takes it can take a lifetime to clear your womb energy out, you know, that will transfer through you to birth. And you know, I had things like eczema since I was pretty much born, and and that is is my eczema has always been connected to my nervous system um and my environment more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01:

So when you so when there's stress then or conflict or something like that happening, then your eczema would flare up. Yeah, basically, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you've had that ever since a baby.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I feel like that could be the earliest sign, and you know, it's not that I wasn't loved right away, but it's I'm a highly sensitive person, which has often been used as a um almost like an insult. And I know other people have like they take it as like you know, it's something that they have to work on. They're like, I'm too sensitive, but it's more of a gift and and torture at the same time. But um, as you learn to work with it, you can realize that it's a gift, and I think like it's not like as a baby, I I wasn't being mistreated per se, but you know, I was picking up on all the energy around me and um things that had already come through me, I think, in the womb and and whatnot. And and that was kind of I guess the start of it, and it just kind of as I grew, I absorbed more and more. Um and I had like growing up, I was what we would call now um the oppositional defiant disorder is what I struggled with, but we never really realized that till I was an adult. Um, and we kind of found some of like was able to start, or I was able to start mapping like my brain and my my actions and my reactions and understanding like um the activations that would cause all these things and the roots that tie everything together. And um yeah, so that it's kind of like a little bit of me.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think you're right about the about people being the highly sensitive people because there are people that are very, very sensitive and sensitive not just to what other people say, but sensitive to, like you say, the energies of of, you know, you walk in a room and you can immediately feel it, you know, those kinds of things. And and I do believe, I I've seen it myself in my own family that um sensitive people sometimes are treated um not special. You know, that why are you being so sensitive? That's not what I meant, or those kinds of things. Or, or just, you know, I I have a family member I remember they they can't walk in a mall. The energy is just it's too much for them with all those people in there. So I I agree. I think that it's um, yeah, we need to try to understand more about what's about what's happening with our our family members and our children so that we can help them through that. Because being highly, highly sensitive is actually a very cool thing.

SPEAKER_00:

I think so. And I think if you can change the if other people can change their mindsets around highly sensitive people, and there's I think the the clash between a highly sensitive person and someone who isn't is ego. Um and the person's ego gets defensive with a highly sensitive person because the highly sensitive person is trying to name things, you know, if they're vocal about it or like a truth seeker, where they have that brain where like they have to trace things and they have to they have that sense of justice, um, especially if you're neurodivergent, I am if that wasn't obvious by now, right? And um then it triggers their ego and their defense, but and and it that's it's okay and that's valid, but if we're aware of that, like over time, we can learn to use highly sensitive people as a map and their nervous system as a map because it's not sensitive, it's just attuned and aware. Yes, everyone else isn't. I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

Highly attuned people, yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. That's a much better word than sensitive.

SPEAKER_00:

I think so. I think right out the bat, like sensitive makes it seem as if it's you're the problem. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, yes, absolutely, yeah. So you talk about wanting to find your voice or wanting to be able to use your voice. Have you felt that you haven't been able to use your voice in the past?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, perhaps just with the various like childhood wounds I had, or perhaps not even with the wounds, but just going through things at a younger age and not having the know-how, but like my subconscious knows that it's like, well, there's more to this. Um, this isn't how it's supposed to be. Like, because I I'd I'd see the patterns, but I didn't have the know-how to actually like name them for a long time. So, in a way, it's it's kind of multiple things. It's now now I have the knowledge, now I can name things, now I can talk about it more and create awareness for other people too. Yes. Um, so that they can have that awareness. And because you just need to hear someone say something, like, I've got various chronic health issues, and a lot of them I didn't really realize I had until like I was a later adult, like, because I didn't I couldn't understand or even feel the symptoms because it was just so normalized for me. And no one had ever given me a true baseline of how a healthy human should feel, I guess. Um, like the obvious things were obvious, like my eczema breaking out, um, being in so much pain with growing pains when I was a young kid that I couldn't walk, and having that carry into when I was a teenager not being able to get out of bed or the couch because my knees were so bad. Like those big events were obvious when I was absolutely crippled. Wow. But everything else when I was just kind of, you know, because I was also in survival mode, and I think you're running off of adrenaline, and you don't really like you create such a mask within yourself that you don't you don't always feel everything. So I was both highly sensitive or attuned and dulled out at the same time to things. Um, and then as I just kind of kept pushing, like it's kind of hard to because you don't know what to Google or to research to look for in a book or to ask someone if you don't know what you're even looking for. So just kind of by luck, I would you know, stumble upon things, and I'd be like, Well, hold on a second, and I'd slow down and I'd read it, and then I'd be like, Well, maybe that kind of like kind of rings some bells now in my head, and then I'd carry that information with me, and then I'd be able to start to see the patterns in um like my heart rate or my just the way that my body and my nervous system would react throughout the day, and it's taught me that like a lot of anxiety that we feel, it's not it doesn't start in the head, but it starts in the body.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, so true.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and your head just follows, and then after time it becomes kind of like a tornado of both the head and the body, but like where your head will start to almost um like do it before your body does it because it's just assuming it's going to happen because it's kind of programmed in certain situations, yeah. Um, but the yeah I I think it always started in the body to start with.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, you're so right. I believe I I believe that. I believe that uh that we hold especially emotion-wise, right? So we hold so much inside of us. And it the body, the body can only take so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's and it's and it's really great that you've um been able to recognize that, you know, and that you're that you're searching and you're researching and and to to discover what what's the cause of these things that are happening to you. I think so many of us, we just we don't try to find the reason why. Yeah. And yeah, and sometimes um that can create trouble. So you talk about reclaiming safety in bodies. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, it means like creating a space where your body feels safe enough to just exhale and like where you're you're not doing it because you're programmed to do it, but like you actually feel the shift in your body. You feel more grounded, you feel more rooted, um, and your mind will often follow once it realizes that your body is safe, and it's kind of a balance of also giving the mind enough to feel that it's also safe. But the key is to really work with the body and not try to just be like, oh, I'm jittery, okay, like let's let's just ignore that, like it's about moving through what your body is giving you in the present moment and using symptoms or feelings as signs, like as a map, um, and just learning to like do body scans with with awareness so that you can start to feel deeper um to feel like where things are actually stemming from, like, because our whole body is connected, so maybe you do feel something first in a specific spot of your body, but if you take the time to sit with it, maybe you can actually feel that it's stemming from another place that your body is connected to, like maybe um there's recurring issues with your hips or your back, but maybe the problem is actually in your feet, and you kind of have to address both, right? And if your toes aren't aligned or you're not using your whole foot with all the muscles and letting it intentionally touch the earth, um then maybe you're getting more tension in the arch of your foot because you're bracing instead of melting into your steps, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I get I I understand what you're saying for sure. Yeah. So in your photography work, you um what have you witnessed in clients when their higher self finally comes into the frame? So are you seeing a transformation of people when you're doing your photography?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sometimes it's yeah, I would say it's there is stuff that happens instantly in the moment, and then there's also stuff that happens um later on. So we always get good and bad photos, and the bad photos are they're not bad, they are just messengers, and so are the good ones, they all carry something, and basically the quote unquote the bad ones, which I'm still kind of looking for a different like way to reference them, yeah, because I truly don't think they're bad. Um they when you don't like even if you catch your glimpse in a window as you walk by and you don't like yourself, you it has nothing to do with your appearance and the way you look, but the energy that you saw just under the surface of your skin. So sometimes we will even ask and we will like use somatic movements to draw that energy up to the surface, and I'll snap the photo when it feels right to capture that, and that allows us to sit and reflect with that energy and have it be mirrored back to us, and it helps us learn to sit with something uncomfortable, with a version of ourselves that we don't often fully see, and then it transitions into the next photo as we like somatically move our bodies and visually like picture energy moving through us, and you know, utilizing mantras and a mindset shift, and kind of like it's like neuroscience and positive psychology all intertwined as well with um, you know, you kind of thank the the negative energy and you you see it and you name it, and it's like okay, you're you're there, but what's the flip side? So then we find the flip side, and that's the side where you're aligned and where that energy serves you, and you just tell the bad energy that it's okay, like I've got myself because it was formed to protect you and nothing else, it was formed to protect you, so and you see this transformation with your clients, yes. So it happens in real time. Um, and we see it when we view the photos together, like I kind of like they're aware of the process because like I've they know what they're coming into at this point, and then I also kind of remind them again when we look at the photos, and I just remind them like it's okay. Like when you see one where it stops your heart and you you clench up, like that's okay. Like we rate it as a one-star and we put it into that category. Um and but we sit with it for a moment until our body relaxes when it feels right to do that, and we understand like what the thing about us, like maybe it's a physical feature that the clients saying that they don't like, but there's there's a flip side to every physical feature, like you know, I've got a big forehead, I don't like that. Well, did you know that big foreheads carry great knowledge? Like there you go. So perfect. That's yes, that's we we find something, something to flip the energy. So we're not just flipping the energy during the photo shoot, but we also flip it again when we reflect on it. Yeah, um, and you can see the difference when when we call forth all the energy and the thoughts that align themselves, then their bodies are physically more in line. They are like standing tall, they're standing proud, like it's kind of like they're symmetrical, and it amazes me when I see them and I'm like, oh, that's it. Like, like I know that they're in alignment because of the photo that I take. Yeah, kind of is yeah, what it shows me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I agree, you know, I I belong to this uh women's networking group, and and one of the things we do uh when we start our group is we have this mantra and we all do the power pose, right? But when you do the power pose, you're absolutely right. You can feel the energy of the group shift.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yeah, it is true. Like there's so many simple things you can do, like even taking your thumbs, putting them into your palm, and closing your fingers over it, that dismantles the ego, and you can take it a step further, and you can bow and you want to get your head below your heart, and that is a way to dismantle the ego. And bowing is also great to kind of work on your receiving and giving channels, so it's like little things you can do like that, even throughout the day, as you find where it's like, Oh, is my ego leading this like action right now or this thought? And you can just kind of hold your thumbs and just do a few bows and just see if anything changes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that you shared that because it's simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It really is. Yeah, it's not a difficult thing, you can do it on your own, it takes 10 seconds, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's been a big thing for me, is like because I feel like often we are delivered things in long formats, like a 30-minute meditation or an hour-long like class or something. Yeah, and I've just kind of learned to be able to break it down piece by piece, because like I never I used to think that like energy work you have to be still for, but energy doesn't stop. You you you can do energy work as you fold close, as you wash your dishes. Um, because yeah, energy doesn't stop, and I think even if you do it while you're living your your life and the tasks that we have to do with society and to keep our house clean, um, I think it becomes even more powerful because that is alignment in itself. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

And adapt to a lot of wisdom there, girl. A lot of wisdom. Let me ask you, because this is one of the things I I wanted to talk to you about logic and intuition. So, why do you believe the magic happens when we stop choosing and we start integrating?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I think because I've just seen such, like for myself, I've seen such beautiful results. Um, when I started combining neuroscience with energy, and because like from reading like my neuroscience books and my energy work and spiritual books, I'm like, there's so much overlap, they're talking about the same thing here. And I'm like, well, what if we just combine it and you strengthen the energy work and the meditation with actual neuroscience? Like, there is neuroscience behind the posture, the power poses, like that's why they work, and it's neurolike the brain and the energy go hand in hand, like it's like your brain is the the engine, perhaps, and the energy is the gasoline. So if you don't use them together, then the gasoline has nowhere to go, and it just cycles through, and your brain is just kind of chugging along, but not running as efficiently as it should, and maybe on fumes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Wow, so interesting. Yeah, I believe certainly uh I'm a very logical person, but I'm also I consider myself very intuitive, and and uh never never discount your intuition, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's yeah, it's like just learning to like those thoughts that pop in your head where you're like you try to shake it off, like it's real, like it is it's um to just trust like the literally the first thing that comes to mind, especially if you you ask a question or something, because um sometimes it's it's your ego that tries to dismantle your intuition, but you can also use your logic, like your neuroscience, to help you dismantle the ego and to get back to running on intuition, yeah. And I think like uh a simple example as to like for me why I do think that they are so intertwined is because of um everything, even us, like the trees, the our couch, our computers, they're made of energy atoms. And based on like like the physical structure of it, um the energy atoms move faster for more density, right? Like so, within science itself, there is so much teachings about energy, and if you take that knowledge about energy atoms, like if you're trying to manifest something, all you have to think about that it's just energy, and if you can create that energy and choose the density that you want, then that's just science. So if you combine them both together, then I think things are a lot more powerful.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh uh absolutely. So, what do you do for yourself when you have negative things popping into your head? Because we all have them. How do you handle how do you handle those negative thoughts?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I have a variety of ways. Like sometimes I will say that this thought does not serve me. Um, I acknowledge that it's a loop, but that I will feed like positivity into the loop. Um, like I don't try to just block it out, I do try to honor it and see it and witness it. And like if I've got time to, then um, or even like later, I'll think about it and be like, okay, like what part of me caused that thought? Is there a wound it's connected to? Is there like a moment, or is it more energetic? Like what caused that thought to go with, and then I'll just kind of spend more time trying to infuse the opposite into myself until that becomes the normal and just working to like in little steps, breaking it down as little as you need in micro steps to do actions, um, like real life actions that also help to infuse that new energy where you can practice it in real time, where you might have to battle between like the two wolves in your brain, and um you might have to like acknowledge like in the bad ones coming up. Like, if you've got scarcity around money and you're making a purchase and you hear that back the back of your voice, like like, oh, you shouldn't do this, you don't deserve this. No, you need to save your money, or there's so many reasons or things that your brain can tell you when it comes to spending money, and you can acknowledge that, and you can say, This will serve me, this is actually an investment in me, and it can be as simple as I am giving back to my community, I'm putting back into the world, and I will receive it tenfold, and just believing that and trusting that, and just continuing to do like real life exercises where it challenges um those thoughts and where you can practice um honoring them and showing them what the other way is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for that. I have um uh something I say when I'm stressed out, I or or something's really sitting with me and I want it's icky, I want it to go away. I will stop and I will say, I see you and I release you. I love that. Yeah, and I always feel better after I say it. Sometimes I have to say it 10 times. But yeah, but it but you're a hundred percent right. It can really help. Just I see you, I know you're there, but nothing I can do about it, so I'm releasing you, you know. Yeah, go go away. And um eventually it does, and you feel better. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't you're I'm sorry, I'm just wanted to say one thing. You're so right about the fact that it doesn't have to be difficult. Yeah, it can be easy.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that simple statement just shows in itself the power of just witnessing as well. Like the statement that you give yourself of I see you and I release you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Well, Olivia, I have loved our conversation. It it's been so good. I love doing this because I get to feel better after every one of my podcasts because I always get all the tools and and good energy and and uh and little uh-as in my own head. So I appreciate uh you being here. So, what would you like to say to anybody that's listening or watching before we go?

SPEAKER_00:

Hmm. That's a good one. Um I think that uh it's important to just challenge things and to go against the grain. And like if you feel like you've been doing something for a long time, like if you feel like you might be dulled out or you want to become a highly attuned person, to just start questioning things and to question them and to visualize like that question or whatever you have in mind for what you are questioning, like that topic, and pictures there being a root system and picture like gripping the roots and tracing them back and just seeing what comes up. And sometimes this might have to, you know, you might need a discussion with someone, you might not need to find um someone new to talk to who might. Like know more about it, um or like if you have enough information that you kind of know what you need to like put terms into to Google or to look for books, then to just keep looking for words to read and to intake and to learn, and because that is where you have those like aha moments, and that is where you build your map, like your knowledge kind of builds your map, and then tracing things down to the root causes is what builds um like the little icons or something on the map, right? That you can then start connecting the dots between, and everybody's map might look a little bit different, but there will definitely be synchronicities and like the same aha's throughout it all, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, great advice. Well, thank you again, Olivia, for doing this. I just want to mention to everybody that in the show notes, we're gonna have some links uh that you can reach out to Olivia uh if you want to speak to her, or maybe you need to you want to ask her about some energy healing or photography. Um so we'll have some information there uh for you. Um, Olivia, thank you. Thank you very much for being well, yeah, and thank you for for being willing to come and use your voice here. Um we we all appreciate it so much, and I appreciate uh your willingness to share. Uh share all of that with us. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00:

You're welcome. And yes, for anybody that wants to reach out, I'm always open to conversation because connection and community and building that is a big, big, big part of what I do.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect. Well, absolutely. We're gonna have all that information there. Well, everyone, I hope you enjoyed Olivia as much as I have. Um, and uh so we're gonna sign off now, but we will see you next time. Take care.