Check Out Whitney Bolivar’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Whitney Bolivar.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, how did you get started?
Starting from the beginning, I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, to a young single mom who did her best with what she had. We moved often, including spending some time on the road in California and Washington when I was a small child, ending up back in Phoenix when I was around 7. My mom and I lived all over the Phoenix area, from Litchfield to Glendale to Paradise Valley; I’ve gotten the honor of exploring and loving many facets of the great state of Arizona now after living here for over 2 decades.

Unfortunately, some of my childhood was not ideal, and I experienced many accidents, mainly as a car passenger. There was also a combination of not having access to quality medical care due to lack of funds and not being believed when I said I was in pain, so I did not receive the rehabilitative care I needed after being injured. This caused a severe spinal injury that was ignored and healed out of alignment. I spent most of my early twenties trying to find ways to escape the pain until I re-discovered yoga. I had a hardcore “almond mom” that took me to yoga a few times but was never very supportive of any extracurricular activity I tried out long-term. I tried yoga again later when I was living with my high school sweetheart in our later teens, but I don’t think I was ready to be fully committed. It wasn’t until I started practicing with my now husband to “recover” after what I at the time called “real workouts” that I entirely fell in love – I also was in my early twenties, called my husband my boyfriend, worked customer service for a credit card company, and was 200 pounds.

After about a year of daily asana practice, about 40 pounds of weight loss, and a ton of weird little nudges from the universe to start YTT, knowing absolutely zero about the philosophy or what I was getting into, I started my first 600-hour program in October of 2018. Since completing my initial YTT, I have completed another 600-hour program for more yoga training and to add nutrition to my knowledge base. I have also started the 750-hour Ayurvedic massage practitioner program. I am about halfway through. I aim to share ways to incorporate knowledge about self-healing I’ve gained into people’s daily lives. I eventually work one-on-one with people helping them manage their pain, specializing in the eastern-influenced healing modalities that have helped me immensely. While I have found great healing at school, I also reeled after the pandemic, just like everyone else. After thinking I was getting back on my feet, I was hit by a car while riding my bike at the end of 2021. I am still healing and, in some ways, know my experiences in 2020-21 will forever change me.

I want to help validate people who have had similar experiences as me and help them find the steps they can take to find meaningful and impactful healing in their lives, whether that’s making them feel empowered themselves, working with me as a client, or finding the right professional fit for them if I’m not it.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Outside of the physical setbacks I’ve experienced, I have never been supported by a functional family unit. As of around 19, I no longer spoke to my extended family and stopped being in contact with my mom in 2020. In many ways, I felt like I needed to hide very obvious issues within my family unit, which as an adult now, I am aware was an unfair ask of me as a child. There are so many valid reasons for cutting contact with a toxic family, so my specific ones aren’t important, but I want people to know they can, and there is life after that. Life is good.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have always loved photography since I was a senior in high school and got the absolute honor of learning the art of film photography, including developing the film and exposing and developing the photos, in a class at school. I have recently been teaching myself videography and online content creation to share some of my knowledge as free/accessible as possible – and I think I have some neat ideas for a YouTube channel I hope to soften launch at the end of the month. I want to share lifestyle content and mix in some education, yoga, and random thoughts on the same channel. See what the community finds helpful and go from there. Until then, you can always follow along on my journey or reach out to me on Instagram.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Once I have obtained my massage therapy license, I plan to start taking in-person massage clients at a spa, so I am searching for the right fit at the end of the year. I plan to take reiki, yoga, polarity, and sacrocranial clients at the same time but will be more flexible about the place because they will be fully clothed sessions. One of my missions will be to provide trauma-informed bodywork to people who may want to avoid disrobing or find the spa setting to be a turn-off for whatever reason.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @whitneyteaches
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@theskepticalenergyworker