Women In Wellness: Ajona Olsen of Arizona Healing Collective On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Seek out a therapist and don’t settle, really find someone you connect with. Investing in your mental well-being is the most important thing you can do for yourself but the ripple effects from your healing have the potential to reach further than you can possibly imagine.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ajona Olsen.
Ajona Olsen MSN, APRN, ANP-C is a nurse practitioner who opened her own private Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy practice in Mesa, Arizona, to help treat those suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, addiction, and anxiety. Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a therapeutic method of treatment used to address mental health conditions. Using ketamine, an FDA-approved synthetic pharmaceutical compound, KAP may facilitate psychedelic experiences such as expanded consciousness that will in turn rewire the brain to think of the person’s mental health differently and ultimately improve their mental health.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I went into healthcare with the intention to serve and to help people restore their health. This sounds cliché but helping people feel better actually does make me feel better. There’s something very symbiotic about a healthy provider-patient relationship. I started in 2001 as a registered nurse in the hospital and became a nurse practitioner in 2006. I worked with a population who had either progressive brain diseases like Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, as well as structural brain damage from major strokes or traumatic brain injuries. These patients also had chronic conditions like diabetes, heart, and lung disease, as well as major depressive disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorders, etc. It was my job to manage their illnesses and typically prescribe medications. I rarely took away or tapered patients off medications but rather had to add more because of worsening symptoms. I spent so much of my time as a nurse practitioner working with brain disorders that were resistant to change that I forgot how malleable the brain can be and is in a “healthy” (i.e., not diseased, or damaged) brain. I saw this fact validated time and time again with each research article about psychedelics having profound healing effects on Veterans who suffered from PTSD and suicidality. This made more intuitive sense to me. Once the pandemic hit, my career path and the system of care I worked for no longer made much sense to me personally. That’s when I found Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and trained in it as a provider in 2021. I then opened my own practice this year.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Before opening my KAP practice, I had to attend a meeting with executives of the company I worked for because I was deemed someone who could take on a “leadership” role. I remember one executive explaining our role as “leaders,” saying, “think of it as if you’re in the jungle with your team, you must stay on the elephant so that you have a broader view of what’s going on around you and your team. You must not get down on the ground with the others.” I really thought this was so bizarre because our teams were all healthcare providers, and we were taking care of sick patients. If our team members are in need of help, that means our patients are suffering because their provider is compromised. That’s exactly when to step in and assist…if our mission was to provide high quality care. This is when I understood, the “mission statement” was a smoke screen and this form of healthcare was really about business. My drive to make gains as a leader in our company was never the same. If you are in business or politics perhaps seeing the big picture is important but in healthcare as a leader, being on the ground, helping wherever you are needed, educating, and showing support is going to give you the strongest team you can get. It’s really about collaboration and cooperation. This type of servant leadership is precisely what we need more of in healthcare and what seems to being most lacking in my opinion.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The biggest mistake I made was presuming I knew more than my patient knew about their own health. I learned early on, through plenty of failures in trying to pursue my patient to do what I thought was best and what evidence-based practice proved to be most effective, that I needed to be a partner with my patients rather than a dictator. I could offer options based on evidence and needed to always make sure I added the option of “do nothing.” In the end, it’s the patient who knows what is best for them even when the decision isn’t what I would choose. There is something about self-advocacy that is extremely healing and empowering. Acknowledging a patient’s innate wisdom can spur better self-care practices as well. The result of this is always better health.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
Ketamine assisted psychotherapy in conjunction with psychotherapy works to treat mental illnesses including anxiety, depression, and PTSD on a deeper level than anti-depressants or therapy on its own. The need for this type of medical care is enormous and has grown tremendously because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our country and even society can experience all sorts of economic implications with so many of its individuals suffering. Psychedelics act as nonspecific amplifiers; they are neutral and simply reveal to the person what’s inside. They can help us access places within our lives that we may feel stuck in or continue to relive something over and over again. Achieving access to deeper levels of our brain essentially allows the client and therapist through ketamine assisted psychotherapy to integrate meaning from the psychedelic experience and heal from the past. Helping people improve their well-being impacts individuals and their families, which ultimately helps communities and society.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- Seek out a therapist and don’t settle, really find someone you connect with. Investing in your mental well-being is the most important thing you can do for yourself but the ripple effects from your healing have the potential to reach further than you can possibly imagine.
- Seek out an outlet that allows you to move your body, such as dance, and practice something that makes you stay present and feel sensations in your body like yoga.
- If you know a new mother, give her support in whatever capacity you can. If you have time, then give her some minutes of alone time or even much needed sleep and you take care of the baby. If you cook, then offer her a home cooked meal. If you have money and she’s in need then offer her that. Offer her support with kindness and love. Feeling supported allows her the ability to connect with her new baby so she can form a healthy bond. This will serve in more ways than you can imagine in the days, weeks, and years ahead of them.
- De-clutter your closets, garage, and junk drawer regularly. This has symbolic and energetic implications for your own mental health. Letting go of what no longer serves you can allow you to make space for new things to enter your life.
- Practice standing up for yourself. One way to do that is to take a martial arts class. Actively participate in how to be powerful, not trapped, stuck, or held back. Learn and prove to yourself that you are not a victim but an active participant in your life. Understand that this is not proved by demeaning someone or putting yourself above anyone else. You are not more powerful by making someone else weak.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Connect with each other. Technology can be used appropriately, both at work and to connect with people far away. If you are in the presence of others, put the technology away. Be attuned with everyone you meet, but especially children. We all need to be seen and heard and it’s essential we feel comfortable with this again. Particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, but this issue was beginning before the pandemic even hit. Our brains need to relearn that not everyone is a threat unless we are six feet apart and masked. It sounds strange but many of us became conditioned into thinking this when our fear response was so enormous in the beginning of the pandemic and the fear was validated every time we tuned in to the news. We are a social species and can only survive and thrive when we have social networks.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Learn the difference between compassion and empathy. Both are important but being too empathic can be overwhelming after a while and doesn’t serve a purpose when someone just needs to be heard.
- You don’t know everything, and you are not expected to. It is alright to ask questions and seek support.
- Starting a business is going to test your capacity in ways you did not even know existed. But you will also learn more about yourself than you ever imagined possible.
- When everything is difficult and you think, you are not going to make it, take a deep breath and maybe move your body a little. Then, look at your problems from a different perspective after you have stepped away. Also, having a trusted support person/friend can help you with perspective when you simply can’t see clearly.
- Know what your core values are and assess whether you are living a life aligned with them or not. If you aren’t, then make the necessary changes so that you are. When you do this, you will see things change for the better in your life.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is dearest to me. There are nearly 50 million adults in the U.S. and over 2.5 million youth who are currently suffering from mental illnesses, such as anxiety and/or depression. The COVID-19 pandemic created a rise in mental illnesses, especially post-traumatic stress disorder. As a mother of two young girls, I think about their mental health all the time. I know there are forces beyond my control that only get stronger and more pervasive the older they get. My most important job is to model well-being for them and stay attuned to their needs. I am not going to be a perfect parent, but I can let them know I love them and that I am here for them when they need to talk or process something and will stand true to my word. Kids especially process what they see, such as the actions adults take, much more than they do words. Saying one thing and doing the opposite only leads to confusion and anxiety in children. Doing my best to model the behaviors I hope to see in them go a lot farther than constant lecturing. If your child or someone you know is suffering from a mental illness, it is important to show your support and just be there for them.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
Visit www.ajonaolsen.com to learn more information or follow me on social media at @kap4healing on Facebook and Instagram.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Women In Wellness: Ajona Olsen of Arizona Healing Collective On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.