Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Whitney Wood . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Whitney , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

All my life I’ve wanted to be able to help people. Any time I’ve learned something that excites me, I want to share it with everyone I know who could benefit from that information. But for the longest time, I’ve struggled with feeling like I had enough authority in any area to really be able to actually charge somebody for my time and knowledge. I felt so lost and confused on my own, how did I think I could offer anybody anything? The imposter in me had dug deep into my mind to where I really didn’t think I had any skills at all. I started out in music, accomplishing all the goals I had actually set out to achieve. I was making a good living, singing for tv and movies and some of the world’s most famous artists. I was touring the world and living essentially the dream I thought I had. But, all while doing that, I felt like I didn’t belong at all. I felt like everyone else was better than me and it was a fluke that I was getting called for these kinds of jobs. I wasn’t able to enjoy everything I was doing because I was terrified and felt like I had to work so hard just to prove I could “hang” with all the pros. People started asking me for advice in the industry and wanted me to teach them the things that I had learned and still, I thought I had nothing to impart to anyone because I thought it was all luck.
All while I was working and touring, I began developing symptoms that started to really make me sick and have to stay in bed. I had battled with lots of different health issues most of my life, but this was different. This began to mess with my daily life. I had to start saying no to work and gigs that paid my bills. I was living at home and would pretty much sleep and be on the couch to work up the energy to do another job, just so I could pay for doctor visits or treatments that were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. This lasted for almost 10 years and did a huge number on my self esteem and confidence. I already had a huge imposter syndrome going on and now I had to hide how I felt to try to just keep up with everyone. I didn’t want anyone to really see me sick or think I couldn’t handle a job. I became so isolated and lonely and I hit such an extreme low.
My defining moment in life that now brought me to what I do and what I’m passionate about now, is when I was laying in bed scrolling through instagram and I saw some girl post about how she was almost “miraculously” healed from extreme chronic pain after a car accident that left her bed bound. She brought up a book called “Healing Back Pain” by Dr. John Sarno. I decided to buy the book because $10 was nothing and that began my healing journey from being chronic pain free. I learned how the brain and nervous system play such a huge role in our pain. Pain is the brain’s opinion and so many of us are living in such a dysregulated state that our brain believes we are under a threat 24/7. This feeling of threat is what keeps our brain sending pain signals to the body. It sounds crazy and maybe too good to be true but I have now become trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy where I help clients who were just like me, experience healing from chronic pain as well as IBS, depression, knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain, etc. It’s been absolutely life changing for me. I realized that the stories I was telling myself about my pain was that I was never going to heal. I believed I was going to live a miserable, lonely existence and there was no hope for me. I know there’s so many people living this way as well. I also know so many people who deal with daily migraines who think it’s just their future, or people who struggle with IBS and believe they have to take tons of supplements and cleanse and spend money on medications to be able to find relief.I learned for myself, and have seen through my clients that pain is a message that we’ve never learned to listen to. We think we have to get rid of pain the moment it starts, and we do everything we can to find a cure. The cure is already within us because we are not broken. Our bodies were created by God so intelligently to learn how to keep us safe from impending threat. We just have to learn that there is no actual threat. We get to learn how to be ok with who we are and learn to live in our current experience without trying to anesthetize, distract, ignore or change. I learned I could be present with my hurts and pain and listen to what my body was trying to tell me. Because of this defining moment in my life I started my business, Wisdom and Wellness, LLC where I’m dedicated to helping others find freedom from chronic pain through coaching and online resources.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a health coach for women who struggle with chronic pain. I began and still am a singer/Background vocalist/worship leader who has been able to travel the world singing behind platinum recording artists. I had to quit singing for a while because I had so much vocal pain and full body pain. I have created a 21 day course “When Desperation Meets Faith” to learn how we were created and designed to heal. I have an Ebook as well as a podcast, “Wisdom and Wellness with Whit” and other free resources to help educate and inspire. I am so proud of the clients I have seen experience healing but more importantly, become empowered and don’t fear their body anymore. I have a strong faith based approach that not many others have in this health and wellness field. I speak at events and church services sharing my message of healing. I have created some awesome merch that many have started rocking!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn everything I ever knew about pain in the body. I believed that pain was generated in my body and learned that all pain, including stubbing my toe, was generated from the brain and nervous system. No pain is not in our head, but the solution to pain is not to treat the body. I learned that many personality traits such as people pleasing, exacerbate chronic pain symptoms. I was living to try to please everyone and not cause any problems but all I was doing was creating this war inside myself. By staying quiet, in my own little bubble, I wasn’t allowing myself to live. I was afraid if I did anything the pain would flare, I didn’t realize that my fear of pain was increasing the pain. I learned the pain fear cycle is when we fear pain, the pain happens, it increases the fear, which increases the pain, and so on. I don’t fight pain anymore, I invite it in and listen to what it might be saying. I don’t obsess about what pain might mean, I just understand that my brain and nervous system are dysregulated. I had to unlearn that my response to triggers had less to do with my personality, if I was mature or not, if I was wise or not, but was simply my learned response from trauma. The correlation of trauma to chronic pain is so high. When I get really stressed and I go into this freeze/shut down response, It’s not because I lack willpower or discipline, or im lazy… in fact it’s my nervous system responding perfectly to a perceived threat because I’ve not allowed this response to be met with safety and allow it to fully be felt and then healed. I have so much more love and compassion for myself and have such a high regard for the ways our bodies are so magnificent! We are able to experience so much more healing and freedom than we ever thought possible.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

It sounds crazy to read and feels just as crazy to write, but I wouldn’t want to change my journey with chronic pain and Autoimmune Disease because I am now able to really help so many people. I know how hopeless and painful the journey is and I want every single person who’s in pain to know that there is a different way than they have ever experienced. It’s been scary and bumpy and I’ve wanted to quit probably once a week from getting overwhelmed and scared, but hearing someones testimony or seeing the information click in someone’s mind is what keeps me going.

Contact Info:

• Website: wisdomandwellnessww.com
• Instagram: @whitneywoodmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whitney.wood.31?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Other: Podcast: “Wisdom and Wellness with Whit” available on all major streaming services.

Image Credits
Juliann Cheryl Tang Paloma Michelle