Ep. 4: An Oncology Massage Therapist’s Experience at the S4OM Oncology Massage Healing Summit with Julie Olson

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[00:00:56] Ericka Clinton: Good day collaborators. Welcome to Collaborative Connections, a space for learning and Sharing, sponsored by the Society for Oncology Massage. I’m your host for today, Erica Clinton. And with us we have Julie Olson, preferred practitioner and regional champion for S four oh M. Hi Julie.

[00:01:21] Julie Olson: Hi, Erica. Good to see you.

[00:01:23] Ericka Clinton: So good to see you and thank you again so much for agreeing to talk to us a little bit

[00:01:29] Ericka Clinton: about your. Roles in S four oh M, and most particularly your experience at the last Oncology Massage Healing Summit. Now the summit was held in Minneapolis, which is where we have been holding our summits since the beginning, I believe. And we do that in partnership with Northwestern Health Sciences University.

[00:01:54] Ericka Clinton: So I must say thank you to them for being a wonderful partner and hosting our event. But before we talk about the summit, let’s talk a little bit about you, Julie. How long have you been a massage therapist?

[00:02:07] Julie Olson: I have been a massage therapist for 21 years, and frankly, the reason I can remember that is that I was pregnant with my eldest and he’s turning 21 this year. So, That’s the, you know, it’s, it’s been kind of a blur, but his age reminds me of how long I’ve been in this wonderful field. And I have worked in various settings.

[00:02:32] Julie Olson: I’ve co-owned a wellness center. I’ve worked at a, I still work at a hospital. I work in infusion centers. I work in, in, and I also work in a community center. So I’ve worked in various aspects of healthcare and I have really enjoyed every moment of it.

[00:02:51] Ericka Clinton: Wonderful. That’s wonderful. So when did you become a preferred practitioner with S four oh m.

[00:02:59] Julie Olson: Well, I wanted to go back a click I Started my hospital role in 2013, where I started with the integrative medicine department at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. And there I was guided to take Tracy Walton’s class in Medford in 2014, where I first got wind of the Society for Oncology massage.

[00:03:24] Julie Olson: So it’s, I’ve, I’ve heard about the group for a long time and I’ve. Slowly been getting more involved over the years. From that class in 2014, I attended my first in-person conference in 2018. And that’s where I had the fortuitous moment of having a wonderful talk with Zu Dearie who she was standing at the regional champion table and as.

[00:03:55] Julie Olson: She is, she was open and welcoming and we had a wonderful conversation and she said, you should be a regional champ. She just invited me to the table and asked me to lean in and it was great and I have slowly been getting more involved. After that, I took the wonderful hospice massage class with Irene Smith.

[00:04:20] Julie Olson: And Tracy Walton was in attendance in 2019. In 2021, I attended the virtual conference as we were all in lockdown. which brings us to 23, where we attended the cla, the conference in Minneapolis. So I have Slowly, I’ve been on the periphery, but I’ve, I feel like I’ve slowly gotten more involved with the group and just love being a regional champ.

[00:04:47] Julie Olson: I loved talking with folks at the conference and just networking and, and meeting more faces in our beautiful community.

[00:04:56] Ericka Clinton: That’s awesome. And I think. Interestingly enough, we all have a very similar experience. We meet someone from the group and they just ask us to lean in as you so eloquently put it. And then I think also they even have figured out how to convince you that you actually are the one who wants to be part of s for.

[00:05:18] Ericka Clinton: And then all of a sudden we’ve given you a bunch of things to do. And one of the biggest things I think, with our regional champions is that they represent the group in the states where they live. And it’s such an honor to have them be part of the organization. So if my memory is right, you’ve now attended three healing summits, two in person and one virtual.

[00:05:42] Julie Olson: And I wanna say that this last time I was so it just was wonderful. I invited my colleague Barry Wickham, who I think you met from Connecticut. And as we know, when we are in community, it just it magnifies the experience. So having Barry Wickham join me just made it so much more and, you know, he, he met more people and it was like the ripple effect, like it just kept going.

[00:06:09] Julie Olson: So it when we’re all in community it’s just, it’s just greater when we’re in person. We’ve kind of gotten used to a virtual reality to some extent, but, you know, the healing summits are. Just amazing in so many ways, the networking that happens and, and how we can just have these amazing conversations and, I think the work that we do.

[00:06:33] Julie Olson: I know, I personally feel like it’s a siloed experience and when we get together, we all do such interesting work with, you know, similar populations, but from different perspectives. So it’s, it, it’s just so gratifying to be with each other at these conferences and, and because our work is so unique and lovely,

[00:06:59] Ericka Clinton: Yes.

[00:06:59] Ericka Clinton: And I think, you know, we all were very thankful for having technology what, which allowed us to continue

[00:07:07] Ericka Clinton: to connect and learn. But I will say there was a particularly amazing energy. That we had at the 2023 summit. That was so moving for me just to be able to get outside of these little boxes that we’re so used to living in and connect and, and actually touch each other and hug and, and talk and just realize how special it is the work that we get to do.

[00:07:40] Ericka Clinton: And as you said, the community that we have.

[00:07:43] Ericka Clinton: Um, so I, I, I’m very, very grateful that we were able to do this and do this safely,

[00:07:49] Ericka Clinton: to be honest. so if you think about the summit that you attended recently, what was kind of your favorite learning session or breakout that you attended over the course of those two days?

[00:08:02] Julie Olson: Well, because Erica, because the quality of the different programs, I couldn’t just name one. If, if I could just kinda like, th there’s, there were many, and if I could just speak a little bit about each one, would

[00:08:17] Julie Olson: that be okay? Right. So yeah, I couldn’t name just one because they’re all so unique and they all bring different things to the table.

[00:08:26] Julie Olson: So, you know, just starting with the keynote speaker, Dr. Michelle Renee, and I love what she said about how we. In our life, there’s the breaking apart and coming back together and how we all lead from where we are And you know, she has been through so much recently in her ho in her life and we all collectively have been through so much in all of our lives.

[00:08:53] Julie Olson: So I thought she was a great pick for keynote speaker as she talked about self-efficacy and hardiness, and learned hopefulness, and learned resourcefulness, like all things that we, I think this time has taught us resilience and grit. But it’s just, it’s lovely hearing it from other perspectives.

[00:09:15] Julie Olson: So I thought she was a great kickoff for the conference. one of the jobs that I have through doing hospital-based massage therapy is that I work at a rehab hospital where I work a lot with trauma and stroke victims and and survivors and the trauma informed class with Powan Beja, I How she was talking about the fight, flight, freeze, or appease responses that, folks have. And I just loved how she was talking about the vagus system, the nervous system. One of the physical therapists that I work with at Mount Sinai in Hartford, He says the work I do, he calls me a nervous system modulator when I, when I work at the bedside.

[00:10:05] Julie Olson: And I think, you know, we, we bring such different things to our work and I loved how she was talking about mindfulness and she was guiding us through meditation processes. So I loved her approach. I think she is, She just has such a beautiful way of about her presentation. The other class that I really enjoyed was the Milton Mark Family Camp.

[00:10:31] Julie Olson: I, I love working with caregivers. I was actually in the cancer center yesterday at the Yale s Milo Center at St. Francis, and I had one of the nurse say, she came up to me and she said, would I please work with the daughter of one of the patients? Because they were experiencing so much stress and they’re helping out, they’re being the caregiver to the dad.

[00:10:54] Julie Olson: So I think. The focus on the caregivers is so important, and I loved how Abigail Marks Margarita Paige and the wonderful Amma Green Rose Manasi, I think how they were talking about how they, they provide this camp in San, in the San Francisco area. I think how they provide respite for the families, for the kids, for the couples how they do couples therapy at this camp.

[00:11:23] Julie Olson: They provide mental health support. They do. They do family portraits. They have photographers come in. It’s such a supportive environment. And I was sitting next to my colleague Barry and we were like nudging each other because I, I also work at a Jewish Community Center in West Hartford, Connecticut.

[00:11:44] Julie Olson: And part of the, the J C C is that there’s a Camp Shalom, so we’re thinking of doing the same thing. In the central Connecticut area. So it, it’s like the ripple effect again. And because all of these, all of the communities come together and they share all these nuggets and then it’s just, it’s like planting seeds, like, you know, then we’re thinking about bringing it all the way across the country in Connecticut, on the east coast Brenda Segger with, you know, I mean, we all laughter is medicine.

[00:12:17] Julie Olson: So she was hysterical like we were crying. She was great. Another thing that I enjoyed was the panel discussion. The acronym for fear being future events already ruined. Like I was like, that was a mind blowing, like Yeah, that’s so true. And how. When the client came up and, and the practitioner talking about like, what is your goal for today’s session?

[00:12:45] Julie Olson: Like, I’ve brought that into my practice, you know, so like a, another nugget that I, that I learned from that panel. One more thing I wanna talk about was the the hospital-based massage therapy, cuz that’s what I do also. So the great team of Carolyn Teig and Karen Armstrong. You know, talking about care of the caregiver, care of the leader, how they do how they talked about hospital and medical administration doing fireside chats with the hospital team, the medical staff.

[00:13:19] Julie Olson: And then also I think Carolyn was talking about how she looks for internal grants and then also grateful patient donations. So, I mean, all of it was just like, I learned, I got so many just, you know, nuggets of information and that’s how it was in 2018, how it was in 2021 and again in 23 and.

[00:13:43] Julie Olson: It just is. I always love that there’s just such a variety of classes that you can choose from, and there’s always some that speak to me and that push me, and I realize I wanna do, I, I went to the Nicola McGills class where I need to do more lymphedema training, you know, so it’s, it’s just, it, it pushes me and makes me realize that.

[00:14:10] Julie Olson: There’s so much out there and it also validates the things that I already, I know intuitively that I’ve learned from this community. So it’s like a combination. It’s just a swirl of, of, of events. It’s great.

[00:14:26] Ericka Clinton: No, that’s, that’s amazing cuz it just, It, it’s so interesting. On my side of the table, I was part of planning and enacting this whole thing,

[00:14:35] Ericka Clinton: and I knew that we had a particular mindset about how we wanted to do things.

[00:14:41] Ericka Clinton: And as you speak about it, I, I am having this like almost out of body experience, realizing that there was a really qualitative difference

[00:14:53] Ericka Clinton: to what we do at the Healing Summit.

[00:14:57] Ericka Clinton: Than other conferences and conventions do, and I think everything has a place. But I love the fact that we brought knowledge, we brought practical application.

[00:15:10] Julie Olson: Yep.

[00:15:11] Ericka Clinton: We also brought all of the in between stuff that hospital-based and oncology massage therapists really need to do well.

[00:15:22] Ericka Clinton: Right. That understanding of.

[00:15:26] Ericka Clinton: Just anatomy and physiology and technique, but also how to create a culture for what we do,

[00:15:36] Ericka Clinton: how to pay the bills essentially in terms of getting grants.

[00:15:40] Ericka Clinton: How to honor so much of our patient experience as we work,

[00:15:47] Ericka Clinton: and how to also fulfill ourselves in these silos.

[00:15:51] Ericka Clinton: That we work in.

[00:15:53] Ericka Clinton: So you know, it, it’s almost amazing to think in these 90 minute breakout sessions

[00:16:00] Julie Olson: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:01] Ericka Clinton: we did so much, but that was really the intention which was to curate a group of educators and speakers and presenters

[00:16:11] Ericka Clinton: that would be so fulfilling.

[00:16:14] Ericka Clinton: No matter what you were looking for, if you wanted more information, we gave you that.

[00:16:19] Ericka Clinton: If you wanted an experience, we gave you that. If you wanted to find a deeper part of yourself as a practitioner, we gave you that.

[00:16:28] Ericka Clinton: You know, and

[00:16:29] Julie Olson: Yep.

[00:16:30] Ericka Clinton: just from the few breakouts that every person was able to attend and you specifically, you took so much from each moment and each educator and each presenter, and.

[00:16:42] Ericka Clinton: That’s, that’s just so amazing. I actually taught a class about working with people with chronic and terminal illness to my student population, and I used Brenda’s laughing exercise, you know, because they were so in the moment of the experience moved, I think in a, in a way, but also really feeling it.

[00:17:07] Ericka Clinton: And so I just had them get up and we did that laughing exercise. Before we knew it, we were all like in these puddles on the floor laughing hysterically.

[00:17:18] Ericka Clinton: And it was such a nice moment and I was like, I got so much out of what she said and did with us.

[00:17:26] Julie Olson: absolutely.

[00:17:27] Ericka Clinton: And you know, I think with so many of the presenters we can say that, so thank you for sharing.

[00:17:33] Ericka Clinton: That was, that was really wonderful. And again, as someone on the planning side, so amazing to hear about your experience.

[00:17:42] Julie Olson: Well, I’m just, I’m so grateful. You know, it’s, it’s like I always know that the bar is gonna be really high and it’s worth the travel time away from home. Try, you know, time away from work, the effort it, you know, and, and I think. With a lot of things in this time. I don’t wanna say post whatever we’re in now, that there’s this deep appreciation for in-person events.

[00:18:09] Julie Olson: And I, I said to one of my colleagues at the hospital yesterday, like, I love seeing your face. Like, I think we, you know, like, like we’ve just, we just saw like this for so long that like, To hug our colleagues that we’ve known for years and to see them in person and to share a meal with them at the conference.

[00:18:30] Julie Olson: Like there’s such great like social things that happen. Like I got to meet Lin’s husband, Chris Dearie. I’ve never met him, and he was presenting like, you know, it’s just, it’s such a great way to like, Connect with folks. And and I also loved how, you know, there were like the, the honorary awards for those who have come before us and who are doing, have done the work, who laid down the foundation for the work that I get to do.

[00:19:02] Julie Olson: And I’m just, I’m so appreciative and I think it was great that those folks are honored because. They just, you know, the Gail McDonald’s and the, the Cindy Spence and, you know, all, and you know, just the women who have done the work and it’s just, it’s so beautiful.

[00:19:22] Ericka Clinton: And they make everything we do possible.

[00:19:25] Julie Olson: absolutely.

[00:19:25] Julie Olson: Yes.

[00:19:25] Ericka Clinton: Everything we do possible.

[00:19:27] Ericka Clinton: let’s talk a little bit about some of the social events. What did you think of the networking events that we did at the lunches?

[00:19:33] Julie Olson: Loves them, love them, because I think sometimes people not that it’s cliquey, but it could be, you know, people kind of stay with the same group of people and I think it, it gave an opportunity to. Again, lean in and meet new folks from acro around the country and around the world. And it, again, getting to the, the silo nature of our work, being able to connect with.

[00:20:01] Julie Olson: I met some gals, or I had met them in 2018, but talking with the gals in New York City who are working at the hospitals and, you know, hearing how they’re doing their work. And then also talking with folks not only in similar lines of work, but also in the regional areas too. I thought that was brilliant and I don’t think it happened in 2018 and I really, really liked it

[00:20:27] Ericka Clinton: Yes, that was something new that we. We thought, and this, a lot of the kudos go to Cheryl Johnson, who’s a member of the board who handled the Summit Planning Committee. And her and the committee sparked so much of the experience that was created at the summit. I can’t thank them enough. And the networking events were, were one of the ideas that, that came out of that group.

[00:20:58] Ericka Clinton: And. They were. They were, I thought, really nice moments in the day,

[00:21:03] Julie Olson: Absolutely.

[00:21:04] Ericka Clinton: you know?

[00:21:04] Julie Olson: was inspired. I, I think that was such a a great addition from 2018.

[00:21:11] Ericka Clinton: Yeah, Yeah, And I guess my last question is, we tried to schedule some things to kind of break up the day,

[00:21:19] Julie Olson: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:20] Ericka Clinton: one of the things that we did also around the lunchtime were these movements. Options that people had, were you able to attend any of those?

[00:21:30] Julie Olson: I, I did, I attended the yoga session and that was amazing. There was, it was the huge gym space at Northwestern and I. It felt so great to just stretch and get on the mat and I wish I had, I kind of joined it late, but still the teacher, the instructor was so welcoming and got me a mat quickly and I.

[00:21:53] Julie Olson: That was a, that was also beautiful and I did not attend the early morning sessions. I decided to, I really took the conference as a way for me to refill my cup and take care of myself. So I decided to go to the gym in the morning, which was great. And then I went to the Starbucks and in the lobby. But I really, I think, I love how nothing is mandated.

[00:22:18] Julie Olson: You just kind of like, do what you need to do. And I. Barry and I walked home from Northwestern one time, and then another time we took the bus and it was just like, I love that you can, you can do whatever you feel like you wanna do, I love that it’s just kind of flexible and flowing and, and everyone gets their needs met, so I love that.

[00:22:41] Ericka Clinton: Great. That’s great. And I think that’s also what makes it so inspiring is that people get to do what they need to

[00:22:48] Ericka Clinton: come together for these learning moments that are also very inspiring, but also very free flowing. You know, teachers answer a lot of questions. They spend time with you. They are ultimately touchable.

[00:23:03] Julie Olson: Yes.

[00:23:03] Ericka Clinton: In that way and therefore they become a bigger part of our S four O M community. So

[00:23:11] Ericka Clinton: I’m really, really glad that you had such an amazing time and I thank you for sharing that experience and I know I am looking forward to seeing you at the 2026 Summit and just. Getting ready to start that planning process

[00:23:30] Ericka Clinton: so that we can have a successful event.

[00:23:32] Ericka Clinton: But thank you so much, Julie, for your time and for sharing with us.

[00:23:37] Julie Olson: Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:23:38] Ericka Clinton: all right. Well thank you collaborators. And everyone have a wonderful, wonderful day.

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