Natalia • From top athlete to strip dancer to breath-work therapist
INTRODUCING
I was born in a small city in the Soviet Union. My parents were hard workers and did the best they could. Yet from a young age I felt that no one could understand me and that I was too emotional. I felt trapped in a world I didn’t belong and through sports, I was able to somehow escape. At age 12 I was scouted by a coach and moved to another city to pursue professional sports; becoming a 400-meter sprinter. I was so happy to escape the cage I felt I was trapped in.
“MY ACHIEVEMENTS EQUALED MY SELF-WORTH. PEOPLE ACKNOWLEDGING MY ACHIEVEMENTS WAS THE SINGLE THING I AIMED FOR IN MY LIFE.”
TOP SPORTS
My sports career was successful as I had a lot of talent and willpower. My coach wanted to prepare me for the Olympic games but something strange started to happen. The higher I climbed and the more important the competitions became, the more I started to “randomly” fall down just before the finish line.
“THERE WAS AN INNER VOICE TELLING ME “ YOU ARE NOT WORTH IT. YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. WHO ARE YOU TO WIN? YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY BE THE FIRST.”
Back then I wasn’t aware of why this happened. I wasn’t aware of this voice. As my self-esteem was attached to my achievements over and over again when I would fail to win a race, it would decrease and I would fall into a deeper depression.I was living in an athlete community building with strict rules. I couldn’t leave my room after 10 PM but as I was only 16 at the time I wanted to party like most 16-year olds. So one evening I sneaked out of my room through the window and I fell from the third floor. I broke my knee and from this moment onward things started going sour in my professional sports career. Over the course of 2 years, I injured the same knee 3 times and had to stop professional sports when I was 18.
DRUG ADDICTION
“IT’S LIKE NOBODY IS HOME ANYMORE INSIDE OF YOU. NO EMPATHY, NO FEELINGS, NO LOVE. EVERYTHING DISAPPEARS.”
Quitting top sports meant I had to start earning money for a living. I had a diploma as a sports teacher but I didn’t want to do that so I started waitressing. At that point, my self-esteem was so low and my inner dialogue was so self-destructive that I started using drugs.
My drug abuse started from anti-depressants to numb myself just not to feel the loser I felt deep down inside. Slowly this started pushing me even further down the spiral and the next step was an accidental dose of heroin. I didn’t know it was heroin as it was something I was introduced to at a friend’s place. But once I used it, I was addicted. It was a boost of self-love, self-acceptance, and joy that I felt for the first time in my life. And I wanted more.
As I couldn’t find heroin in the city I was living in, I moved to Moscow. I met my boyfriend there and after one week of dating I found out he was on heroin as well. So that was it. We started using heroin together every day, all day. At first, the feelings were so intense after each dose that I felt absolutely on top of the world. But over time I needed more and more to feel the same intensity and highs as in the beginning.
When you become a junkie, you become like an animal. You live just with your primary instincts; food, sleep, and drugs are basically your life. And between that finding the money to use more drugs.
“IN THE HEIGHTS OF MY DRUG USE IF SOMEONE WOULD HAVE ASKED ME “DO YOU WANT TO SELL YOUR MUM FOR DRUGS?” I WOULD HAVE SAID YES. ”
When you use heroin, it gives you a boost of all those great feelings. But when you don’t, it’s all gone and, in minus. In normal life without a dose, you are in a deep hole of darkness, depression and you feel sick all the time; fever, sweating, and physically in pain. So, you become completely and wholly dependent on the substance. Finding the money to sustain my increased emotional and physical needs for heroin I had only one way to earn quick money; strip dancing.
STRIP DANCING
“I FOUND A NEW MEANING IN MY LIFE. BEFORE IT WAS SPORTS AND MEDALS. NOW IT WAS BECOMING A HOT AND SEXY DANCER THAT CAN MAKE A LOT OF MONEY.”
When I came to Moscow I had 1000 dollars on me that finished in 2 weeks. There was no way I could make that money doing waitressing in Moscow. And no way I could ask my parents to support me, who were earning 200 dollars per month. I saw an advertisement in a newspaper from a club looking for strip dancers. I would get intensive dance classes and after two weeks I would be able to make my own money. So I applied, got accepted, and started my new career.
It was an internal metamorphosis I had to go through. Sports is very masculine, dance is very feminine. I had to transform to be able to dance in a way that would get me the good money and clients. I became more feminine. Which in hindsight of course had its benefits as well.
“FROM THE VERY FIRST EVENING, I MADE A FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS AND WAS LIKE “THIS IS IT”. AND SO THE VICIOUS CIRCLE STARTED. THE MORE MONEY I WOULD EARN THE MORE DRUGS I COULD AFFORD, BUY, AND USE.”
At this point, I was about 20 years old. I used heroin non-stop, smoked Marijuana to calm down, and worked 7 days a week to sustain this lifestyle. In this period I started to become more confident about myself as, again, the better I became in dancing the more interesting clients I would get and the more money I would earn.
“I SPENT A LOT OF MONEY TO LOOK GOOD. YOU COULDN’T SEE THAT I WAS A JUNKIE. I ACTUALLY FELT MORE ME UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DRUGS; FREER, MORE RELAXED, MORE FLUID.”
ROCK-BOTTOM
“I COULDN’T STOP THINKING, WANTING, AND NEEDING HEROIN. I ALSO DREAMED EVERY NIGHT OF IT. MY DRUG USE HAD COMPLETELY TAKEN OVER. ”
The motivation to work started degrading and my need for drugs became all-absorbing. I did start to sense that this was not good but I couldn’t do anything about it. It was so powerful and so fast that I felt completely taken over. In those times I would wake up in the mornings and for a very brief period of time, I would hear a voice in my head that would tell me that I should search for help, do something about it. And then I would take a dose again and continue the vicious cycle. Until the day I overdosed… that was my first big wake-up call.
It was so expensive to buy clean heroin in the amounts that I used so I started to buy less-quality heroin. The problem with that is that you can’t predict the dose very accurately and so one day I overdosed. Resulting in an out-of-body experience seeing myself unconscious and my body becoming blue, from above. It wasn’t scary and I realized that day that dying actually isn’t something to fear as I didn’t feel any pain nor fear.
The next morning after my overdose I woke up again. I had no idea how long I was unconscious for and I woke up thinking “ok, I thought I died… well, okay then“. That didn’t prevent me from using again but now knowing that I was walking towards my own grave.
COSMIC GUIDANCE
Another wake-up call was during another overdose experience seeing myself on a crossroad. The path to the left was me being buried at age 25. The path to the right was just light. And from this day forward I feel like somehow something bigger than me started guiding me. Something was helping me, carrying me, supporting me to stop and take the right turn.
This support and increased desire to change my life would grow day after day. A new voice started appearing telling me “You are not so stupid. You can do this. You can stop.” I tried to convince my boyfriend for a year to stop together but that didn’t happen.
And then just one day something clicked. I packed my bags and I left. I changed my phone number, left my boyfriend, the club I was working at, my house and my friends.
The new start wasn’t easy. It started with depression but slowly I started building up my life. I stopped using heroin regularly, but never stopped completely. As my dealer actually started stealing from me; not bringing me the drugs I paid for or much less than I paid for, the channel I had was closing and helped me to gradually stop.
“I STARTED READING BOOKS; ABOUT THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND, SPIRITUALITY; ABOUT US BEING THE CREATORS OF OUR OWN LIFE. THIS PLANTED THE SEED THAT I, ALSO, PERHAPS WAS ABLE TO CHANGE MY OWN LIFE.”
A SEMI-NEW BEGINNING
This new beginning inspired me to go abroad and start completely anew somewhere else and quit drugs altogether. The best option for me at the time was to work for a private dance club in South Africa, as I was ensured that I didn’t need to sleep with my clients and they weren’t able to touch me. A must for me.
I left and for the first six months, I was completely clean. Then I started a new addiction; cocaine. Besides my new addiction, South Africa was a true blessing for me. I was introduced to a new world of wealth and light. My new friends were a boost in my confidence and I started a relationship with a respectful, generous, and loving man which was a very big healing experience for me.
RETURN TO NORMALCY
One month before I left for South Africa, I had met a French guy in the club I was working in Russia. It was love at first sight. I had already signed a contract to leave when I met him and so I did. After six months in South Africa, he came to visit me and we spend a couple of weeks together. And after 9 months he called me and said “ok, please come back. Stop dancing and let’s start a life together.”
I packed my bags and came back to Moscow. My boyfriend became my mentor, my friend, my lover, my supporter. He helped me to quit dancing and start a normal life; to stand on my own two feet. This man also later became my husband and the father of my children.
I started studying to become a real estate agent and picked up my life again. I was working and studying 7 days a week and over the course of 3 years, I finished my MBA, learned to speak English, and became the head of the department of an American company I was working for.
“I STARTED DOING PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS AND SPEND 7 YEARS DOING ANY COURSE I COULD GET MY HANDS ON. I WANTED TO BUILD UP MY SELF-ESTEEM, FIND MY OWN SELF-WORTH, AND CONNECT AND FEEL ME AGAIN.”
My life started sky-rocketing and everything had changed. My boyfriend asked me to marry him and we had created the best life in Moscow; a luxurious life with everything in abundance. But inside of me something was missing… I was like “is this it”? I felt empty.
A YEAR OF SOUL-SEARCH
Both my husband and I wanted a change so he applied for an MBA at the best universities in the world and got accepted at Stanford. We had to sell our house to pay for his tuition and so we did. He left for Stanford and I went backpacking for a year to reconnect and find myself.
“I SAW MY LIFE PATH UNTIL THEN AS PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT PHASE OF MY LIFE, NOT KNOWING WHAT THIS PHASE EXACTLY WOULD LOOK LIKE. I WAS ALWAYS INTERESTED IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY. I WAS VERY CURIOUS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE. WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE HAPPY AND SOME PEOPLE NOT?”
After one year my husband graduated and got a job offer in Singapore. So we moved to Asia. I wanted to study to become a life coach but then this critical voice came up again “who was I to become a coach?”. I felt I first had to have my own self and life in order before I could possibly help somebody else. My husband kicked me in the butt after 6 months and I started studying. First to help myself and then maybe others. At the same time I got pregnant and I graduated and gave birth to my daughter around the same time. A new chapter has started with ups and downs; being a new mum and a freshly graduated. I got myself a coach at the time to help me build my coaching practice and started helping people for free for the first year to build up my confidence. After one year I had more of a belief in my abilities and started getting paid for my sessions.
BREATH-WORK
Because of the cost of living and the lifestyle we wanted for ourselves and our child, we decided to move to Bali, where I now live. I got my second baby and continued my personal development journey. This is how I came across Alchemy of Breath.
“MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH THE BREATHWORK WAS MIND-BLOWING AS I FELT THE SAME LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE THAT I FELT THE FIRST TIME I USED HEROIN.”
I was so surprised that only by my own breathing I could feel so much love, acceptance, and freedom. Since then I continued breathing for myself and started expanding my own self. I then studied to become a teacher myself.
Breathwork made me realize why I had to go on this unusual life journey of mine. I knew I had to help others transform their darkness into the light just like I did. And for that, I was sure that everything I had experienced in my life was absolutely needed to understand the deepest pain and darkness and the highest love and light.
“MY INTRODUCTION TO THE BREATHWORK ENSURED ME THAT I WAS EXACTLY WHERE I NEEDED TO BE.”
DIVORCE
The more I started to walk towards the light, the more my partner and I started moving apart. My partner was not interested in personal growth. We were 13 years together and for one year I tried everything to save our relationship. He was the man that saved me after all and the father of my two little children. Our separation was one of the toughest decisions to make. I tried everything not to have to take that decision; psychologists, coaching, breathwork, hypnotherapy, and eventually also an ayahuasca ceremony. I did everything I could to find that thing I could change inside of me to stay together. But eventually, I had to accept that I couldn’t change him nor myself to stay together. We had lived a wonderful life together but we needed to let each other free.
THE FUTURE
I am on a mission with my work to help people to find their light inside of them, just like I did. And nothing in the world can actually stop me from doing that. I live in Bali and help people all around the world with online coaching/breathing sessions and continue to follow that intuition of mine. That has become stronger than ever before.
3 INSIDERS TIPS
1. Humans have feelings. It is ok to feel what you feel.
“ I WANT TO FEEL EVERYTHING THIS LIFE BRINGS ME, – MY FRIEND SAID. – I WANT TO ONLY FEEL HAPPY ALL THE TIME, I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE, – I RESPONDED. “
Looking back to this conversation that happened 3 years ago, I realize how blind it was of me to expect myself always to be happy. It is like having sunny days without nighttime or rain, like summers without winters. It is ok but flavorless. Whenever you encounter a state you aren’t enjoying, or feeling something weird and uncomfortable, I congratulate you – you are out of your comfort zone, and you are growing! It is one of the most amazing and rewarding experiences in life to grow! Go for it and be brave! Growth will reward you with happiness, and once you drop your expectations of always being happy, you will see how you let go of a lot of tension too.
2. Change your beliefs to get rid of negative thoughts.
Negative thoughts don’t operate alone. They have a close “friend” that gives them the confidence to attack you. That ally is your beliefs. No matter how hard you may try to change those negative thoughts into positive ones, if your beliefs are negative, being positive is and will remain hard. If you believe that your house would be robbed one day, no matter how much you say, “my house is free from burglars”, you’ll always be scared to death whenever you hear your window creak. And you definitely can’t be a happy person, knowing that you could be robbed at any time. If everyone around you has a common negative belief about something, let yours be different. You don’t have to shout it out loud so that everyone will hear it (I wouldn’t advise you to do that). But know it, deep down in your heart.
3. Express Yourself
There’s a lot of people out there pretending to be someone they’re not. After all, the pressure to fit in and to conform is very strong. However, if you’re not allowing yourself to be who you are, then you can’t truly live a meaningful life. Think of the goals that you’re currently pursuing. Do your goals “sound like you”? Do they reflect your personality? Are they in line with your values? If not, then you need different goals. You can make your life more meaningful by striving to achieve goals that allow you to express who you are.
“I HAVE TWO MOTHERS IN THIS WORLD; MY PHYSICAL MOTHER AND MY SPIRITUAL MOTHER; THE UNIVERSE.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT NATALIA
INSTAGRAM • FACEBOOK • WEBSITEMY OWN EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH NATALIA
The purpose of Natalia’s session is to release trauma in the body and mind that comes to the surface in your life through unwanted thoughts and feelings. I did a session with Natalia to work on my limiting beliefs. It’s been a transforming experience I can recommend to anyone searching for an alternative way to overcome thought and feeling patterns that stand in your way. Natalie combines coaching and breathwork in each of her sessions.
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