I believe in...

1. Openness and full, unique expression

Born in Eastern Europe, and raised in Canada from age 10 while moving around a lot (5 countries) - I grew up confused. Since childhood, I've been diving into spirituality and culture, exposed to Christianity, Judaism, science, and engineering by my family, believing that we can each carve out our own path and embrace who we truly are and all parts of ourselves. 

In my early 20s, I lived in Beijing, China for a year, which opened my eyes to Taoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In my late 20s, I moved to the US alone living in San Francisco and then Los Angeles. Along the way, I valued freedom above all else, and I took mini-sabbaticals, or traveled and worked remotely — in the early years on a shoe-string budget — exploring spiritual communities and different ways of life across South America, Asia and Europe.

I tried both following the path and the system, and escaping it (working remotely on the go). Until I was convinced, you can't escape from yourself. 

“You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” - Elkhart Tolle

2. Following your inspiration and spark

I’ve been navigating career and unexpected transitions all my life. After studying business in College, disinterested in accounting, barely passing to get my degree, I learned to code and design to build my first few products. Some of which completely flopped. Now, I deeply believe that you learn by doing, and following your spark and inspiration. 

It was an exciting experience, growing one company to 7-figures in annual revenue with two founders and a global nonprofit. At that time, work was my life — I spent 14 hours a day in my founders basement, figuring out how to make something complex (data scarping and collection) early, and accessible to anyone, even if they didn’t know how to code. 

Here, I learned every part of running a business. I also fell in love with product design and realized the importance of listening to, and taking care of your customers.

After all of the founders parted ways, I spent months traveling down to San Francisco, trying to make my dream of moving down to the US a reality. No luck…Finally, I was able to switch into Product Management at Shopify in Toronto first and then Meta.

My offer was already in hand, and all of my things were shipped to the US. Yet, my first visa for the US didn’t go through, following a 7-year learning experience with the US immigration system.

While waiting for my visa to be approved, traveled to South America alone, falling in love with Guatemala and Peru. I didn’t know I would continue returning to Peru at all pivotal moments in my life.

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Even while at Meta, I asked — what products am I really inspired to work on? What do I think will make a difference?

I was in awe with Virtual Reality, and the new technologies we’re capable of creating — this lead me to the Oculus team, working on software for Quest 1 and 2.

And lastly, falling in love with trust, safety, figuring out how to keep kids and teens safe online. A philosophical dilemma at the intersection of what regulators want, what parents and kids want, and what is technologically feasible. 

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As a systemic thinker, I started putting everything into easily-digestible frameworks and steps for others — how to switch careers, how to land that dream role, and so on — because I’ve been where you’re at and want to make it easier.

Over the last decade I continued to follow that spark —freelancing, teaching, and now...building again - this time with passion and more personally.

3. Modern science meets ancient wisdom

As I designed and launched tech products in virtual reality, AI, SaaS, eCommerce, B2B and digital safety across small and large companies...

I also explored healing through psychology, yoga, meditation, breath-work, Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and every personal growth and productivity technique out there. Eventually, healing my anxiety, depression and ADHD.

Now, I believe it's time to bridge the spiritual and the practical, the Eastern and the Western.

Yet, my love for futuristic technologies, AI advancements, designing beautiful experiences for people, and using tech for good never faded.

So I also believe that it’s time for Conscious Tech — human beings using technologies to enhance their bodies, minds, soul and lives in a safe, responsible, spiritual, good and healthy way.

And the power that comes from the intersection of science we understand and ancient wisdom we're still uncovering.

4. Transforming pain into purpose

The solution to all of my life’s concerns in my 20s, was to just focus on tangible, realistic goals. Raised by my grandparents —two Soviet engineers—any pain didn’t compare to the struggles of my ancestors and I was just grateful  for a chance at a new life.

Yet, it didn’t matter what I achieved. The pain lingered— and I wanted to be free from myself. I wanted to live, work, create from a place of freedom, creativity, peace. I was tired of making decisions from scarcity, anxiety and fear.

And to be free meant creating enough financial and physical security for myself, so I could take the time to understand and heal every part of myself, and put myself back together whole.

So to overcome personal struggles — never meeting my father, being “left” by three father figures, family breakdowns, healing my relationship with my mother and later in life — financially independence since 17, multiple lay-offs, immigration and more...

I dove deep into studying the true meaning of life, how to release wounds, and negative thought patterns, and to take control of my happiness.  I realized, we all go through the same process of “becoming” in life, and a series of lessons that urge us to grow until the patterns are resolved.

Now, I believe in turning obstacles into purpose, that help you craft a meaningful life. 

Ultimately, creating a blue-print to navigate and transform through any change easily. 

5. Embracing the whole person

At first I was mostly fascinated by the mind — therapy techniques like CBT and DBT (Cognitive and Dialectic Behavioral Therapies), managing anxiety through breath and meditation to “control the mind”, positive psychology and behavior change.

Also, too many of productivity, philosophy and self-help books on how to optimize myself, not so much heal. This is not a strange story, we in Western society primarily live in our mental capacities, valuing intelligence and reasoning above all else.

After experiencing unexplained health challenges, caused primarily by stress, and too many injuries from rock climbing and skiing, I was forced to look at the human as an interconnected system — connected to all parts of itself, others, the environment, and Universal energy. Learning to heal myself through nutrition tailored to my body and routines, herbs, acupuncture, and consistent spiritual practice.

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Seeing the impact of integrative medicine and psychology, I delved into Kundalini Yoga and Ayurveda, exploring Vedic philosophy, prana (life force), chakras (energy centers), nadis (energy channels), kriyas (techniques), breathwork, and mantras (sound vibrations). I also studied doshas (mind-body types), diet, and seasonal rhythms, learning the importance of aligning with our nature and the environment.

Out of curiosity, I continued with Chinese Traditional Medicine — Taoism, nutrition, 5-element theory for life and health coaching, anatomy and herbal medicine. It’s a life-long study…just scratching the surface.

While digging through science-backed research and evidence to prove the less understood, satisfy my mind and look at a person as a whole — I learned how important the mind-body connection really is.

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But, where do emotions fit in?

We often think our way through transformation — I am guilty of this, but the deepest shifts happen when we allow the emotions to move through us.

Emotions act as the link between mind and body — when they are ignored, they manifest physically — all things I experienced working a decade in tech, 70 hour weeks, without proper care for my body. Learning to feel, rather than suppress, was one of the hardest but most freeing lessons. Through breath work, movement, love-and-kindness meditations, energetic cord-cutting and cleansing techniques, forgiveness prayers and somatic healing, I began to experience emotions as energy in motion — something to move through me, not something to be trapped in me.

6. Ego must shed — for the whole to come together

Ego death happens when you stop clinging to an identity that excludes parts of yourself. Usually after a major crisis, change, grief, or anything that makes you pause and reexamine your life.

First, as the mind reacts to crisis your system might shutdown. Then the mind scrambles for control — it says “enough” and turns to what’s most available — Western knowledge to bring awareness, examine patterns, and decide to change. 

Next, the body screams “help” a signal to slow down and look deeper into the root causes of your aches, pains and exhaustions. The body stores the stress and traumas — years spent performing roles that no longer fit you. For many, burn-out is a key driver to pause and rebuild.

Lastly, the emotions pulsing in your chest, your heart, are a compass, pointing toward what to keep, what to leave behind. It’s the painful part — the shock of losing external identity markets leaves an emptiness that feels like grief. 

I believe all of this awareness is the first step in transformation.

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To truly change, you have to let go. Layoffs, breakups, the pandemic — each one shattered a part of my identity. The question forced me to see: I am not a Meta Product Manager, a daughter, a girlfriend. These were roles, not essence. 

Stripping away what society shaped me into, I illuminated what I had buried. I realized my mind controlled the narrative, defining my worth through labels — that change every 100 years when what’s “right” changes.

The high achiever, the perfectionist, the caretaker — everything I see in modern women and in myself were survival mechanisms, not my true self. Internal Family Systems (IFS) sees these as parts of you, each shaped by past wounds. When they dominate, the true Self — the calm, clear, whole you — is buried, but instead should lead. Jung called this shadows integration — acknowledging parts of you, that you suppressed or denied, so they no longer influence your sense of identity.

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When you stop identifying, you break yourself. A kind of emptiness follows, a collapse of everything familiar. It’s the liminal phase, the in-between, where you are no longer who you were but not yet who you will become. The answer is to sit with this discomfort.

The emptiness is an opening. This is where you put yourself back together. Where you get to know yourself. Not by rebuilding another fragile identity, but by integrating what you once rejected. You stop asking who you should be and start feeling what is true.

Ego death isn’t just losing an identity it’s reclaiming what was always there.Jung calls this process “becoming whole” when you accept both light and dark, and live from an authentic self instead of fragmented ego. Inner child work taught me how to give myself love, safety and validation, to change how I speak to myself, how I care for myself.

Buddhism calls this “identity as illusion”, the self as shifting experience. The mind will always seek labels, but you don’t have to attach. Instead, you move through life playing your roles, but never consumed by them — fully present, aware, and free.  

7. Integration of energy, intuition and spirituality

As I continued healing — from tracking all of my biometrics, getting all diagnostics, drinking herbs and influencing behavior change with micro-habits, I was also lead to sit with plant medicine for the first time. 

I embraced the idea that life happens "through you" rather than "to you", and the beauty of surrendering and trusting in the Universe.

I also opened up to more spiritual and intuitive healing tools like Akashic Records, hypnosis, energy work. And I examined what spiritually truly means to me without the modern price tag, overindulgence and scams.

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I was already a hyper-sensitive, empathetic person that couldn’t really do crowds, loud arguments, or any sort of negative relationships, and intuitively sensed things before they would happen. Before, diving into the meaning of spirituality, I just told myself to “toughen up”, “be resilient”.

The push to resilience still stands true, as I believe in taking action more then ever, but now I’ve coupled this drive with softer considerations. A way of life and practices that are aligned with people that have heightened sensory perceptions, and can easily access more intuitive states — sort of bubble wrapping myself. I learned how energy works, how attachments form, and how to protect, cleanse, and clear.

This was a gradual process — first I started sitting in meditation every day. Then, I started prophetic dreams and learned to listen to my intuition, higher self and heart. Understanding that the mind is just a tool, a beautiful one, but has it’s place — think with the mind, ask the heart, take action.

Next, I learned energy healing and reading from Qi Gong (TCM), Reiki and Andean (Native American) lineages and Akashic Records — experiencing profound transformations first-hand, that challenged my logical and analytical thinking. I could see how different organs or physical issues were interconnected with mental thought patterns, emotional states, past wounds and the chakra system. And how our life’s purpose, talents, and every day concerns were connected to our wellbeing, and external factors shackling us.

As I dedicated myself to a slower, more aware pace of life, free from many distractions and toxins —overtime, tapping into altered states and inner guidance, without over relying on any tool like plant medicine became easier.

And most importantly I learned that spirituality is quite, governed by love and peace — it’s not flashy displays or ego contests. It’s personal, ultimately urging us to strip away anything that doesn’t serve us, lead with love and accept that we can create  a heaven-like reality here on earth.

6. The spiritual can’t be — without the physical

In this process I also learned that grounding and physical stability when healing emotionally, and expanding spiritually is even more important.

After you step into our new versions, without attachment to external identities, all of your parts “lock together”. You feel as your new, most authentic and true self. The Middle Path in Buddhism, is learning to be fully present and engaged in life without roles, labels and external definitions of self.

You relearn to live as your new self and to integrate back into the physical in a new way — with spiritual connection, honoring of your emotions, love and nourishment for your body, and understanding of the role your mind plays.

Here, it’s our duty to balance both the physical (our body, finances, career) and spiritual. As, you can only evolve as much spiritually as your body, and mind can “catch up”. It’s a gradual process, there to make your entire being strong.

Ready to step out as your new self, the physical is even more important, as it’s only disciple and consistent actions that make your reality true and a reflection of your inner state.

7. Living from authenticity, and creative flow

When you give your new, healed self the room to be, and reconnect with society it’s natural to wonder how you can be the most unique expression of yourself and create from that “true” place.

Creativity and art is so deeply loved by everyone in my family. Yet, the modern-age question still remains — is there room for artistic expression and creativity in day to day and work life? 

Once suppressed, I had to find and tap into that creative drive again, making this energy a foundational component of everything I do and work on. Now, creativity is a state, not only reserved for artists — from making that meal, writing this, working on product designs, healing frameworks, or an art therapy workshop — everything around us is art, and everyone is capable of creating.

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