My Story in a Nutshell

I was born in the Soviet Union in the small republic of Latvia. When I was only two and a half years old my mother decided to sign me up into the figure skating academy, but I wasn't accepted. The committee doing the audition looked at my short overweight mom and immediately decided that I was a bad material for a champion skater. Even though through my mother's persistence and creativity of methods, I was enrolled in the Academy after all, I continued being perceived as unworthy material. My coach couldn't see past her vision of me, and I quickly adapted to her disbelief of who I was, and the limitations I had. It never occurred to me to question the validity of her truth. I just resigned to the knowing that I was fat, untalented, and lazy. I didn't dispute, I just proved my coach right, just like so many others I've met over the years. I was as worthless as she saw me.

But one day everything has changed! My mother, who wouldn't give up on the dream of her daughter becoming a professional skater, continued taking me to practice to the local rink. Suddenly, she was approached by a woman, who presented herself as a new coach in town. The woman singled me out among 50 other girls and told my mother that I was very talented and that she wanted to coach me. A couple of years later I was smiling on the top position on the podium. What happened? How did I, untalented, lazy, fat kid become a champion? Simple! The new coach had a different vision of me, different beliefs, she saw me differently! Not only she recognized my talent, she held me up to her vision, and convinced me to follow it! I raised to the occasion and outperformed all the 'talented' skinny girls. The lesson stuck with me. I realized that who I could become had nothing to do with my potential, but everything to do with the belief and the vision I held for myself, and/or important people in my life held for me.

I never forgot the lesson taught to me when I was a little girl, and when the time came to choose what I wanted to do with my life, I knew: I wanted to inspire others to believe in themselves, unearth and nurture the potential stored within them, and to hold the vision and belief of what was really possible for them.

Naturally, when I grew up, I chose a path of a figure skating coach, and for twenty years I was honing and polishing my coaching skills and the skating skills of my students. I set my eyes on becoming a National and Olympic coach, and I saw an Olympic champion within every one of my students. And then it just happened...

My students started winning competitions. First local, then regional, then national, then international... I got to work with skaters like Sasha Cohen and Johnny Weir... It was happening! My dreams were manifesting! I realized that what I paid attention to--grew. If I paid attention to something I didn’t like, it expanded, and if I focused on something I liked it expanded also!

As my students and I got better, I started feeling that what we were doing wasn’t enough. I taught outstanding skating techniques and superior physical conditioning. I had a natural gift of inspiring my students to push themselves to the limit...
”The limit”... it was here that I found myself stuck! It appeared that the horizontal line of physical success reached the wall, the barrier, and to move beyond it something else needed to happen. My search had begun. Gradually it extended outside the narrow field of the limited physicality of the sport. I began exploring such fields as Sports Psychology, Yoga, Meditation, Martial Arts... and finally Spiritual Psychology. I’ve noticed that people of all walks of life struggle with the same fundamental issues as any skater I’ve coached: fear of failure, fear of success, fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, feelings of loneliness and isolation, procrastination, burn-out, lack of focus, inability to control emotions, ineffective use of time, lack of direction and knowing what they want, having no real purpose in life, boredom, and addictions as a way to cope with life... etc... I have suddenly found myself having a unique set of skills, talents and passion for being of service to people, for helping them peal away any and all layers that were comfortably covering up the gigantic potential stored within them. I’ve discovered that through this service I was discovering my own potential as well... Now, are you ready to take this journey with me?