Today we’d like to introduce you to Yeliena Theofilatos

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

In 2010, at the age of 20 I came to NYC from Russia and decided to stay. When I share about being an immigrant, my audience tends to assume that I left Russia because of political reasons. But it was much simpler and at the same time more personal than that. I left because I was heading toward a degree in Finance & Banking and a career that I would absolutely hate – something that I did not realize until it was too late to switch my direction.

I grew up poor. That is often surprising for people in the US to hear when they find out because both of my parents were doctors. The truth of the matter is that in Russia, even now, doctors are not well paid (neither are teachers!)

The 1990s, Soviet Union had just fallen apart, and Russia descended into years of a total economical disarray. Would you believe me if I say that there were times when my parents got paid…mmm…with cases of vodka!?

At that time, in the town I am from, we had a liquor producing factory and the local government, struggling to make its ends meet, decided to offer its products as the paycheck! No wonder my father quickly found himself going down the alcohol path but, I guess, it is a story for another time…

Let’s fast forward a bit to the year I was graduating high school: my mother passes away from cancer and with her my dream to study in Moscow and become a psychotherapist went as well. She was the main breadwinner of our family and she worked herself to death. So when I talk about “toxic productivity” on my Instagram account these days, I have a very close to home example of what can happen when we do not slow down!

Grieving my mother’s passing, I really did not care what school to go and what to study. I knew I was good at math, and that my parents once hoped that I would follow my older brothers’ steps. He was working in the financial sector and doing really well for himself. So I applied to a local university, got in, and in my first year of school, I realized that it was definitely not for me.

But the graduation seemed far away and I hoped that I might still develop some interest in what I was learning. In reality, I already felt quite hopeless about switching career paths. In the Russian education system, we do not “shop around” for majors. We are locked into one major from the day one of school. Acquiring second degree, after the first one, was going to be very difficult and I knew it.

So I felt stuck. I was surrendering to the idea that I was going to work in a bank for the rest of my life and die a moral and spiritual death way before my physical one. I had no idea that it all was about to change drastically.

In 2010 I came to NYC as an exchange student. I was supposed to work in the US during that summer and then go back and do another year of school before I was going to graduate.

One month into being in the US I realized that it was my one and only chance to change directions. Yes, I would be losing 4 years of my life to the degree I was never going to use and start totally anew, but it was worth it! It was the matter of saving the rest of my life out of the hands of misery so I took that leap of faith and stayed.

I did not know English that well. I did not have a plan for how I would acquire legal papers. I did not know how I would find a way back to my dream of becoming a psychotherapist. And while what then transpired in my years of being an immigrant could easily be considered for a movie plot, let me just take you through its key moments that matter for this particular endeavor her:

I did my Bachelors in Psychology and, years later, my Masters in Social Work, and then, after 9 years of living in NYC, I moved to the Big Island of Hawai’i. It was 2020 and you already know what happened then, right? The pandemic of course. In Hawai’i, the hiring freeze on all local social work positions took place so I had no choice but to do something that I had never imagined myself doing – start my own business!

This is how My Blooming Heart Hypnotherapy was born to help women who had dreams of running their own businesses but struggled with Anxiety standing in between them and their deepest aspirations.

I realized that those are the people I was going to be able to help the most because by then I had a clear idea of how to heal Anxiety effectively as I had dealt with it in all of its permutations, throughout my years of being an immigrant.

It is 2024 and my business is still doing its thing! I am also working as a therapist in a local clinic to collect hours to become a fully fledged independent therapist when the time comes.

That is that!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

My journey of becoming a psychotherapist has definitely not been smooth. Part and parcel of that story is the struggles that I have gone through as an immigrant. I lacked community and guidance on how and what to do to obtain a legal status in the US. I was not speaking English very well when I came first and that was a big obstacle when it came to finding jobs. My finances in the first two years of living in the US were really really shaky. There were times that I did not know how I was going to pay my rent or for my groceries. But I persevered and here I am:)

I jumped through all the hoops and found myself enrolling into a college for my Bachelors in Psych. This is how a lot of people on the path of a therapist begin, right? But the years during and after my studies there were anything but a straight trajectory toward becoming a therapist. I finally had the freedom to sample different careers, something I did not have an opportunity to do while living in Russia so there I was doing exactly that!

I was a yoga teacher, night club dancer, waitress, hypnotherapist, you name it! NYC is all about gig economy, so please do not even get me started talking about all the odd jobs I have done there to get the bills paid and explore my passions and possibilities.

Eventually I surrendered to the fact that I needed to go to grad school after all. By surrendering I mean that I surrendered to the student loans reality that was horrifying to me. And, honestly, if someone would have told me then what kind of a hell I was singing up for when I entered the grad school, I would probably think again before applying.

Those two years were as stressful for me if not more than the first two years of my life in the US. My anxiety was going through the roof all day, every day. For the first time, I experienced what it was like to have chronic insomnia, to live in the state of fight-and-flight that never subsides, while also having no time for self-care or even one deeper breath! There I was, learning to become a therapist, and I was the furthest away from my personal optimal mental health. But again, I persevered.

Now I have a degree from one of the most respectable universities in the country and am grateful for the training I have received. But I am surely done with grad schools for life and am so excited about having my own business because I can create a lifestyle around it that actually nurtures my health instead of crushing it.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?

In 2021, inspired by my own struggle with and eventual overcoming of Anxiety, I founded My Blooming Heart Hypnotherapy & Coaching which since became My Blooming Heart Therapy. Even since I have been helping women entrepreneurs anchor into self-belief and find inner stability and calm. Plus I have also been working at a local psychotherapy clinic, here on the Big Island of Hawai’i. where I help men and women of all walks of life to find their way to optimal mental health.

In my business I specialize in utilizing hypnotherapy and nervous system regulation to teach my clients to reclaim their strengths and capabilities that they have been overlooking within themselves.

I coach them on unwinding the habits that perpetuate Anxiety (e.g., habit of worrying) and how to regulate their nervous systems. Because I am particularly passionate about my clients continuing to succeed well beyond our sessions together and maintaining their results, I also help them create a daily self-care routine and overall lifestyle where they integrate these news tools into their busy lives.

In this way, I also teach my hypnotherapy clients self-hypnosis and helps them release stress and find inner calm regardless of what life throws their way!

I provide bespoke hypnotherapy sessions that I create from scratch (no scripts!) for each client to honor and highlight her existing strengths and help her build new skills for inner calm, self-trust, and resilience.

I am obsessed with the solution-focused approach that I am working with and the sparkle in my client’s eyes when they realize that they have been always amazingly capable and now it is their time to claim it!

What sets me apart from other hypnotherapists out there (at least the majority of them) is that I really tailor my session to the person in front of me and while I have techniques, tips, and tricks that I have collected over the years, I see a person through the lens of their individuality and not of any cookie-cutter approach.

Plus, I have extensive training and experience in therapeutic modalities by the virtue of being a social worker in the past and that helps me create even more potent journeys as well.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?

I was extremely lucky to be well sheltered from the chaos ravaging the continental US (and the world) during the Covid-19 crisis. My husband and I were well tacked away on our piece of land, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, tending our garden as our full time job, having a full freedom to walk around in the sun, and even meet in small groups at times.

But the biggest lesson that I learnt then was about the illusion of security in relying on the system for providing me with a job and even food.

There were many times where we thought about: What if boats stop coming, what the heck will we do?

You might think that Hawai’i produces a lot of its food but it is not true. The islands heavily rely on import.
Realizing that really got me and my husband inspired to learn how to grow our own food. We are still learning how to do it well, but I am grateful for this lesson because it taught me that I can actually provide for myself on such a basic level and how empowering it can feel to be able to do so!

And in terms of employment, when the pandemic started, I was freshly out of the grad school, finally ready to jump back into the work after taking a few months off to regroup, and boom! full stop! Soon after the news about the pandemic reached Hawai’i, the state placed a hiring freeze on all social work positions. Suddenly what I studied for in grad school and paid big bucks to have access to, meaning social work jobs, evaporated in front of me at no fault of my own.

That experience was such a big eye-opener for me as someone who went to grad school to avoid by all means possible starting a business. I felt I was too introverted to be an entrepreneur. I was doubting my ability to gather the necessary audience and even to have a message worth sharing!

But nothing else as seeing how easily my financial stability can be taken away from me could ever start that gentle fire under my bum to start thinking in the entrepreneurial direction. And here I am today, very grateful for that fire despite the fact that I would much rather prefer for that motivation to come without having a global pandemic to cause it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mybloomingheart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mybloominghearttherapy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elena.honey/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MyBloomingHeartHypnotherapy
• Other: Insight Timer https://insig.ht/0pwh8NeIxNb