Anchor into Calm, Re-Ignite Self-belief & Quit Smoking With Yeliena Theofilatos

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Yeliena Theofilatos Did I get it right.

OK.

That was a tough.

One beautiful yes, but.

Not ordinary, which is special because you're special. Welcome to the show, Yelena is.

Yelena is a licensed master social worker, a hypnotherapist, and an accidental entrepreneur, as well as a podcast host. So welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here with you today. I'm so grateful.

So tell us a little bit about your story and then we'll jump into what you're doing and how you're doing it.

Sure, my story, I feel like it's important to highlight the fact that.

Even though I live in Hawaii right now, which is the way it's pronounced by local people, I would, I would hope so. I'm a I'm much more precise with that that I used to be Hawaii Big Island, but originally I'm really not from here, I'm from Russia.

And considering that it's January right now. Oh, actually it's the 1st of February as we're recording it. I'm very grateful.

To be you know.

By the wise because right now all of my family, which is still in Russia, is getting snow storms, you name it. And I'm like, OK, and I'm warm and cozy.

Can complain and a immigrated myself to New York first and foremost.

And then I went to grad school, which has been my dream since I was a teen, to become a psychotherapist, something that I didn't do when I was in Russia. I was studying banking and finance out of all things.

But I did my masters. Finally. I discovered hypnosis along the way. Actually, I was considering to do it as a alternative route. A way to help people without necessarily having to get a degree and etcetera. But I still did the degree.

And I moved to Hawaii as the COVID pandemic just began, and there was no hiring whatsoever for my position to work anywhere, really. So that's how incidental entrepreneur part of it happened, because I really didn't want to be one. I went to grad school.

For a reason, but.

COVID maybe do it so here I am now. I founded my blooming heart hypnotherapy and coaching my blooming heart every time I say I see so fast, so, so many times. And this is what I'm doing now.

I love it and your website or your podcast piece grows here at they just go together so nicely. You were talking about being a gardener and I gardens are all about peace to me and the blooming is the flower and this this stuff.

Growing and it happens in people too, as as we allow ourselves to unfold, we discover so much beauty and.

I think that's kind of where.

You go with what you're doing.

You're right. Yeah, yeah, definitely. The podcast name came by me, like, Brainstorm and go. OK. What goes along with my, like, my brand's name and what I believe in. And so yeah.

They're very much aligned. I'm glad somebody else noticed that.

I do notice that I and I just love.

That and we were talking briefly about peace being you were talking about saying it too fast, but when you say it, it is it kind of an it's on. I'm on a poetic where it sounds like what it is because it it's drawn out and it's it gives you that that momentary.

Breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Peace.

So you work with hypnotherapy?

Mainly with your clients. Is that how you get the results that you get?

Say it's a mixture coat.

Do you do other kinds of?

It's a mixture of hypnotherapy, hypnotherapy. For me it's a it's a delivery method. I call it because I just use hypnosis as a way to help people learn skills. But the way I decide what skills they should learn, what ideas and beliefs are beneficial for them.

Is guided by other modalities.

The trick I love hypnotherapy and that it.

It works really fast and it's not like you're under hypnosis and you have no control over what's going to happen in your.

Life. That's not what hypnotherapy is, but.

It allows you to get to a place where.

Those things can actually inculcate into your body and.

Your mindset.

Yes, I just learned a new word. Thank you. OK. I I can't even say it right, but I'm going to.

And look it up, but you're.

Right in Colgate.

In color, Kate, I love to use the word percolate when it comes to explaining.

Why? I don't necessarily talk to people right away after we have a hypnotherapist session, I'm saying let's let those ideas, discoveries and insights that happened in in the in them in time just percolate and then they will bubble up. There's a lot of those metaphors in there.

Yeah, cause.

It sometimes takes a minute.

For the things that happen while you're.

Doing hypnotherapy to.

To get to the surface where your conscious mind can actually make something out of what you've experienced, I find that.

Going to sleep and then waking up.

It's in that waking up stage, so it's like a lot of stuff will.

Come to you.

Going into episodes like that.

Right. So go ahead.

So who? Who do you primarily work with? What kinds of people? What the problems?

Do you solve?

Primarily I work. I have been working with anxiety for the most part. When I just started off for a couple of years and now I also.

It and what I'm trying to say is that I've been working with other.

Kind of problems , even as I was working with people with anxiety, but I never put myself out there as someone.

Doing that so I work with people who want to quit smoking but never really like set it out loud to the bigger community because I wanted to make sure that what I'm doing is like a well, well oiled machine. The methodology. So I'm doing it now, sort of publicly. I help people quit smoking.

Is it not necessarily hypnotherapy only? It's a combination of?

Science coaching and hypnotherapy and also help people with depression and just the burnout in general.

Anxiety is a huge thing these days.

It was bad before COVID, but I think after COVID it's even worse. They're just like.

It destroys the lives.

Yep, it was.

And I I'm not necessarily trying to say that it was like a traumatizing experience for, like, all of us, but for a lot of us, it was a smaller big.

Team trauma, however you want to call it. For some people it was much more.

Bigger problematic on a scale and some people kind of like just moved to Mexico. Like my friends from New York and they their lives going just fine, but for most.

Of us it.

I feel like all of us, it left us with that, like, oh, anything can change at any time. It can just shift. And that gives us this.

Kind of a stance that we have to always embody. I have to be in control. I have to be ready and it's anxiety producing to have to be like that all time. So we got to relax. We just got to breathe sometimes as well, and it might be a little tricky if we're waiting for that shoe to drop.

And so to say.

Yeah, for sure. And it wasn't just like one or two countries, it was the whole world and everybody was touched by it. Even people that thought they had kind of escaped any negative ramifications from it, even they were touched somehow. Everybody knows somebody that was.

Capital traumatized by it.

Hmm. And it it's still, it's not gone. It's still.

Touches people's lives. My father, in my past in December and you know. Yes, he had heart failure, but he got COVID. My husband gave it to him, made him feel really guilty but.

It's a thing.

And it.

Will continue to be a thing for the foreseeable future at least.

Yeah, it's not.

No, like, OK, it's good now and.

Life's going on like it did before because it will never be the same again, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's a good thing in a lot of ways. It's made accidental entrepreneurs been all over the place.

Right. There's got to be some silver lining there somewhere, you know, just enough. It's nice to bring attention to that part of it as well, because we all know about the strategies that happen there, and I'm just going to send you some love.

You know what you just heard about your loss? It's it hits home. A lot of people because a lot of people lost them to you once and their life. And that's just the whole experience in and of itself, without necessarily considering that the whole world is going through it.

As well.

I definitely had some losses in my life when I was younger and it changed me forever and it made me aware that ohh that's actually possible and it's also made me cherish every day a little more than I think I did prior to having those losses became, I became more aware of how fleeting life is.

And I can't say that I'm not always super aware in my full and present at all times these days, but I'm trying to, as a result of that.

I don't think.

Anybody can always be, you know, super present and hyper spiritual, Eckhart Tolle once said. And you, you can do all the spiritual practices you want, but just, you know, go get around your family for a couple hours and.

And he's like this really super spiritual person.

Things like that's like.

I'm sure even the Dalai Lama, if he was faced with his family, would.

At this moment.

Yeah, yeah, I'll just human.

But having coaches that are out there that can help you navigate and give you tools for dealing with things like depression and anxiety and smoking is really kind of an offshoot of all of those things.

People smoke to kind of nicotine gives you some relaxation. There's some relaxation mechanism to.

This is how I got into this whole field of wanting to help people with anxiety because smoking and anxiety was really.

Intertwined for me, for me to.

Quit both. I had to quit both. It couldn't be just OK. I'm just gonna, you know, continue smoking and there and but. But I will deal with my anxiety. I will make sure I do that. It had to be both and.

The interesting thing about smoking in terms of that relaxation response.

I feel like it's mostly in our head because in our body it's a very different story. Our heart rate goes down, our arteries tighten, there's the nicotine is stimulant. So if you think about our bodies actually speeding up. But what I think helps is that when we smoke.

It usually.

Really, when we're taking a break, we are actually breathing throughout that time and I think that's what actually brings the relaxation more so than the nicotine itself and the cigarettes, the ritual of like stepping out and smoking and just breathing and taking it all in. Ideally we just learn.

What to do?

Without smoking and that would be so much more healthy.

Yeah. It's like a signal that you need.

To take a.

Break. We need other signals.

I I did smoke when I was younger also. And you're absolutely right, because you would just, we'd go out on the balcony and it was in San Diego. It was beautiful. And you just.

For a little while, you were outside and I liked it. You know, it's moved so you can't smoke inside anymore. A it I hate going in places where people do smoke inside and you live in Hawaii and nobody smokes inside. In Hawaii, I live there too.

They're really picky about that, but.

It just.

It's just, yeah, I can see what you're saying about taking the break it.

I think that's really helpful. Did you did you quit drinking at the same time or do you do you drink alcohol?

I at this point I do it very rarely and I have never really been a big drinker, even though I'm from Russia. You know, I should probably be into vodka all this through times. Come out with people here that I'm Russian. Yes, I.

Had to.

I remember quitting. I quit a couple of times. I went back to smoking that when the first time I quit I was then kind of going out and partying. I was in my early 20s and I would smoke and drink, and I realized for me to quit smoking. Then I had to quit drinking too, because they would just when so well together.

They do, they do.

Coffee is another one of those things I used to drink coffee and smoke a cigarette, and when I quit I couldn't drink, couldn't drink coffee either. I do drink coffee now, but I embrace sobriety a while back and it's.

Been serving me really well.

I was old when I did it.

So you know.

No judgment here.

Everybody has their moment in time. So when would when would somebody contact you if they wanted to, like, quit smoking or if they wanted, if they were just.

Feeling really anxious.

Right.

What would you say about that?

To contact me specifically.

Yeah, yeah. Should they contact you? How should they contact you? When should they contact you?

Well, if.

Right. If they have Instagram, they can go there and you know DM me direct message me I'm that's the platform that I use the most. Alternatively you can go on my other side and for smoking I actually do have a free training that I put out there that people sign up for that.

The e-mail address and etcetera, that's not the way to contact them, but that's the way to get a sense of what I'm offering because everything they're learning in their training, I'm basically helping them to go through the same steps, very similar.

And I did it just for the people to like, get, get an idea that I'm not just a regular hypnotherapist who offers, like, one off hypnotherapist sessions for quitting smoking because I honestly don't believe in them myself. But my blooming heart.com that's the name of my website and you people can find.

Anxiety training and a smoking training both there and to send me an e-mail. That's I believe I do have a contact form. I do. So go ahead and do that if you wish.

I think I saw it on there too.

So anxiety and smoking going together, do you think smoking actually aggravates anxiety?

Yes, because.

If we smoke tobacco or actually anything and think that that.

Provides US relief. It might do that for the reasons that we spoke about just prior to this, because it's like a breather space. It's a break. It's like you punch, you're eating your day, you know, with the smoking breaks. It's you. You build up tension and then you're like, OK and now I've gotta.

Right.

Like release it.

So that's where the smoking comes in very handy. But when we do that, we're not really addressing anxiety at its core. The only thing that we doing the anxiety pattern, whatever it is for that particular person is still very much alive and we are not.

In any shape or form, engaging with it while we're doing, with building a habit around it that is going to just keep it in place because it's distracting us from actually learning the tools like regulating your nervous system, let's say that will actually help us with anxiety. Smoking doesn't help us in.

In the long run, it just gives us this momentarily, very temporarily. Relief that keeps us going back to smoking. But anxiety is still there intact.

Yeah, and it does so many other things to your body as well, but.

You don't. You don't even. Really.

Think about them. But they.

They make you feel certain ways.

Because of the chemicals that are actually in the tobacco or the.

Don't even get me going down the pot Rd.

That just.

I have smoked in my life, but it generally just makes me really anxious. Like I don't know why people do this if you're just going to get.

If it's not going to make you feel.

Good. What's the point?

I hear you.

So people can get in touch with you over on your website and.

They can listen to your podcast piece grows here. Where can they find the podcast?

On my website or if they have Spotify and Apple, those two platforms I'm on.

That's awesome. And what do you?

Talk about on your podcast.

I talk about anxiety. I'm going to record one for smoking soon. That that's my podcast been primarily focused on actually guests interviews. The first round of the eight episodes, it was all guest.

So only now I'm starting to talk about anxiety solo, so to say. The past two episodes that I did was on regulating nervous system, and another one was on how to use self talk. The way we talk to ourself and our minds to shift.

Our mood, our state to a better one.

A lot of times I do 50/50, I talk to female entrepreneurs and ask them.

They can be in any kind of industry. I'm just really curious how are they doing their life, their business life and still capable of like maintaining their mental health and emotional well-being? I asked them to give their tips that are just.

Have to be very practical and real, and the idea is to.

Educate and just show that running your own business is a it's a it's a bit of a it's a it's not easy and we all have to somehow balance and find our ground over and over again. And I think the best is to learn from people who are doing it alongside with your other female entrepreneurs. So.

The majority of my audience is female entrepreneurs.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, what's the one thing you hope that the audience takes away from our conversation today?

So the one thing that I hope the audience takes away is when it comes to anxiety. I have a mantra that I came up.

Because I have observed so many people to try to think the way out of.

Think I if I think some more I will get out of it. That's the idea. But it tends to be.

Actually trapping us back into that state. So my one thing, if you're feeling anxious, please regulate your nervous system.

Do some breathing, do some walking, dancing, singing, get out of your head for a moment, and then when you feel safer in your nervous system, go back and think some more. If you still have to start with the body and then go for the mind, that's just my recipe for success.

You like it? I like it. Start with the body and then.

Approach your mind.

Often we get trapped in our heads and we forget about our bodies. Sure. Thank you so much for joining me today, Yeliena

Yeliena, thank you. Yay.