Oly Doroshev

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Follow me on my Instagram for more tips on healing https://www.instagram.com/olydoroshev/?hl=en

Also, I offer a free consultation on Zoom if you feel interested in working together.

I welcome you as you are!

With love and warm care,
Oly

A little bit on the possible roots of self sabotage.

When our tiny beings are pierced with the wound of abandonment, we develop a wise, protective system that takes control into its hands.

The way it knows to do it is to sabotage good moods, carelessness, success, and love in our life so our wounded parts will never ever experience the overwhelming pain of betrayal and abandonment.

The protective part works so hard and also has a high cost for our life.

It tries to control the uncontrollable. It tries to keep us safe the only way it knows how — avoiding or ruining our "achievements" first.

It's its way to create certainty in the uncertain world.

It asserts its power, agency, and existence through this behavior.

I feel so much tenderness, grace, and gratitude for its exhausting work.

Both of these parts — the wounded and the protective usually live in an area of our brain (the subcortical) that doesn't have a timeline, meaning that they still think that their age is as young and all the threat is as present as it was at the time these parts were born.

We can help our past selves heal when we consciously approach the wounded aspects of our psyche and, with kindness, welcome them to show us what they've been through and how hard they've been working to protect us.

We might experience waves of healing grief, finally releasing ourselves from the burdens of the past.

The truth is that every moment is new, yet the way the mind works is that it projects the past on it to make sense of the present and orient ourselves towards the future.

As hard as it can be at times, we can acknowledge the tender projections from the past for what they are and liberate ourselves to live in the present more connected, fulfilling, and authentic life.

The little you doesn't know how big and mighty you've become. Show it and see what happens.

Oly x

I feel there's a misconception about the healing journey. Something along the lines of: "When I heal, I'll have my life 'together,' I'll feel pleasant emotions, I'll feel safe and thriving all the time, or my misery will come to an end."

And the truth is that it's BOTH AND.

Yes, the more we heal, the safer we feel in our bodies and psyche, the more resilient and whole we feel in our lives, the more fulfillment and meaning we feel, and the more loving we become towards ourselves, others, and the world.

AND

Healing is a bumpy journey; if anything, it brings up to the surface, as we progress and deepen our healing, all the painful places in us that were shoved into the corners of our psyche and bodies so we can be functional in our life.

The more we heal and the more capacity we have to love, the more difficult places will arise for us to love and liberate them.

It's good news.

The challenging news is that it's hard and very painful at times. Healing takes a lot of grieving that integrates love and loss and your infinite preciousness.

Whether you're only stepping onto the path of healing, feeling lost amidst the darkest forest, or emerging to the light — hang in there. You're not alone, and you are healing. Keep going, keep trusting, even if it's trusting the "not trusting," reach out to other souls on the same journey.

I trust you and the timing of the universe.

All love and healing to you.

Oly x

Emotions are paramount for the development of our sense of self.

Emotions are the portal to our values system, to understanding what’s working for us and what doesn’t, and where our boundaries are.

We make sense of our life through feeling the feelings. From the moment we are born (and even in the womb), we receive stimuli from the world and learn to respond to them as we make meaning of our experiences through sensations, emotions, and developing thoughts.

We don’t choose whether we have feelings or not; what we can choose is the relationship we build with them.

And it’s paramount to befriend them because befriending emotions forms the portal to true freedom.

When we are not afraid to hurt, grieve, be jealous, scared, or experience remorse — we can witness the emotions and use them as guideposts for our growth and evolution in life.

We can take leaps and make choices, feel the disappointment and the celebration and hone onto our sense of self, values system, direction in life, fulfillment, and self-trust

And I want to honor that we live in a culture where emotions are scapegoated and are seen as weak. And, of course, we’d push them into the shadow as our drive to belong often overrides the need for authenticity, especially when we are young and dependent and our brains are only developing.

I help people to build a relationship with emotions through radical love and tap into innate wisdom where you unmistakably know to trust your inner compass. DM/ Email me to schedule a free discovery call.

Love
Oly x

Attuning to our feelings and needs is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and OTHERS!

The act of selflessness arises from taking care of yourself first and tending to your being with care and preciousness.

How come?

Beyond being more resourced to hold and help another, being attuned to yourself is also kind because it brings inner clarity and awareness of our capacity to engage in collaborations and follow through on our commitments and promises.

It's ok for the plans to change, and it's kind and respectful to be attuned to the inner fluctuations of energy so we can reschedule and inform others accordingly so they can make the best of their time and meet their needs.

Caring for oneself is caring for another.

It's practicing transparency, honesty, courage, relational safety, trust, and deep connection with oneself and another.

It's my ongoing practice.

And it's where it gets scary for me to stretch the boundaries of my conditioned comfort zone, where I learned to follow what 'I SHOULD DO' over how I am feeling and whether I can commit.

It might be that the inner answer is no (I don't have the capacity), even though a part of me wants me to do the thing very much. Then it would be kind and brave to acknowledge it, be transparent with others around my capacity, and set them free to make the choices that best honor their time and needs.

There might be some grief, and I'll follow in another post on the importance of it and how it relates to letting go.

In the meantime, if it feels right, let me know in the comments below what your comfort zone is and what it looks like stepping outside of it.

Would stepping outside it be around doing something or stopping doing the thing? Tell me!

And if you'd like to explore this together, I offer a 20 min FREE consultation call where we can see how I can support you on your path of liberation from 'shoulds' towards embodying the kindness and grace of attuning to yourself and another.

Much love,
Oly x

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So many of us grapple with feeling like an imposter; it's as if we carry a secret inside about our true nature.

Well, your true nature is light, love, and creativity.

The hidden secret of being an imposter is a memory projected onto the present.

It might be that growing up; you had to hide your true feelings, thoughts, needs, and identity to make others feel more comfortable, to win security and belonging.

And I want to shout out for your strength and innate wisdom to read your environment and accommodate accordingly to survive. It takes so much to cover our authentic selves.

And you can reclaim this strength. Your authentic self is in you; it cannot be touched.

Some of the reasons you might feel like an imposter:

* You were a parentified child who is expected to be an adult and care for others' emotional (and other) needs, not vice versa.
* You had to hide your true feelings and thoughts to be liked, safe and included.
* You had to pretend to be cool, calm, and jolly when you didn't feel like it.
* Your family immigrated to another country and you had to find ways to fit in while also helping your family with the new language.
* You grew up in an environment that favors a certain body shape, skin color, and gender identity over another.

I want to honor the survival wisdom, and the truth is — you are not an imposter. You are unique and one of a kind. There's no other like you.

Yes, we feel like an imposter when we try to be someone we are not. Then the feeling can haunt us even when we follow our heart calling and express our authentic selves.

Feeling like an imposter might feel real, AND it's not the truth.

Because even though we come from the same source, we are unique and different, and no one is alike.

So next time the feeling arises, say hello to it and bow to its help when it was so needed; you might even thank it for its gifts and then remind it that now it has you to navigate through life.

You're an adult now, and your authentic expression to the world is your greatest gift and service to your community, humanity, and the universe.
I help people find liberation from old beliefs through radical love. DM/Email me to book a 20 min FREE consult call.

I see your light✨
Oly x

LOVE is bigger than Fear!
Everything comes from love.
Everything knows love.

Fear too — it’s afraid because it loves and cares.

Grief grieves because it loves and knows the intrinsic worth and reality, which cannot be controlled.

Rage calls for connection and justice because it loves.
Everything is born of love and dissolves into love like the waves of the ocean.

Feeling awe and gratitude for the wonders and wisdom of the human experience and all creation.

Much love to you, dear human fellows.
May you be safe and suffused with love that you are.

Oly x

💖🕊

Triggers can be so so challenging.

They can bring intense emotional overwhelm from the past that threatens to devour you.

At the same time, I want to offer a piece of gratitude for the triggering experiences and for your courage and willingness to face them as they hold gold being the vehicle that allows us to time travel between the past and the present, to heal old wounds and achieve more integrated states in the present.

I help people in our 1:1 sessions and small groups heal the past to liberate the present.

I offer a 20 min free consultation call. DM/email me if something in you feels curious to explore more of the work we can do together.

Lots of love and healing,
Oly

I've struggled with boundaries all my life and am still on my journey to repair them. I am telling you this to illustrate that I know how hard it can be for some of us to say, "No, it doesn't work for me. How about this?"

Yet, I cannot be more grateful when people own their NO and communicate it with love. I trust their YES more and feel safe that they won't punish me later for their struggle, at the moment, to communicate their capacity of whether or not they can meet my request.

Also, 'No" absolutely stands for a complete answer if you don't feel like explaining yourself.

At other times, you might want to invest more energy in being kind and curious and negotiate ways to meet another person's needs while honoring yours, depending on a degree of closeness and other circumstances.

It's okay to be messy and be in the process of figuring this all out. You can say YES and don't mean it, and then, say: "Listen, I really want to help, and this is why I said Yes, but I actually can't do it. I am sorry for misleading you, and here's what I can do."

You cherish your relationship by communicating your boundaries with kindness and clarity to another human.

I teach boundaries based on my journey and neuroscience. DM/Email me to book a 20 min FREE discovery call if it sounds interesting.

All love
Oly x

Why do we choose challenging partners and life experiences over and over based on the traumatic past?

It's an unconscious process that tries to help us heal our past wounding by coming up with a challenging scenario and winning it despite the message we got growing up by proving it wrong, hence, reclaiming our worth.

Let me explain —

If, growing up, I got a message that I am unworthy of attention, my needs are a burden, I'm unlovable and not smart enough, then unconsciously, I'll pursue emotionally unavailable partners that cannot meet my needs because of their wounding.

Similarly, I'll pursue a career considered very smart and challenging rather than my heart's calling.

Why?

Because if I make THIS person that denies my needs or value, to love me, to be attentive to me, or if I succeeded in these infinitely hard studies, then it gives my brain a massive DISCONFIRMING experience that it looks for —

Disconfirmation for my past wounding, namely, proving that I am intelligent, that I had been wronged, that I am lovable and deserving of attention. Because if this super challenging person who forever struggled in relationships chose to love ME, then I am truly worthy (it's not just anybody).

The tragedy of this pattern is that we dismiss partners with whom we can have a secure and reciprocal relationship, and we don't pursue our heart calling because it's not enough to DISPROVE the big and painful learning of the past.

And what keeps us even tighter in this pattern is that the challenging partners we attract don't change, not because we are unworthy but because of their limited capacity to be in a relationship due to their trauma, and it's on them to heal.

And on us to awaken kindly and tend to our wounds.

Holding yourself in kind witnessing is the first step toward untangling these dynamics. If you're here reading this, you are already aware and healing.

I help people to heal relational trauma and build reciprocal secure relationships. You can email/dm me to book a 20 min free discovery call.

Love
Oly

What's scary about being on the giving and receiving end of the word NO?

It's not the word itself. It's the meaning we create about it. This meaning is colored through the lens of our history, social-cultural conditioning, and the emotional tone it is said with.

When a person that says NO feels uncomfortable about it, their defensiveness shows through nonverbal communication such as tone of voice, facial expression, etc.

Saying no might feel scary when growing up we were not allowed to have boundaries and assert our needs, and when we were punished for having our will.

At the same time, hearing NO evokes fear, rejection, and a feeling of failure, especially if we had to take care of our caregivers' emotional needs growing up.

Usually, the agony of this painful struggle with saying and hearing NO lives in the same person.

And when it's scary to hear NO because it lands as rejection or disgust, it might feel like a betrayal to say NO.

Yet, NO is such an important word that brings respect, clarity, and safety into a relationship.

NO is about owning our boundaries instead of projecting resentment onto another person for not stating our boundaries.

The pathway to healing would be recognizing that NO is neutral. The emotions that arise around it come from a meaning our subcortical brain assigns to it.

Radical compassion would be the needed ingredient for healing. Of course, saying and hearing NO is hard, given everything you've been through, social-cultural conditioning, and transgenerational trauma.

And with practice, it's possible to shift the narrative around saying NO.

Start with kindly witnessing your relationship with NO without fixing or fighting it. Just witness with kindness whispering to it: "I see, I understand."

Extend the same kindness to the scared part that wants to fix this urgently: "I see you, of course, you're scared that we will never be able to say no? have a relationship? boundaries?"

Hold both of them simultaneously with kindness and spaciousness and see what happens over time. Let me know if you try the practice.

I bet you're set for a pleasant transformative surprise.

Love x
Oly

SIFTing the mind is a practice that develops our capacity to watch our mind and get to know it more intimately without identifying with a particular experience.

SIFT is an acronym coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, and it stands for:

Sensations
Images
Feelings
Thoughts

Start with sensing and becoming aware of the sensations in your body, the heartbeat, the breath flowing in and out of your lungs and chest; perhaps you can sense tingling on your skin.

Then gently shift your attention to the images that appear in your consciousness. Images are part of cognition; they might be visual thoughts and memories that come from different areas in the brain.

Continue with becoming aware of the feelings. Emotions can feel like energy in the body. You might feel squeezing, tightness, spaciousness, warmth, usually in the core space of your body, or nothing at all — numbness. Sometimes feelings will be explicit to you, like sadness, anger, and joy, and sometimes they will be hard to name—no need to name just now.

Lastly, shift your mind to witnessing the arising thoughts without identifying with their content. It can be a very entertaining movie!

The purpose of the practice is to get to know your mind and Self more intimately without being scared by its contents (sensations, images, feelings, thoughts), grow self-awareness and capacity to respond rather than react, and increase inner safety and brain integration.

It's great to practice daily for at least 5 to 10 minutes for this skill become a brain state. And/or practice for 2-3 minutes several times a day.

I facilitate small groups where we meditate and integrate in a safe and healing relational space. I also offer 1:1 therapy sessions. Feel free to email me for more details.

All love x
Oly

Here a shirt version of SIFTing the mind meditation 🧘‍♂️:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjEQWHgjPhn/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Reactive and Responsive Brain — we need BOTH.

Reactive brain is FAST.
Responsive brian is Slow.

Reactive brain reacts immediately to danger or threat and acts to save a life.

Responsive brain is slower; it's more connected and integrated between sensation, emotion, thought, and witnessing mind; there's a pause between the stimulus and response.

We are responsive when we feel relatively safe or consciously aware that we are not in danger. It serves us best in our relationships, where we want to respond thoughtfully in a way that cares for our relationship.

And while the latter is an important aspiration, reactivity is not bad; it's useful depending on the CONTEXT.

So my invitation is to welcome and embrace both — reactive and responsive brain states; our complex and conflicting humanity.

It gets tricky when unhealed parts of us perceive danger when there's none. The projection feels real because it comes from a time when such a threat was real. However, now, it's a different time, a different person, and different circumstances.

And it's ok if we understand it consciously but can't see or feel it in an embodied way.

If this happens, there might be some healing needed. The first step would be to include whatever experience we're going through in a kind understanding and compassion when available.

It will send soothing neurochemicals to the subcortical area and create more integration that, in turn, will create more capacity to respond rather than react.

And again, we do want to react in certain situations!

So it's not one over another. Both states are valuable.

Above all, we will keep being messy humans, which is tender and a common ground for our belonging.

A reel on the topic is available on Instagram.

I offer a free 1:1 twenty-minute session and facilitate small groups for relational healing. Email/DM me to try it out.

Love x

When the fear is intense, it's usually a younger part inside that's scared and has an unmet need that it tries to express. It uses strategies appropriate to its age and does its best. I guess it feels frustrated, at times ignored and unheard. This is how it was for me, which might be different for you.

The remedy is to turn towards it with kind curiosity and compassion. Invite it to share its concerns. Perhaps it wants to be witnessed by you with kindness. Maybe it needs you to grieve how hurt it feels, how badly it was treated, and how deeply it was injured at times.

Once witnessed, you might ask how old it thinks you are, and with kind eyes, let it know your age, show it your face and your hands to validate that you're not as young as it thinks. Then you can tell it that you're there with it, that it has your protection and guidance, and perhaps it might relax a bit and play in its own time.

Then ask yourself how it feels inside to hold both — the part that wants to go out there, shine your light, facilitate healing, and the part that's afraid.

What happens when you hold both? What's the sensation, feeling, or thought that arise? Perhaps your brain goes blank — this is awesome. Let it happen! The shift happens deep inside. Trust the process.

I offer 20 minutes FREE consultation call where you and I can hold and explore the part that holds fear together so it can let go of it, and you can keep shining your light and spreading healing in the world, which you do anyway just because you are here on this earth.

Drop me an email or a message.

All love,
Oly

When struggling with PTSD and C-PTSD, it's common to experience hyper-vigilance and emotional flashbacks, which makes it hard to intentionally access the PFC (Prefrontal Cortex) and focus on a mental task for a prolonged time.

The brain thrives when it flexes its attention between tasks — mental, motor-based, play and connection, mind wandering, and daydreaming.

When there's trauma, the brain gets fixated on keeping one safe by ensuring it avoids the horrible things that it expects because it has already happened in the past.

It's a memory we live from; however, the trickiness of the implicit memory is that we don't have an awareness of it being a memory — it feels like this exact thing is happening or about to happen NOW.

And given that the brain stem scans for our safety four times a second, it will have difficulty being integrated enough to stay on the mental task for 45 minutes in a row.

The tendency is to think that we might have an attention deficiency. I'd argue that while an integrated brain can stay focused for an hour on average, the brain that struggles with trauma and seemingly can't hold attention holds attention on surviving, monitoring the environment for safety, and managing the inner climate the best it can ALL THE TIME!

So, it's not that you can't hold attention; your brain is exhausted by holding too much on the task of keeping you safe because it perceives a constant threat.

It's a loop because the unhealed memory will keep coming up and "steal" the attention until it's integrated.

I want to normalize that there's nothing wrong with your ability to focus attention. Your brain does its job of trying to keep you safe properly.

Now, what can we do about this?

The first step would be creating some separation between your witnessing mind and the experience by asking the question:

"How do I feel towards my inner experience?"

Whatever comes — keep asking the same question — and how do I feel towards this feeling/sensation/story?

Do this practice until you feel more settled inside; that allows you to choose what you'd like to focus your attention on.

I offer 20 min FREE consultation calls. DM me to schedule a time.

Love