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Yanina Nikitina Transformational Coach, London (2025)

09/08/2018

I just realised that I never posted the last part of my long story about drinking. So here it is. Comment if you have something to say. 🙂

“Good drinking vs bad drinking”. Part 3..But my point here is this: since I allowed myself to follow my dreams and to do what I really wanted to do in my life and not to run after a job title and bigger salary, which, both, I am sure sooner or later I would have got had I decided to build my career in luxury retail, alcohol slowly but surely left my life. As I got rid of stress and negative emotions, constant emotional fight with things which I found being unfair and ridiculous at my workplace (bad mystery shopping result, anyone? When head office asks you to “investigate” what happened and why we scored 75% instead of required100% and you know that the “mystery shopper” actually made mistakes in the report, because your team can always recognise a mystery shopper from far away just by the way they are asking questions and then make sure that give the best service ever. Even when I am writing it now, those memories make me sick. F that S.), the need to numb myself with alcohol after work disappeared. Why would I get drunk if my life was actually rather tranquil? I was doing my waitressing job and the moment I was leaving the restaurant, I was not thinking about my work until my next shift. My biggest stress was happening when a model would cancel the night before a photo shoot and we urgently needed to find another model to replace her. Now, it would be quite hypocritic to say that I stopped drinking at all. No, I still occasionally got drunk with my colleagues, we had our favourite place in Soho where we would regularly go dancing after having drunk quite a lot of alcohol (coming sober to that place was simply impossible), but we were drinking because we were crazy and we wanted to have fun like all young people do. So we did. I came to the point that I was drinking so rarely that I was proudly saying “I don’t drink (at all)”. But what I have noticed that literally every time I say “I will never do this or that” or “I don’t drink”, I find myself doing completely the opposite. And every time I make a point that I don’t drink I actually get drunk. So I stopped. I drink rarely, but I still do; I do when I go home and see my friends, when I go on holidays and feel like having a local beer, or when my flatmate comes back from Portugal and brings a bottle of Alhambra which I like so much. So we sit in our kitchen chatting about his holidays or just making jokes of each other and we drink half a bottle of Alambra living the other half for the next time. But, but!!! when I know that I want to have a deep meaningful conversation with one of my friends, I do avoid alcohol altogether only because I know that I will wake up in the morning and won’t remember at least a half of that conversation and will regret about it. Sober deep meaningful conversations are my favorite pass time ever. God bless tea and coffee.

So why I was telling this long story about my jobs and alcohol? I know that there are thousands of women out there who will recognize themselves in my story. They may not work in luxury retail, but in any other industry, but their behavior pattern is the same. Doing a job which they dislike or even hate, having a dream of doing something else but being scared to leave the security of a conventional job and maybe a solid paycheck at the end of the month, feeling not good enough for doing what they really want to do in their lives, hating their boss, taking a lot of sh.t, working long hours, feeling miserable every single day when going to work, reaching for a drink at every opportunity in order to stop feeling the pain.

The good news is that at any moment in our lives we can say “I had enough” and make a leap. Yes, it is going to be scary, yes we might lose a big part of our income and we will have to adapt to our new lifestyle and to leave some habits behind (no more dinners out, no more Black Cab on the way home after having few bottles of vine with a friend, no more unnecessary shopping as means of distraction, etc), but what we will receive as an exchange for letting go of all the things and habits we don’t really need in our lives is freedom. And from my own experience, freedom is sweeter than anything else in this world.

As for the bad news, nobody will come to save you, the decision to change your life must be yours. Saying this, it is great to have your support team, be it parents, partner or like-minded friends, but in any case, the decision will be yours.

P.S. This photo is a perfect example of happy drinking. 😎

03/08/2018

Not being an expert in planetary movements, I however firmly believe that our lives are affected by what is going on “up there” and that 3 times per year we can officially blame Mercury in retrograde for almost every unexpected fu**up happening with us. This summer 6 planets are moving in retrograde so you can imagine...
Few days ago I was chatting with my sister in law and she said “For sure your brother is under Mars’ influence. You’d better not approach him.” It seems to me that I am not the only one who finds myself in the middle of huge tempest this summer. I haven’t felt so lost, confused, stressed and unbalanced for many years. I don’t remember when last time I questioned so much myself and my behaviour and whether I was doing things right or wrong. It’s been quite a while since I was so desperate to get an answer to my question “What is the lesson I am learning now and what am I supposed to do in order learn this lesson and move forward???” Please, Universe, tell me!!!!
But I am coming to the point, after almost 2 months of living in some sort of a turmoil, where I start feeling grateful for what is happening with me now. Even though I still can’t figure out what kind of lesson I am going through. I don’t know anything, I don’t even know what is this green leaf behind me: parsley or coriander? They bloody look the same! ☘️
The only thing I know for sure in this moment of my life is that yoga is indeed THE thing which brings me back to balance every single time I step on the mat and spend some time on it. Yes, sometimes the after-yoga high lasts not too long, but it only means that tomorrow I will step on the mat again, and then again and again and again.
This too shall pass. Even Mercury in retrograde. 🌪

25/07/2018

“Good drinking vs bad drinking”. Part II.

I was doing that job for almost 3 years, and I must admit that it was a great experience for me which I wouldn’t trade for anything. But being the one in charge requests million things to be taken care of and to highlight here – to manage human beings and to make sure that they give you the result you want is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. And I am not exaggerating. During all that time alcohol was very present in my life. Back then for me, a normal thing was to come home, open a bottle of wine (or a bottle of whisky), have a couple of glasses of wine of a few cocktails, get tipsy (obviously) and go to sleep. And go to work in the morning. And then in a few days to repeat it all again. In my recent conversation with a very close friend of mine with who we worked in the same industry doing the same job, she said “God, I remember coming home after work, drinking wine and smoking half of a pack of ci******es every single day. How could I do that? It makes me cringe now that I was wasting my time like this.” We talk about that time from time to time and we kind of wrinkle our noses and shakes our shoulders and ask each other “How did we go through those dark times?” It’s been 6 years since I left that job. It was a perfect time to do so. I first went from a manager position down to a sales assistant, and by doing so a huge amount of pressure was removed from my shoulders. Less than a year later, after finally obtaining my permanent residence in the UK I left retail altogether and starter to invest more time into developing my career as a fashion stylist and at the same time, I took a waitressing job in a restaurant so I could pay my bills. Back then little did I know that what I was planning to be a temporary restaurant job while my styling career was taking off turned into a permanent full-time job for almost 3.5 years and another thing I could never imagine happening was that I, myself, would say goodbye to my dream to become a stylist because the dream just left me without giving any notice. Just like this. One day it just disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED...

23/07/2018

This photo was taken somewhere back in 2008 in a nightclub in Kensington. My face says it all, right? A glass of vodka mixed with something in my hand. So romantic... The perfect picture for this post, which was supposed to be a logical continuation of my previous post but turned out to be SO long (usual stuff) that I will have to break it into 2 posts.
The title "Good drinking vs bad drinking" (based on the real events).
A couple of years ago I came to visit a friend of mine who at the time was working in a bar just next to Liverpool Street Station. It was an early afternoon in the middle of the working week, and what really struck me that the bar was full of office people working in surrounding high-rise buildings who were drinking alcohol in a way that I would call “serious drinking” or even “heavy drinking”. Not sure what is the exact difference between normal drinking and heavy one, but to have few large glasses of wine or few double shots of whisky during lunch time, won’t it make you drunk or at least very tipsy? I am myself quite lightweight when it comes to alcohol; I am tipsy after few sips of wine and clearly drunk after two glasses, but I am not the only one like this. I forgot to mention that this story happened just a week before Christmas, but still…

So, I, naively, asked my friend Oleg what was going on here and why all these people were drinking as if there was no tomorrow and how could they go back to work after all those drinks and be productive? Oleg looked at me as if I was from Mars or any other planet and said “Yana, but those guys drink like this almost every day, this is a normal thing for them”, and then he started telling stories about a group of women coming at 8am, just before work, and ordering champagne, about numerous guys who, after few shots, would start telling him about how much money they were making and how cool they were, but the more they drank the more they opened up admitting that their lives were actually miserable, that they didn’t like their jobs, that they didn’t see any meaning in what they were doing. When you’re a barman, people tell you their stories all the time, and my friend Oleg is a person with who you just feel like having a chat. So he was not exaggerating. Anyway, back then this picture of apparently casual lunch drinking left me a bit in awe, maybe because by that time I had very little alcohol in my life and I actually forgot what it was to drink alcohol with the only purpose in mind – to get numb and distract yourself from reality and not to care anymore. But the truth is, many years ago I had been one of those people; I maybe didn’t drink during lunchtime, but I drank quite often after work, and back then it was a normal thing for me.

So, almost 11 years ago I came to London to work in luxury retail. I was working for a big (huge) French luxury brand in one of London department stores in a managerial role and without going too much into details, I will just say that that time was extremely stressful for me for many reasons. However, back then I didn’t realise that it actually was stressful and that sometimes I was treated not in a best way, because it was my first job in the UK and also because of my work visa I couldn’t change the job easily, so I was living my life and taking all the s**t coming with that job. I also had a very friendly relationship with some of my colleagues and for us, it became almost like a ritual after finishing work to go to a café which was literally next door from the staff entrance and to have a drink. Needless to say that it had never been only one drink; I don’t know how many bottles of Pinot Grigio we drank during that year of working together. Of course, we had fun, we laughed a lot, sometimes we would go to another place, and then another, and there was always alcohol around, and then we would go home in the middle of the night and in the morning show up at work with a horrible hangover. I remember one time I was literally laying on a sofa in a staff room upstairs thinking that I was going to die. It happened to me not to remember at all how I got home, once (or twice) a cab driver literally had to bring me to the door because I was so drunk that I couldn’t walk myself, I woke up in the morning laying on my bed still wearing my coat (I remember at least one occasion, but I am sure there was more of those) and so on. Ok, this was 10 years ago, I was in my late twenties back then, my body was taking alcohol much easier than it does now when I have a not-that-strong-but-still a hangover even after a glass of vine.

After leaving that job, I became a manager for another luxury brand and funny enough I stayed to work at the same department store. So I was the one responsible for the successful running of the business. And those who ever worked as a manager in luxury retail, especially manager for a big brand, know, that in this industry the daily pressure for achieving the target is huge and that very often the higher your position in the company is and the more pressure from the people above (who, obviously, want to see the result) you have, the faster you sell your soul to the devil or turn to the dark side, or whatever else you want to call it. The idea is clear: you lose or give away all your humanity and become a sort of Terminator with the only goal in mind “I want the target to be achieved by any means, and I mean it”. You achieve the target – you are a good guy, you miss it – you are a bad guy and you will pay for it. I witnessed with my own eyes seemingly nice people turning into monsters after being promoted to a higher position. Why? Because the pressure was higher and they could handle it only by cutting all their feelings off and driving for a result like robots (the bad Terminator in the 2nd film). And they drank even more alcohol than people below them.
TO BE CONTINUED

19/07/2018

What a beautiful photo to promote my upcoming workshop! If you ask me how a glass and an empty bottle of beer are related to empowering a strong woman within, read what I have to say and you will see my point. I had this beer yesterday night, alone, in my room, sitting on a cushion which I usually use for meditation. I don’t want to sound like someone who starts and finishes her every single day with meditation, because I am not there yet, usually I sit and try (!!!) to meditate when I feel like my mind really needs some space clearing. Anyway, last night this cushion served for a more banal purpose. I just landed on it after coming back from the cinema and had this beer which I finished probably within 10 minutes, or even less. And here is the intrigue: I have nothing against having a glass of alcohol in the company of self, but what I question here is the reason of having that drink, and the speed I drank it with. The reason was this: I needed to get numb. I needed to relax, to remove stress and to calm down this turmoil of thoughts happening in my head. Firstly I decided to go to the cinema to watch something light and not very serious hoping to distract myself for at least couple of hours. So I did, I watched a movie which was ok but about which you think when leaving the cinema “I could have never watched this film and I wouldn’t lose anything”. Then on my way home I bought a pack of dry mangos (mmmm, sweets) and a bottle of beer. To be honest, I wanted to buy 2, but knowing that I usually have a hangover after even one glass of any alcohol, I just didn’t want to feel like cooked vegetable in the morning. Now, straight to the point of what was the reason that I felt so stressed. It was my work. Yes, my work. Without going too much into details as I am still being in the midst of this situation at a particular job for a particular company. In two words: I am massively disagree with something happening at my work place and my heart rebels as it has always done when something unfair was happening with me or with people around me. And something very unfair is happening. And I rebel. And what is even sadder, this situation literally took all of my headspace.

The point is that I completely put aside all my projects which are really important for me. For example, my workshop which I am doing next week. I didn’t put enough efforts into promoting it and no matter how brilliant my content might be, people still need to find out the info about me doing it. I need to scream out loud from every possible social media platform that I am freaking running an amazing workshop next week and I am not doing it. Why? Because my head space is fully occupied by my work situation. Yes. Now I want to make it clear that I try not to blame myself for anything and I don’t criticise the person that lives inside my body. Well, this person is me, actually. I just observe the situation, my actions and reactions, draw conclusions and learn from it. This is my strategy and this is for me called self-love. I learnt to love this person called Yanina even if sometimes she is clearly not understanding what the F is happening and why the Universe putting her in certain situations where it feels like she is being tested or passing some final exams. And the situation I am finding myself now is one of those. It feels like I am passing my graduation exams in Uni. And I don’t know the answers at all. Like at all! And I freak out.

It’s been one months since this all is happening and my cosmic girlfriends are supporting me with their wise opinions and advises and I think that they most probably are fed up with all this story as much as I am, but I keep bothering them. Even though deep inside I know that in my heart I already have an answer, I just need to get quiet and to listen and also to pay attention to signs which are literally everywhere. Maybe I need to sit longer on my meditation cushion because the answer hasn’t arrived yet. And today I realised this: the famous saying “WE TEACH BEST WHAT WE MOST NEED TO LEARN” can be fully applied to me at this moment of my life. I am going to talk next week about the beauty of being born a strong woman, woman, who fights for what she believes is right and who doesn’t take s**t from anyone. But sometimes not taking s**t means just walking away. Without continuing or even starting a fight. Because sometimes some things are not worthy fighting for. Sometimes it is better to walk away from the situation that doesn’t serve us and accept the fact that your truth is neither welcomed nor needed here and that sometimes people prefer to live in denial and lies and with double-standards and we should allow them to be this way if they want to. We are not here to save anyone or anything, especially if those “anyones” don’t want to be saved. And so I guess I am the one who really needs to attend my workshop “Journey to self-acceptance: celebrating a strong woman within” the most. If you feel like my words resonate with you, please do join me next Wednesday the 25th at 7pm. Please comment or DM me if interested.

16/07/2018

Strong women of London, this message is for you. Watch the video. See how it make you feel. And if my words resonate with you, come and join us on Wednesday the 25th of July, at 7pm in Clementi House in Kensington. We are going to gather in a beautiful drawing room of an incredible private house which kept its authentic interiors from 19th (I guess) century and share our stories, connect, empower each other and realise again and again that we are not alone. It is going to be 2 hours spend with meaning in company of like-minded people. Isn’t it the best way to spend an evening, especially Wednesday evening the 25/07 😉
To book your spot, follow the link in my bio.

14/12/2017

Last night running our first ever coaching and yoga workshop. It was a great learning experience, we got a valuable feedback from participants which will help us to move forward, to grow and to improve. Out of this first session plenty of new ideas were born. And also an understanding that everything that has been done for the first time needs to be particularly honoured.

@ The Lilla Huset

10/12/2017

Dear London people! This Tuesday 12/12 my fellow coach and yoga teacher .zz and I are running a FREE workshop “Journey to self-love and empowerment through coaching and yoga”.

The purpose of this workshop is to help you get in touch with your self-acceptance and self-love. Through a series of powerful coaching exercises, guided meditation and yoga practice you will discover and face those parts of yourself where you still believe that you are not good enough.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING THE WORKSHOP?
Introduction - we'll talk about self-acceptance and self-love, link between yoga and self-acceptance
1st yoga session
Coaching exercises
Meditation
Coaching exercises
2nd yoga session
Final sharing round

It is going to be a mindful quiet workshop, immersion in self-discovery and some learning experience. We will mix coaching exercises with 2 short yoga sessions, one powerful guided meditation and some sharing.

Yoga will help the participants to start changes on physical level and the sessions are designed to open up and gain greater awareness of our thoughts and emotions, which will be then deepen the coaching process.

It's the first workshop we're organising on this subject and it's going to be free of charge. In return we would like to ask you to fill out feedback forms in the end to help us improve and develop it further.

Spaces are limited to 10, please book here:
https://www.thelillahuset.com/events/journey-to-self-love-and-empowerment-through-coaching-and-yoga/

Yoga mats will be provided, you just need to book your spot (link above), come on time in your yoga pants and bring your journal with you. 💖
Any questions, please comment below.

14/11/2017

I am celebrating 10 years in London today. What to say...? I wouldn’t change a thing. Grateful for every moment spent in this city. I wouldn’t be who I am now without London being involved. And I wouldn’t want to be anything else but the person I have become.

06/11/2017

A moment of happiness in the middle of Monday.

25/10/2017

Few things I have learned while preparing and then giving my Self-Love talk:

1) It makes sense to have a plan as to when you want your talk to be written but most probably things won’t go according to your plan.

My plan was to finish writing my talk one month before the event so I would have 1 month to improve and rehearse it. This was my intention. In reality I started to write it down exactly one week up to the actual event and finished it 1 day before. What I have learned from it: your creative thoughts need to get ripe in your head; and only when they are ripe they can be released to this world. I could compare creative process with the process of bearing a child. A child is growing in his mother’s womb during 9 months and only then he/she is ready to come to this world. If it comes before, there is a risk of complications. The same was with my talk – when I was finishing to write it down, the words were coming out on the paper so easily and effortlessly, almost as if it was not me who was typing them. It felt like a most natural birth ever. Strange coincidence but 2 weeks prior to my talk I stumbled upon a Self-Acceptance on-line summit with 30 renowned experts talking on this subject. I listened almost all of the interviews and it’s needless to say that I have learned a lot from them. If you ask me how I found out about this summit, I have no ideas. It just came to me.

2) The more you rehearse your talk in front of the mirror and, the more “mirror detox” you will need after you are done with the talk. Basically, you will have enough of seeing yourself in the mirror.

3) The more you record your voice and listen to it afterwards, the more you will criticise yourself for a) using wrong words b) your voice being too flat c) making mistakes d) anything else you usually pick on yourself. Most probably you will also compare your talk with some famous public speaker and will come to conclusion that your talk in rubbish. You will end up by asking yourself a question “Who am I to do this talk?”

4) When you’ll finally be standing in front of the audience, you will realise that there is no way back and the only way is forward. Somewhere in the middle of your talk a thought will cross you mind “What the hell am I talking about?”

5) You will be looking at the audience and almost all of them will have such serious faces that you will take it personally and will think that they might not like what you are saying. Even your friends who’ll come to support you will have serious faces. At the end of the talk people who had the most serious faces will come to say “thank you” and will tell you that your talk was exactly what they needed to hear. When you ask your friends why they had serious faces, they will say “Because we were listening!”

6) There will be few people who will leave just after you finish talking, even before Q&A, and again you will think that they didn’t like the talk. So basically, you will put more attention on few people who probably didn’t like it rather than on the 25 who actually loved it and told you about it.

7) You will feel a bit “high” after having listened to all nice words people will come to tell you and you will be so busy that you won’t be able to properly chat with everybody. Nice feeling, I must say.

8 ) You will have this enormous feeling of accomplishment and deep in your heart you will know that next talk will be only better, and then another one even more better and that when you speak from your heart, your words will always resonate with those who are ready to hear them.

22/10/2017

Just one coaching session can propel you to that place above the clouds where the sun is always shining.
I came to the point where I needed coaching urgently. My state of mind could be defined as “confused.com”. Saturday night coaching call with a coach friend replaces me Saturday night drink with a friend. Coaching is more exciting that drinks I must say.
So from feeling confused and not having a clear direction with regard to my coaching business, entangled in my thoughts and having this nagging feeling of guilt for not doing enough I managed to get clarity, a very clear direction to go and also a realisation that I actually was doing more than enough. So there was no place for feeling guilty at all. Like at all. Rather to praise myself for the things I have been constantly doing and which I didn’t want to count as “important” things for my business.
Not giving myself enough credit is a bad habit which is so difficult to override. Something to work on.
Empowered is best word to describe how I am feeling now. .prazmowska 🙏🙏🙏

Yanina Nikitina Transformational Coach

09/08/2018

03/08/2018

25/07/2018

23/07/2018

19/07/2018

16/07/2018

14/12/2017

10/12/2017

14/11/2017

06/11/2017

25/10/2017

22/10/2017

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