Transcription
[Music] okay so the story of my parents literally sounds like a Disney princess fairy tale. My mom, she was 18 years old, she won Miss Russia. She was drop-dead gorgeous. My dad was wealthy, super successful, protective, masculine, charming Slavic men. They fall in love, they get married. My mom gives my dad a beautiful boy and a girl. We live in a huge house, we have a private chef, private drivers, best school, best travels. I always got what I wanted. Sounds like a dream family to be born into, right?
On the outside, everything's perfect. But today, I really wanted to tell you what it was really like. The things that nobody talks about. The truth about growing up into wealth, into privilege. What it gives you and what it takes away. Because the reality is, no amount of money will ever erase childhood traumas. It only covers it in luxury.
So, this video is going to be shaped into lessons. And the first lesson that I've learned as a privileged kid: your childhood and the way you grew up shape your relationships until you break the cycle. So, my mom, she was 18 years old when she had my brother, and she was 21 when she had me. I'm 24 right now. In my age, she already had two kids. And at 25, she divorced my dad. Like, this is insane. Okay, insane because I cannot even imagine to have a kid right now. Basically, her entire youth she spent in marriage.
So, my dad is like a legit OG Slavic man, very straightforward, very harsh, very like, you know, strong and protective. Doesn't really talk about his emotions, doesn't really share his emotions. He would never, in my life, tell me "I love you" in my face. Like, I don't doubt it for a second because he proves it with his actions on a daily basis. But Slavic men, they don't talk about their love, they show it.
So, my mom was very young, very pure, very naive in some ways. And my dad, he loved that, you know. And he knew that she's going to be an incredible mother. She's beautiful, she has incredible genetics. You know, they chose each other. But the truth is, they were never meant to be for each other. They're completely different people. And, uh, by the age of 25, she realized that she cannot be with this man. She cannot be controlled. My dad wanted someone who's going to be very soft, very obedient. And my mom is very ambitious and very strong inside. And from 18 to 25, she changed tremendously. And she realized that she cannot be controlled.
So, I grew up watching that dynamic. So naturally, when I just started dating men, I have no idea how, but I attracted older, rich, wealthy, powerful, emotionally unavailable men into my life. I don't know how, but I would end up with men literally similar to my father, 20 plus years older, powerful, incredibly wealthy, emotionally unavailable. But I'm so grateful that these men did not propose to me and did not make me pregnant like my dad did with my mom. Because he really wanted kids. Like, he loved my mom so much and he really wanted kids. I'm so glad I didn't do it at such a young age. Because these men that I dated, they taught me so much about what I do not want in my relationship. They literally broke me into pieces and taught me to be the best woman. Like, without those experiences, I would not be who I am today.
And after my last relationship that ended up very painfully for me, um, I took a break from dating for 3 years. Not because I didn't have options to date, but because I genuinely wanted to rebuild myself, to heal from the inside, and truly build a life for myself where I choose a man based on completely different factors. When I healed my inner child, I don't even look at the same type of men anymore. I literally look at these old guys and I'm like, "Go away from me." Like, I don't need your money, I don't need your boats, I don't need your Birkins, I don't need anything. Nothing. Don't even come close to me. I used to really get attracted to guys who are like, not treating me nice. I only get attracted now to those that treat me nice, with respect and with love. I do not need games. Thank you. Genuine, kind, and loving, that's my type.
So, the lesson is that if you consciously do not break the cycle you grew up in, you will be repeating it without even realizing. And it's not just relationships, it's everything. And the craziest thing is that we usually grow up, we look at our mothers and we're like, "I'll never be like that. I will never repeat that mistake. I will never act like my mother." And guess what? You literally end up in the same situation. And you have to consciously choose different actions, different ways, and different people, people, and different everything. And it's hard. It's really hard because it's unknown. But once you step into that unknown and you feel that it's so much better for you and that it makes you feel so much safer and better, you will start writing a different story for yourself.
So, lesson number two for my family and my childhood is that financial wealth and freedom, they're not the same thing. The biggest difference between me and my mom is that she had no escape. When she divorced my dad, she had nowhere to go. She was so scared, and she had two kids. She didn't leave my dad earlier because she had nowhere to go. She didn't have the opportunity. She didn't have finances to support herself and the kids. She was fully dependent from my dad. And he also obviously felt that power. My mom is so freaking beautiful, like insanely beautiful. But she comes from a very poor family. My grandma, my grandmother, they literally worked so freaking hard every single day till they're so exhausted, selling tomatoes and potatoes on the market. All of these women in my life are so freaking beautiful. But that beauty literally didn't do anything for them. They had to work so freaking hard. Beauty privilege did not exist. Literally. And what's even worse is that their self-esteem was so low that they would choose the worst possible partners for their life. Literally, that would beat them, that would abuse them, that would scream at them. They had to do everything themselves. These men didn't do [ __ ] for them. They would only make them feel even worse about themselves. And you have no idea how hard it is right now for me to say those things. How how nervous I feel to even say those things because it breaks my heart. It's my family line.
But the gratitude that I have for my mother that she broke the cycle. That I grew up in a situation where if I leave a guy, if something happens with me, I always have my dad who catches me. I always had my dad who was maybe not the best husband, who is literally the best dad in the world. Like, if anything happens to me, he's the only man in my life who never disappears. Years and like all these guys that I've dated, they're scared of my dad. And my mom did not have that. She didn't have a dad or a family that will protect her. Since I was very young, even when I was in the relationship, I never stopped working. I never stopped developing my social media, doing paid projects, taking clients. I started making my own money when I was 15 years old and I could support myself financially since I was like 18 because I saw my mom struggling since I was very young and I never wanted to be in that situation. There's a huge difference between being taken care of and having the opportunity to leave. Never mistake financial security for true independence, especially when it's not yours.
Lesson number three is that privilege can open doors, but only you can walk through them. You're probably like, "What do you mean? You started working at 15. Like, your dad's probably giving you money. Like, you don't even need to lift a finger." Yeah, I wish my dad did something that I'm so freaking grateful for. But when he actually did it, I was pissed. I was so angry and frustrated and didn't understand then why is he doing that to me. I was like 18 years old, I was finishing high school. And I also went into a very privileged, extremely expensive high school in the US where literally I was studying with like princesses and princess and kids literally had access to anything there. They were from very, very rich families and they had Chanel bags and rings. I didn't have that and I didn't really care about that. But one day I called my dad because I didn't have money for Uber for taxi. My dad was like, "Ain't no way at 18 years old going to be driving around New York on the Uber Black. Like, who do you think you are?"
And that one day, he told me one thing that I will remember till the rest of my life. He said, "I will always teach you how to fish, but I will never give you the fish." The moment I finished high school, he stopped sending me any money. He was like, "You want to be an adult? You're an adult now." And he helped me for some time with apartment, with the rent. But then he was like, "Girl, you're an adult now." But I'm not going to lie, had moments where I called him and I cried and I was like, "Dad, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to pay my rent." Well, those moments, he would save me. He would definitely help me. But after that moment, he never supported me financially. Guys, I never had access to my dad's credit cards. I never had my dad send me money for like daily use. Like, what the hell? When I go visit my dad, I literally have a princess treatment. I have everything I ever want. But it's his. He didn't give it to me. And I make great money from so many different sources because I had to adapt, I had to learn, I had to survive. I mean, again, if something would go wrong, my dad would always catch me. I'm never going to take that for granted. I am privileged as [ __ ], but I still went through so much on my own. So the lesson that I had to learn is that when you have a great start in your life, it's luck, it's privilege. But what you do with it, it's your responsibility.
Lesson number four, and probably one of the most important lessons in my entire life from my mother: it does not matter how blessed you are with your appearance, it will never give you the confidence if you are insecure on the inside. My mom is literally the most perfect example how you can be drop-dead gorgeous, insanely beautiful, and be so insecure because she grew up with a very insecure mother. And her mother grew up with a very insecure mother. And her mother grew up with a very insecure mother. But she did not have any power on the inside to stand up for herself and to be like, "You [ __ ] or you piece of [ __ ], you don't treat me like that. You don't talk to me like that. And just leave." She did not believe genuinely that she is worth it because the whole childhood she was treated like [ __ ]. And honestly, it's so shocking to me. But at the age of 18, when my mom saw an advertisement for the beauty pageant, she decided to participate. She did not have any money to participate. It actually had like a cost to apply. So she went around the neighborhood, she collected the money, and she applied for this beauty pageant. And she won. She became a Miss Russia. And when she won, her own mother, the first time in her life, she looked at her on the stage and she was like, "Wow, Elena is actually beautiful." That's so crazy. That was like a huge ticket for a new life for my mom because all the fashion agencies, modeling agencies wanted to work with her. She got a job in Milan as a model. But then she met my dad and he was like, "No, you're not a model, you're my wife."
Confidence has nothing to do with how you look. If you guys feel so jealous when you look at all these gorgeous women and you want to be like them and you think that, "Oh my god, just because they look like that, their life is incredible, their life is a dream," you're so freaking wrong. Because beauty has nothing to do with your confidence. And what really gives you confidence is choosing yourself on a daily basis. Is keeping the promises to yourself. It's actually telling yourself you're going to do something and you do it. That's what gives you confidence. Self-love gives you confidence. Choosing yourself on a daily basis gives you confidence. Just being beautiful does not give you confidence. Also, another big lesson that I learned is this does not mean anything. Does not make you happy at all if you are a mean and bad and cold woman. I always say my look is literally the least interesting thing about me. I really genuinely want people to know my soul and to know my personality and to know me from the inside. Judge me based on how good of a person I am. Judge me based on my heart and my actions, not my beauty.
Lesson number five that I had to learn from my childhood and to reprogram myself literally is that my dad showed his love not through emotions but through money. So I thought that the more money you invest in me, the more you love me. I already told you that my dad is very protective, Slavic, emotionally distant person. But one of his love languages is money. And he would always tell me, "Papa, papa, it," which basically means "Papa loves you. Papa will buy it." And in my previous relationships, I would literally measure love with the amount of money that you spend on me. You cannot blame me for that. That's literally how I grew up seeing love. But oh, how wrong I was. Oh my god. When you date a wealthy person, for them spending money on you, it's like the easiest thing they can do. They can buy you so many things, they can fly you to so many different places. They do not care about you at the end of the day. They make this money like that. When high-value men, successful men, truly love a woman, they invest their time. They invest emotionally. That's like their most expensive currency that they can provide. When men just buy you stuff, it does not mean they love you. So if you feel the same, if you have some sort of a similar trauma and you want to be spoiled like crazy and have all these expensive bouquets of flowers, listen, when a man is spoiling you like crazy, it's not healthy. It comes with insane control of you. It probably comes from their insecurity too. Because no healthy man who is very confident does that to a woman. You know what I mean? Like, it's just very questionable.
Okay, lesson number six that I had to learn from my family and my childhood is that if your parents don't parent, you have to become your own parent. I grew up with such chill parents. Like, they literally would tell me yes to everything. I could do anything. Grew up with such non-strict parents, it's crazy. Anything I would ask for, "Yeah, sure. If you want to go there, go there." Mom, Dad, I'm 16 years old, can I go to New York? "Sure." I literally at some point was testing them. I really wanted them to say no. But they would still say yes to stuff that I ask for. Which is also a dream, right? You would dream about cool parents. But when you have a situation like that, now it's your responsibility. The stuff that you do, you are responsible for whatever the hell is going to happen to you. When you have such strict parents, when you constantly hear "no, no, no," you want to break the rules, you want to be super rebellious, you want to break the rules. But when I constantly heard "yes, yes, of course, sure, yeah, whatever," you don't even want to do bad stuff. I didn't even want to drink, smoke, do all of that stuff because I was like, "That's my responsibility to do that now." When something happens to me, it's my responsibility. Like, I'm not going to lie, when I moved to the US, I really felt like I have no one. I literally felt like nobody really cares about me. My family felt so far away. I would talk to them, I would call them, but they were never protective. I really felt like I'm on my own. And that came with a lot of loneliness, a lot of confusion. What the hell I do with my life? With an eating disorder because I would drive myself insane. And now looking back, I wish I could hug this teenage girl and just tell her, "Listen, I'm here for you. I'm your best friend. We are going to get through it. We're going to build life together." I mean, this just sounds a little sick that I'm talking to myself like that. But I just wish I could hug her and just told her that I'm your best friend. I'm not your enemy. And back then, I really felt like my mind and my body are constantly fighting each other. And I'm fighting with life, I'm fighting with people, I'm fighting with myself. Where all I had to do is just support myself because I'm on my own. And I have no one who is closer to me than myself. I wish I could just be like, "I got you. I love you so much. What the hell are you doing? Just stop. I love you."
If you are in this stage of life, if you have these self-destructive thoughts, please stop. There's no one closer to you than you. Like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, why are you hating yourself? Why are you doing this to yourself? People come and family comes and goes. You always have yourself. You always have to choose yourself first. Why are you hating yourself? Use your freedom to build yourself and be your biggest cheerleader, not your critic. At the end of the day, all you can do if you don't have loving, protective parents, you can become that lacking nurturing parent that you always needed. And treat yourself like the most amazing mother would. And you will see how you will calm down, how your anxiety will go away because your inner child will finally feel safe with yourself. Right now, you're not even making yourself feel safe with yourself. You have to save yourself because nobody else will.
This video was not easy for me. It's a roller coaster of emotions. But I really want it to be transparent and honest. And for you guys to learn a little bit more about me and my story. And if you feel like there's something you can relate to, please let me know in a comment. I would love to read your stories because I really feel like it sometimes does not matter where you're born. We all go through these same lessons at some point in life. We all go through the same situations, heartbreaks, childhood traumas, career, not knowing what you want to do with your life, who you want to be, your purpose in life. We all go through this solitude, loneliness, and so much more. So if you ever feel like you're alone, you're not. There's millions of people that are going through the same thing. And that's exactly why I choose not to close my heart but to open it to other people because I can be helpful. I can give my hand to you, you can take it. And together, we're so much stronger than alone. That's why I'm talking about my story. That's why I'm real with you. Because if I can help few of you guys, I will already feel like I did my mission. And honestly, I'm so grateful that you watch my videos and that you stay till the end. I really hope that I'm going to see you in my next video. But before I say goodbye, remember that today is your day.
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