What was your early life like?
I was born and raised in Leningrad, in Soviet times. Both my parents were teachers, so an academic background shaped who I became. As a child, I had quite an authoritarian father, tough in a domestic setting and horrid to be around. It was quite traumatic that I always had to prove myself to earn his love. I never felt enough for him. It’s a story familiar to many of us whose parents want the best for us and are overly demanding. This approach does not make a child perfect, but rather makes them lose confidence. It’s deeply wrong and our duty as adults is to heal the trauma of the inner child and bring a truer sense of ‘I am enough’.

Kiss of the Whale is based on your personal life, what motivated you to write it?
As a journalist, I used to articulate different issues through writing. When the highly traumatic divorce happened, it ended up as a case of parental alienation and abduction. My ex-husband’s family took my daughter to another city and made it difficult for me to see her. I had to travel there and face court hearings that could easily be corrupted. He had enough money and administrative resources to influence the judges and the police. Basically, my ex-husband was able to weaponize the legal system against me.

Many people have asked how a child can be taken away from a mother. I tell you, when you try to break up with a narcissistic partner, you indulge in post-separation abuse. I faced this hardship, this injustice. So I started writing my first book, not only to document this harrowing reality, but also to restore my sanity, as I felt so devastated. Writing became my own personal psychotherapy. What I was facing is known as Parental Alienation, and it is the same algorithms that happen to mothers and fathers all over the world, regardless of religion, nationality or social status.

My first book “Louder than Silence” was the first book about parental alienation in Russia and became a reference point for this problem for many years. My second book is about my personal journey of self-healing and transformation of the trauma I have overcome. It was important for me to create a passage that others could use. “The Kiss of the Whale” can be a roadmap for others surviving trauma, and a universal reminder of what the Sufi poet Rumi said: the wound is where the light enters you.

Why did you include the whale allegory?
 I was able to meet the whales during deep meditation. It felt like I was swimming with the whales and was one of them. In the silence of the ocean, their song was singing me home. In that moment I realized that the wisdom that divine creatures carry is extremely healing. No matter how far away whales are, they are connected. Whales are able to communicate with each other across great distances so that they never feel lost or alone. This metaphor made me feel that even though my daughter and I are separated in the physical world, we are able to hear and send messages on different levels, just like the whales. This connection with the whales allowed me to channel so much of their wisdom and to realize how much we humans can learn from them. Whales are highly conscious guardians of peace who have such an enormous impact on life on earth that we don’t even know about. The more I researched, the more I was amazed and inspired by these giants. I know that the whale is my spirit animal and I even have a whale tattoo. I believe in everyone’s “inner whale” and in my book I created a concept of consciousness evolution based on what I learned from whales.

Can you elaborate on this concept?
Sure I can! The concept of evolution in human consciousness, where the majority of people are living on the plankton level, which means being manipulated and not making any decisions in your life, being helpless and floating on a surface. Then some courageous plankton particles choose to evolve into the fish and learn how to navigate the current and the depth. Then, eventually, you go deeper and deeper, where you learn a lot of inner work and how to stay humble and so you become the whale. It is not about going with the flow, but creating your own flow, making a difference, saving the planet, being peaceful, graceful, and despite having a lot of power, serving as a great example of the power of humility.

So I said in my book that sometimes a whale kisses our boat without us even noticing, which means that we never know what situation in our life is going to serve our best interest. Sometimes we feel lost because we don’t know how the experience we’re having can help us grow and expand. But let us look at our struggle from the perspective of the whale kissing our boat without us even noticing. Then we can feel more open to beautiful experiences.

You talked about your abusive husband, can you tell us more about his background and about your marriage?
It took me many years and many degrees in psychotherapy and psychology to realize that abuse takes so many different forms and can be difficult to recognize in many cases. In my case, with my first husband, I felt it was not a union of two adults, but two children in a psychological sense. I believe that marriage should wait until 30, because in your twenties you are too young to choose the right partner and to make sure that values and visions for the future and parental strategies are in harmony. Soon after I got married, I felt alone. For my husband, it was more about status than content; for me, I wanted to live the union, not pretend. The abuse really started when I told him that I wanted a divorce, and he did not want a divorce. I think it triggered his abandonment trauma and he took it as a personal insult. His abusive behavior after the separation got to the point where he not only wanted me out of his life, but out of my daughter’s life as well. He used our two year old daughter as his personal crutch and weapon against me.

Why did you have to flee your country?
When this kidnapping happened in 2010 and I couldn’t see or talk to my daughter, I couldn’t get any legal services to help me.  If it is not a stranger, but one of the parents hiding a child, the child is not considered missing, so no one is legally looking for them. It was then that I realized how outdated the legal system is when it comes to family matters. In many countries, a parent can abuse their power to the extent that they can do whatever they want with the child. If they want to take a child away from another parent, they are free to do so, and emotional abuse remains invisible. Parental alienation is basically legal because it’s not a crime. I fought hard, using all my resources as a journalist and public figure. I founded an NGO and entered the political arena, appearing on television many times. I tried to change the situation, to change the law. I hired a private detective to find my daughter, because I didn’t know where she was, I didn’t know if she went to school or to a nursery. I did not know if she was sick and how she was coping with the trauma of suddenly losing her mother. Despite everything I did, I could not see my daughter. I felt helpless and at the same time I had to deal with a lot of forged documents and corrupt institutions against me. But the most painful part was, as it is in all parental alienation cases, the weaponization of my own child against me by telling her how bad and how dangerous her mother was. It only got worse over the course of 4 years. I lost friends, career, property, and my entire family was indoctrinated against me. My ex threatened me and wanted me dead. His lawyers fabricated accusations against me and I was the subject of criminal charges on several occasions. All these ordeals are written in my first book ‘Louder than Silence’. This pushed me to flee my country because it was a matter of life and death and my survival instinct kicked in. I knew that if I stayed, I wouldn’t be alive.  

How have your struggles shaped your life?
Trauma often traps us in a capsule of stigma, shame and tunnel vision. For a very long time, even after I fled my country, I was depressed and lived as if hunched over my wound. But in quest of my strength and sovereignty, layer by layer, I shed the old skin and gave birth to a new self. This whole journey of finding, or rather reassembling myself, as well as self-help practices, I shared in my book “Kiss of the Whale: A Transformative Journey of Self-Healing”.

This book is about self-empowerment and how to rebuild your life after a severe trauma like parental alienation. Books are also my way of communicating with my daughter. I continue to write letters to her throughout my journey. I know that one day she will want to reach out and get to know her mother better. This motivates me to explore some uncharted territories, including human trauma, healing practices, and human nature on a deeper level. I know that no matter how open, peaceful and loving you are, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.  So I am trying to get in touch with all the parts of myself that were broken and shattered. I knew that one day my daughter would need healing, and I needed to heal myself first in order to help her process. The trick is that once you opened up, life became a healing environment for you. This is very important for everyone, because trust issues are one of the common trauma responses. Once you can trust again, you are healed.

Do you still live with fear?
Of course not, that was another big decision to make. It is a major decision for each one of us to choose between love and fear. Fear prevents us from living and blocks us from love and other beautiful things. Choosing trust and love keeps us sane. I worked hard on self-healing to be able to keep my heart open and to live without fear.

Are there any practical steps or daily practices you would recommend for people beginning their journey of transformation?
“The Kiss of the Whale” is not just a collection of travelogues, but a journey of healing. What makes the book unique is that it is a multidimensional text in which personal transformation through meditation and practice becomes universal to anyone who has experienced trauma and wants to activate their inner healer. With all the pain and trauma in our lives, we need to allow the inner whale to emerge and heal. Trauma can disempower us in ways we are not aware of. These various tools, advice and practices are available to everyone in this book. You will find keys after each chapter. Keys are the essentials and transformative coaching that anyone can use for their own benefit and practical healing. All it takes is awareness and an open heart.

Have you had readers come to you and tell you about a transformation?
The most popular feedback I received was that “I didn’t want the book to end. It has given me so much healing and comfort.” It is almost like a whale frequency that people can receive and feel. I just wish more people could read and feel it.