Many times I have heard the question, “Olga when will you write your life story?” I have responded, “It isn’t so important because I write many stories in my books, and everyone has their own life story.” It is true because you, I and everyone else has their own unique life story.
However, this question makes sense. When we share our stories, we start to realize our endless possibilities and uniqueness and we have a deeper understanding of each other. My life story is the foundation of all my creativity. So I decided to write it! if you have 15-20 minutes – welcome to my life story!
The world of the heart
I grew up in a wonderful world that my mother opened and which has shaped my whole life. This was a huge world full of light, kindness, and love. It is this world, the world in me, that created the conditions to achieve results and what I create continues to surprise me. “How did I do this?” This world in me has always supported me and continues to support me now, giving me an amazing feeling of peace, peace, joy, and love. I can enter this inner world at any moment saving unity with the outside world.
About books, study, and teachers
At first, it was difficult for me to explain this state. I did it intuitively. So when I heard the question “Where do you get the energy to do everything you do?” Or “How do you do it?” I used to smile and answer “I have a secret battery” or similar responses. Later I began to look for answers and found them in the books: Pythagoras, Aristotle, Socrates, Gette, Newton, Itten, Inayat Hazrat Khan, Darwin, Ushinsky, Tolstoy, Antarova, Sukhomlinsky, Vavilov, Vernadsky, Lomonosov.
After being inspired by those classic thinkers came books by modern authors from all over the world. I found answers in these books and in meetings with amazing people who became my teachers. Education in the second University at the Faculty of Biology and Chemistry gave me amazing insights and depth of understanding of life through an awareness of its integrity in all its manifestations. All of us living on Earth are interconnected.
Knowledge and experience helped me understand what happened in my childhood, and my life and how my mother’s amazing wisdom and love helped me create an amazing world in myself and see the same world outside . . . This experience helped me realize how important the role of parents are in creating an inner world for their children and became the basis of books for children and parents, projects and development programs.
About childhood, family, and the beauty of my Mom’s heart
I was a little girl in height and weight. My health was so weak that in the first year, during the third grave pneumonia, the doctors said to my mother “Too painful for her to cope . . .” I managed . . . My mother later said, “You surprised all the doctors. They could not believe how it is possible that such a weak child, lagging so far behind the weight of the norm, could cope with such a disease and live”.
I think the answer to this question is in the power of Life and Love. This power helped me to survive. This force helped my mother hug a little girl wrapped in a blanket herself and manage to run the long distance to the hospital during a snowy night in 30-degree weather. This power helped her create a wonderful childhood for me and my sister.
For my mother, a family has always been a great value. This value has always been with her and it gave her amazing wisdom and depth of understanding of parents and children. She herself did not have a full family, as her mother, my grandmother, died when she was about 6 years old. The second woman, who became the wife of her father, was not able to love his child. Mom left home at 18.
She began working at a factory in one of the most northern cities in Russia. The Soviet Union in the 60s was a hard life. Mom entered the evening department of a local college, not focusing on academic success and top marks, but to realize her desire to realize the great potential that was in her. She managed to finish only two courses. After marriage and the birth of her first child, my elder sister, it was impossible to combine work at the factory, study, household chores, and take care of a baby. Her husband was not sympathetic. Something had to go.
I appeared 4 years after the birth of my older sister. My father did not want my birth and always said so when I was little and later, during visits, and after I became an adult. He said, “You are not needed! If your mother hadn’t left, you wouldn’t be.” There were enough examples of families with two, three, or more children, but for my father the birth of the second child was burdensome. He drank every night after returning from work. He forgot the value of the family.
Neighbors sympathized with my mother, sometimes they called the police, but it was she who made the decision. Father’s attitude became more aggressive. My mother took us and secretly went to a village in another region to start over. Questions of formal divorce and support were not as important as family.
We were very poor and it was difficult to call our house comfortable. It was one room and a kitchen. The rooms were so small that they barely fit three beds, a table, and three chairs. We had a vegetable garden and a small farm including a pig, ducks, and chickens to support us. Mom finished short courses to be a kindergarten teacher and began working in one. My mom’s special talent is her attitude towards children and a deep understanding and reverence for the role of the family . . . Her group of 30 children, some as young a 1-year-old, always were a family . . . In my mother’s group, the children were less sick and happier. This was so obvious that children felt great joy in getting into Galina Petrovna’s group.
My Mother’s wisdom, kindness, and at the same time responsibility for everything that she did, made her a center for parents. Later, wherever she worked, she always became a leader. This was reflected not only in the results of her work but in her attitude towards her coworkers, supervisors, and managers.
I always had an amazing feeling of lightness, as if I were in a clear stream flowing like a river through me making everything we did become easy . . . Mom gave my sister and me a wonderful childhood filled with love and wisdom. There are no good words to convey the feelings that I experienced when we created dolls, toys, paintings, and sewed clothes. When we just sat together on a warm porch and looked at the starry sky, hearing the concerts of frogs, and seeing the dancing fireflies.
It didn’t matter that we were poor and that we spent the winter being away we needed at least 4 logs and a bucket of coal a day. My mother gave the whole world to my sister and me . . . Huge and boundless, in which all life is connected with each other and we being part of it . . . A world in which we felt free as a bird, and in which we were surrounded by joy and love.
Now, I have experienced the joy of being a mother to three children and grandmother to two more. However, I never stop learning from my mother, admiring the depth of her wisdom, love, kindness, and ability to forgive people and accept them as they are. She is still active and able to fill her life with joy and love. She now lives in a beautiful place on a lake with magnificent nature and never has to worry about securing 4 logs and a bucket of coal. She is over 80 years old, does physical exercises, reads and always enjoys making gifts with her own hands. She is still the center of attraction for her friends and our entire family, which now lives in the two hemispheres of our Earth.
This is the force of attraction – the very force of Life and Love, that saved me as a child, and which every member of our family feels. This power of Life and Love helped me to forgive my father and to feel with all my heart how painfully hard he was learning to love . . . My father understood the value of Love, Family, and the joy of fatherhood shortly before his death and I believe it was the most important value that he could find in himself . . .
About study, teachers, and their experience
My life and professional activity have always been and remain connected with children and parents. Perhaps this is the contribution of genetics. Several generations of women in my family are somehow connected with education. My mother, aunt, sister, and daughter have this connection. Later I learned that my great-great-great-grandmother, Countess Lebedeva, organized the resettlement of peasants from their villages near Moscow to the Far East and first built a school before building a church and a hospital. That is why I was born in the Far East.
I always helped my mother. When she worked as a kindergarten teacher I was helping. My first experiences of stories, performances, and group activities happened then. Later, I continued by creating fairy tales and performances for my children and our children’s room turned into a creative workshop and theater. I tried to convey through my heroes the most valuable golden seeds in our world. This is Love, Unity, and the Joy of Life, and that each of us has the right to, and can be, happy.
I graduated from high school with excellent grades but was labeled with behavior problems, and not from being aggressive. My independence, relentlessly asking why and not accepting the social patterns expected in a country with a Soviet regime was risky, even for a 16-year-old schoolgirl. But I was surprisingly lucky to find teachers who were also not afraid of rules and expectations and did not create them in themselves. I am eternally grateful to them for their wisdom, love, and an amazing feeling of support for a girl who was not afraid to say her opinions through her drawings, essays, speeches, and through simple interactions with teachers and peers. And of course, the support from my mother. . . . Her faith in me was the warmest and steadies wind under my wings.
I entered my first University and graduated with honors in the specialty of agricultural economics. I chose this discipline with my mind . . . My mother did not impose her vision on me. I had complete freedom in this choice. But I wanted more financial stability, not realizing then that stability is always relative. Again I was lucky with professors . . . These were bright strong personalities who, despite the strict control of the communist-appointed administration, transferred wisdom that removed conscious boundaries and gave me an understanding of the role of a person on Earth . . . Genetics, economics, philosophy, plant and animal physiology, agricultural culture and much more. . . . And again books, books, books. . . .
After classes, I worked in a hospital. The money I earned supported my student budget and helped me realize my dream of going to the sea. It was a children’s hospital. I washed the floors in the doctors’ offices and ended up playing with the children’s “train”, “frogs” and other games, inventing for them on the fly. Everybody was happy with my “work”! The doctors saw positive patients, the children and parents did not notice wait times, and I returned late at night to the student campus very happy about how quickly the time had passed.
We always see great results when we create with joy! We do not feel tired when we create with joy! Sometimes, when I hear words about being tired or not having enough time, I usually reply, “Find in what you are doing that gives you joy”.
About my first career step
After graduating from University, I received an offer to stay to begin research work. By this time, I had experience and excellent results participating in several student conferences and the offer itself was very prestigious. But I was learning to hear more clearly first from my heart and then my mind. I said, “Thank you, no!” I remained in the Far East of Russia and began work for a farming cooperative in a large city. I wanted to practice what I had been taught.
After working there for one year I was promoted to the position of a lead economist developing this farm enterprises’ activities with several countries. Even with a degree, this was a promising beginning for a 22-year-old woman. I was again lucky to meet those who became teachers and mentors . . . I was able to see and take the valuable lessons they shared, and so many years after I still remember them with great love and gratitude.
My individual English, and computer courses, internships, and participation in international negotiations were supposed to start in September. When I put my resignation letter on the director’s desk, I heard only two phrases: “I know that you will not return” and “I wish that you will always remember that you can create your life . . . ” I remember these words and I am immensely grateful to my director for them now. These words have helped me many times cope with the difficulties, that during our last meeting with him, I could not even imagine.
About my relocation to Belarus
I left the Far East because I got married. My husband was born and raised in Belarus and he wanted to return to the country that was his home. I followed him without asking about where and how we would live. I listened to my heart. This decision was crazy for most of my friends and colleagues. I was waiting for our first child. This feeling of a new life growing in me opened up a new world filling me with amazing joy and light of love for the family that had so recently begun for my husband and I. For me it was not important where I would live but with whom I would live.
It turned out to be a small village in the north of Belarus near the border with Lithuania where there were about a dozen houses. It was 70 km from the regional center and it was only possible to get there bus taking half a day along the broken roads collecting passengers from similar small neighboring villages. It was an old, cold house with old stoves, where no one had lived for many years. There was no running water. But . . . an interesting coincidence – this house was previously a school.
The locals mostly spoke the language, which they themselves called “trassyanka”, which means a mixture. It was really a mixture of Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish. At first, I didn’t understand a single word, and the nickname “Katsapka,” which means “Russian,” was flung at me. After being in a big city with my own apartment with indoor plumbing, a good position with career prospects, this was a test . . .
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 brought not just collapse into the economy. It broke the link between the regions. I wrote letters to my mother, who at that time still lived in the Far East, and understood that at best she would receive one of them. I also rarely received letters from her, friends, or former co-workers. This situation helped me realize that what we have inside is what is most important. Although I had practically no connection with my homeland, these times helped me see and create my own homeland where I began to live through my heart. . . .
About the amazing experience of “being a mother” and creativity
Following the eldest son was born a daughter, then a younger son. The old house required endless repairs and I took an active part in them because the house for me is a home where everyone should be comfortable and warm. I learned to plaster, disassemble old stoves, and much more. The farm grew and it now had a horse, two cows, calves, a dozen sheep, pigs, and chickens. Next to the house was a garden and a huge plot of land of 70 acres, which, like the farm, required constant attention. My husband worked in forestry and his work meant an irregular working day, so many worries shifted to my shoulders.
I knew that I could not rely on pediatric doctors so quickly mastered the methods of strengthening and development for my children. I remembered these techniques from my childhood, my mom’s work in kindergarten, and from the Nikitin Family book, which I miraculously secured. I did much of it intuitively and by listening to my heart. And of course, creativity. . . .
Everything that has been in me since my childhood, created by my mother, suddenly revealed itself in an incredible desire to share this with my children. I created games, and toys from what was at hand, first by myself, and then with the children. How did I have time to do this? I do not know . . .
About time and it’s capacity
Time is an amazing dimension and we create its capacity ourselves . . . Step by step, our old house became warmer not only because new stoves appeared in it, but because of the many adornments in it created by the hands of all family members . . .
When you accept what you have in your life, including difficulties, they become our wise teachers and give us a huge supply of energy. Now, looking back, I smile. “Yes, this was really incredible . . .” Of course, there were very trying times and sometimes, when it was very difficult, I just climbed a hill, lay down on the ground and looked at the sky, just as I did in childhood. Then the feeling of unity, with all that is alive on Earth, became especially bright and strong and filled my heart with incredible strength and joy.
When I sometimes hear the words “I have no time!”, “It’s unfair!”, “It’s so hard!”. I answer, “This is your choice today, but . . . maybe tomorrow you will make another choice and your reality will also be different.” And about time … we won’t have enough time if we use it to condemn and lament. Those that we blame first often are our children or our parents. When we accept all difficulties without judgment, they become our wise teachers, and we receive a tremendous resource of energy. A happy person does not blame.
Everything that happens to us is a process. Changes in us are not the result of instant transformations. Step by step, as I discovered new and wonderful facets of my inner world, the outer world also opened new opportunities to me. A few years later I freely spoke, wrote, and conducted lessons in the Belarusian language and my first books, and plays for the theater were written in Belarusian . . . Many years later I know and love this language.
About work, the value of people, and more
Along with housework, and taking care of the household and the farm, I always worked. At first, I worked on a collective farm as an economist and as the head of the service department. It was this work that helped me to accept and understand people very deeply and to love them so deeply with all my heart. And they responded to me in kind . . .
Now, many years later, living on the other hemisphere of our Earth, I remember them and feel connected to them in my heart through our mutual respect, love, and gratitude for each other. I love my new home and I am happy in it, at the same time, I understand that there is enough space in my heart for everyone who was, is, and will be in my life, no matter where this place is . . . When we don’t shut ourselves off from the world, our world inside becomes as big as the world outside. A big world always gives much greater opportunities. Everything that happens to us in life is always a reflection of our inner world. In this world, there are no borders. It is worth helping to realize that for our children. This is not a theory, this is from our own practice . . .
Studying at a Second University
In 1999, the director of the local school invited me to conduct art classes for their children. Soon half of the students from 7 to 16 years old were in the studio attending my classes. Seeing the popularity of these classes, the director, a wise woman with extensive experience, suggested that I come to work at the school as a teacher of biology and chemistry. I said, “I will think it over”. The next day I agreed, still not fully understanding the implications. My heart said that these subjects would be important for the education of my children and now weren’t being taught. My heart was with the children. So concurrently I attended a distance learning degree from my second university in Minsk and taught science to high school students.
I was explaining this to my children and asked the question, “Who is the student?” And answering my question with, “We are!” We really studied together. The older ones did homework lessons, and I wrote chemistry and biology lesson plans in Belarusian for grades 5 to 11 and studied my university disciplines so I could pass to the next session.
I was the only student in the department with three children and the only student who completed a complex education in the specialty “Biology, chemistry, research, production and teaching” in 5 years instead of the standard 6-year program. I don’t know how, but I did it. Family, work as a teacher at a school 8 km away, a large farm (2 cows, a horse, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc.), and 0,7 hectares of land and home repairs. I defended my diploma receiving “excellent” and a recommendation to implement it. I also received an invitation to continue to develop scientific activities in graduate school. As I did after graduating from the first University, I said, “Thank you, but no” I had two reasons.
About choices
I wanted to develop a direction that was becoming increasingly important for me. I wanted to apply my experience and knowledge to “Forming and developing environmental culture and harmonious development of children by combining humanitarian and natural areas of world knowledge” in practice. This meant I needed daily communication with children and parents.
The second reason was the education of my three children. I saw their talents and uniqueness, saw that they were also beginning to realize this, and understood that it was my responsibility to actively give them the best start in life . . . Looking at them as adults, I understand that I made the best choice . . .
I have always made choices with my heart and continue to do it now. It has not always been easy. But it was this choice that later gave me amazing opportunities that I could not even dream of . . .
The first fairy tale I composed was only for my children. I wanted the heroes of these stories to become friends with them and help to convey what is the basis of the best qualities in a person. Many years later, thanks to the persistence of my younger son, I wrote them down.
Step by step, there were books, exhibitions of paintings and illustrations, scenarios for children’s TV programs, broadcasts on the radio, and much more. I did not think about status and rewards, I just did everything, listening to my heart, with a great desire to share my creativity for the happiness of children and parents. How did I find the time to do all this while working and raising my children? I don’t know . . . but our time is a truly unique dimension, which depends on our attitude.
The time came when I needed to make another choice and it was one of the most difficult I have ever made. I was married for 25 years to the father of my children, but I understood with my heart that we could no longer be together. The important value of family is the unity and development of relations that are created together.
Love is honesty to yourself and to the person to whom you once said the same words of love as he to you. This is the respect of children to choose their parents, the ability to accept the situation, and love for the father and mother without condemnation. “Good-bad, right-wrong” won’t occur when we parents speak among ourselves and with our children in the language of the heart. We went further each in our own way and now, looking back, I understand that it was very difficult, but again the right choice was not with the mind, but with my heart. Life later showed it – each of us has met the person whom our hearts wanted us to meet.
About my sons and daughter
At that time, my eldest son and daughter graduated from universities in Moscow and Minsk. They, like me, knew how to combine work and study and this gave them growth self-reliance and an ability to manage their time.
The eldest son and daughter have their own wonderful happy families with a strong foundation of love. My youngest son entered the Far Eastern Federal University, where he continues his master’s study as he works as an engineer in a construction company.
They have chosen the bright roads on which they are now going with confidence.
About programs, training, and coaching
I lived and worked in Moscow, flying to implement training programs throughout Russia. I conducted training, and coaching sessions in the field of training company managers while continuing to work with my children’s program for “Peace in Me” and the program “Academy of Happy Parents.” I am convinced that continuous joint development and improvement of children and parents together is always important for the family’s happiness regardless of our age, status, or profession.
I continued to train to upgrade my coaching skills and passed an international certification as a coach and specialist in harmonious personality development. I developed my business, learning many new areas by following my heart. Despite my work rhythms, I always remained a mother, supporting my children with love and my faith in them.
About the ability to hear and speak the language of the heart
A year later, on Valentine’s Day :), I met Joff. A little later, we met up in London at the World Book Fair, where I flew with my novel looking for a translator. Since then have become one. Two halves of two countries on different continents: the United States and Russia. My almost zero English and Joff’s zero Russian. We communicated using Google translator resulting in many humorous situations . . .
I got married a second time, as a grandmother. Love does not know age, or distance, and has only one language – the language of the heart . . . Our history is proof of that.
Now our big strong family with wonderful traditions lives on two continents. We have five children and two grandchildren two and my husband and I, again and again, understand that the most valuable thing we have in life is the ability to hear each other and speak to each other in the language of the heart. In my story, I shared with you my life experience in which there was always Love, Family, and Creativity. At the core of this experience is the ability to hear my heart and speak the language of the heart . . .
My life experience helps me create programs, conduct meetings, do consultations, write books and much more for you and your children. I connect with the philosophy of interaction through the heart and your results inspire me to create the best and look again for what can be improved in what I do and to share my development with you . . .
About the question of a happy person
What you see on the “Professional Experience” page is only a part, in fact. Conferences speeches, diplomas, awards, and careers are all just the result of what was at the core “What else can I best do for myself and all people? ”
I have asked this question many times and keep asking it . . . It allows me to find incredible solutions, implement great bright projects, and create wonderful friendly and strong teams. It helps me to see clearly what I want to create in my life and see what I want to share with you. This question helps me open my opportunities and realize them fully and support you in this. This is the best example for our children. I look at my grown children and I am proud . . . They have strong wings . . . and they carry the value of Family and Happiness in life through the unity of Love, Joy, Gratitude, and Character.
About the world of the heart and its values
In my life, there have been many trials and difficulties, but it is this amazing and bright little girl from my childhood with an endless supply of “Why” questions that have helped me to achieve results and joy in my life. She helped me convey this joy of life to my children. This happy girl, who looks at our beautiful limitless world with admiring eyes and feels the same beautiful limitless world in her heart . . . This girl has retained an amazing sense of the value of family in which there is nothing but love.
For me, as for my mother, the value of family remains one of the most important ones in life. Looking back with my knowledge and life experiences, I understand that each of us parents can always create a wonderful world filled with the best values for our children, regardless of any difficulties. In this world, there are no borders, and no one can take this world away from you, because the world is in our heart and can be in the hearts of our children.
It is this world that will help our children create their happy life, their happy families, and the best creation with a close connection with the whole world . . . Sometimes I hear, “Olga! When will you slow down? ”I laugh,“ Never! I love my life, my family and I appreciate it in each of you. This is my life and I love what I do.” Perhaps this is the answer to the question about which I wrote at the beginning of my story “Where do you find so much energy for everything you do?”
What now?
The company Olga Verasen LLC’s mission is to help parents create a happy family through books and courses. For the last two years, I have been developing the process of publishing books. This process includes an English translation, painting illustrations, layout, editing, production, and much more. Now, step by step, I am bringing all my programs online and releasing my books in two languages, English and Russian. However, I have a dream to publish books in many other languages. I also dream of creating wonderful movies and TV shows with a strong team of professionals who love what they doing and realize human values and family happiness.
My wise and strong husband Joff has become a great believer and supporter of my dream. While he is very busy with his pulp and paper business, he always finds time to support me in what I create. He also understands the value of family and childhood.
Step by step, a team is created in which individual talents are revealed while understanding the value of a common cause. I will be glad to see you on this team. The company “Olga Verasen LLC” is always open to partnership. Welcome!
Heart-to-Heart
I feel my oneness with each of you and speak, as always, with my heart. Now, I want to ask you: “What can I do best for you, for the present and future of your family and your children?” What questions do you have? I will be happy to respond and support you. If I help you with an answer, this will reflect the meaning of my life . . .
With love to you, Olga Verasen