– Where did you live prior to Austin? What brought you here?
We lived in The Borough of Queens in NYC since 1978. We moved to Austin June 15,2021. My whole life I thought — once retired I would buy a tiny apartment in Manhattan. About ten years ago, I came down with some health issues that affected my nervous system and found myself very sensitive to city life. I would come home form work and go to a nature trail to get away form the noise, lights, people and all other city pollution. Then Covid hit and we got this pull to relocate. I continued to receive strong messages and my intuition was guiding me to move. Our nephew moved to Austin and once he told us about the topography of the area, all the lakes and trails we knew we had to see it. We flew down for four days over Thanksgiving of 2020, while the whole city was shut down and empty. It also rained the entire time. We drove around, checked out some lakes and hikes and thought we can live here. It was also important for me to choose a city that was up and coming because I wanted my kids to be willing to move eventually. They came to visit and also felt they can live here because NY was not affordable for young adults. I put Austin, TX on my vision board December 2020, and continued life in NY. In March of 2021 my manager told me there would be a job opening in Austin in a few months, and that she remembered it was on my vision board. I asked my company for a transfer, they said yes, we sold our home in 2 days packed and moved in June of 2021. We never looked back. Currently we are renting a house in East Austin and enjoying city life while our house is being built in Luling. Next year we will move there to enjoy more space and the serenity of country living.
– What do you like about Austin?
I feel like we landed in paradise. From day one, I felt a deep connection to the land. So much that I feel like I’ve lived here before. (Perhaps in another lifetime.) I love that you’re in the city one minute and driving past horse and cow farms a few minutes later. I love the winters compared to NYC. The food scene here is amazing, and much less expensive than in NY for comparable quality. We shop as much as we can at the farmers market in Muller. I love watching you people, including my kids who are 22 and 24 shop at the farmers market developing a deep connection knowing and caring where their food comes from.
Most of all I love that my kids also moved here, my son Caleb who graduated college in January got a job in Austin. My daughter, ironically named Austin, works for Compass Realestate in marketing also moved just this week. I now have my family together again. I love all the hiking trails as well.
– Please tell us about your profession and your work.
I studied Fashion and Marketing at the Fashion institute of Technology in NY. After a three year career in the garment center, I got a job as a pharmaceutical rep. because fashion was not making me enough money to support myself. I hated the pharmaceutical industry. I found the work boring and not creative. After five years I stopped working to stay home with my kids. Once my son went to kindergarten I went back to pharmaceutical sales part time. About four years later I needed a creative outlet. I loved to take yoga classes and wanted to learn about the yoga philosophy. I decided to open a yoga studio with a partner friend. I planned to run the business, and do marketing, but for us to be more profitable I had to learn to teach. After a few trainings I became a yoga teacher as well. I always had an interest in nutrition and health which lead me to become a health coach certified by the Integrative Institute of Nutrition.
I ran this business, did pharmaceutical sales and raised my kids. After 5 years of this I began to struggle with my health which I’m sure was due to the stress of everything I was doing. I decided to sell my half of the yoga studio and pursue self healing. I did a lot of self hypnosis and meditation at that time as well. I got better but something was still missing. I also knew I needed to do something else with my future. My intuition was telling me to look for hypnosis trainings and with a little more spiritual guidance I found Atlantic University where I am currently enrolled in a masters program in Transpersonal Psychology, and where I completed my Master Transpersonal Hypnotherapy training.
Currently I am working on my website for my hypnosis business called BeautifulMind-Hypnosis, though I take clients now as well.
– Please tell us about your family.
I came from Kharkov, Ukraine with my parents and maternal grandparents in 1978 at the age of seven. I’m the only child. I grew up like the child of a typical immigrant family, considered poor. I got my first job at thirteen because I was constantly told we didn’t have money. I was a creative kid but nobody knew how to guide me and immigrants from Ukraine don’t understand creative career choices. My career choice had to be something they understood, so I started out wanting to become a department store buyer then went into wholesale in the garment industry. We grew up on the streets of Queens in the early 1980’s, and the streets of Manhattan in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. probably too quickly, while our parents were trying to create a new life for themselves.
– What do you do outside of work? What are your favorite books and movies?
I am definitely a seeker of knowledge, I find myself always researching and studying everything about health and wellness. I love to practice yoga, hike, and water ski.
My favorite books were – The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand until a few years ago when I read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and had to add it to the list. Favorite movie is Flash Dance.
– What would you like to wish the Russian-speaking residents of Austin and Texas?
I couldn’t understand the origin of the fears I had my whole life. I had deep fears of moving anywhere like to a different city, state, and especially to a different country where I would have to learn another language. I had the fears of not having enough money, fears that I would loose my job and not be able to find another one, or be able to support myself and many more. Once I began to research transpersonal hypnosis, I learned that we carry generational fears and we pass them onto our children as well. The fears I had weren’t mine. They were fears of my parents. Wanting to get past my fear of moving, I found a hypnotist who I did sessions with almost weekly for about four months. During these sessions, we accessed my subconscious mind which showed me that these fears I lived with, actually belonged to my mother and grandmother. Once I saw this I was able to cut the cords that bound me to their fears and let them go. I soon connected to my intuition. I stopped being afraid of everything and was ready for a new beginning. I was determined to stop these fears with me and not pass them on to my children. The pattern needed to be broken so my children could thrive. I also knew that I was going to learn hypnosis because it was so profoundly effective for me in such a short amount of time.
I was aware of how my parents raised me and was determined not to repeat the things I didn’t like with my kids. My husband owned his own business and we had some lean years when our kids were younger. At times we ended a year with some credit card debt which would got paid off the following year. A few months ago, my daughter an I were talking and I told her that some years we didn’t make enough money when they were younger. She was completely shocked by this revelation. She said, that she felt so much security growing up, that she thought we were rich. She asked why we never told them that we didn’t have enough money at times? Just thinking about that conversation brings tears to my eyes, because growing up I only heard about how much we didn’t have and I desperately didn’t want my kids to feel that fear of not having enough especially in their childhood. I explained to her that it wasn’t a worry that children should have, which brought tears to her eyes as she reflected, and just like that, that pattern of generational fear was broken.
I feel blessed to be able to share hypnosis with others. I also hope that all who came as immigrant children, can recognize if they are holding similar fears or traumas which belong to the generations past, figure out how to heal them so they don’t get passed to the next generation.
Love and Light
Contact information:
Alexandra Marks
Tel. 516.902.3242
E-mail: amarks5211@aol.com