Today, we’d like to introduce you to Dina Smirnova. Dina was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Brandi Mazesticeon.
Dina, can you walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m Dina, an end-of-life doula and meditation teacher. I’ve been a movement and meditation facilitator for over 20 years and have facilitated classes, workshops and programs all over the world. I’m currently based in Melbourne, Australia.
People often ask me where I’m from; my journey started in my birthplace (formerly, The Soviet Union) in present-day Baku, Azerbaijan. Due to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, my family and I were forced to flee the country and immigrate to the United States via Russia as Armenian refugees. In America, I was fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity of “freedom,” a far-fetched idea that was sadly unavailable at the time my family fled Baku.
During my time in the US, I mainly lived in California and New York. I spent most of my youth and young adulthood pursuing dance, and intensively studying the body. This interest naturally lent itself to furthering my study in somatic-based modalities and practices.
After experiencing my father’s death in 2013 and going through an intensive period of grief, I realised society is conditioned to sweep those who are dying, grieving or experiencing loss under the rug. His death led me to have an awakening to my own mortality, which took me into the depths of reflecting on existential truths and my own impermanence. In this period of deep reflection, death, dying, grief, loss and impermanence became living truths and transformed me forever. After being a teacher for many years, I realised I wanted to serve people at a deeper level and made the transition in my individual practice from teaching to serving people who are affected by death, grief and loss.
Alongside my doula practice, I co-facilitate programs with my business partner Brandi Mazesticeon at The Sacred Exchange. Our programs are anchored in providing new paradigms for empowerment to our participants in a deeply transformative, shamanic container. I am also a certified Katonah Yoga teacher, and use elements of this framework to inform my offerings.
Let’s talk about your work and career – what else should we know?
In my work, I take a somatic and experiential approach rather than medicalising or psychologising my clients’ experiences. From experience, I have seen many of the answers to life’s challenges reside in the body and cannot always be easily moved with language or a cerebral process alone. My offerings stem from the following principles that I have embraced through many years of self-practice and teaching: – You are One with Nature. – The key to liberation is to be at peace within yourself by attuning to the cycles of Nature. – Intention and integrity are everything. The beauty of somatic practice is that you can ground the accelerated transformation in your body, creating space so that integrated expansion can effortlessly unfold inside of you. I have developed a process of nervous system repatterning (or, as I call it, “Nervous System Reset”) which teaches you to trust yourself and your breath rather than relying on external validation. – There is no single path to enlightenment (and maybe there is no such thing). Through ritual and repetition in time, you will find the best path for connection and healing. Whether I am serving people as a death doula or co-facilitating programs at The Sacred Exchange, what I love about my work is that I have the honour of witnessing people in their honesty, truth and vulnerability. By being in the space of honesty, there is a level of authenticity that emerges in the connection between me and my clients that is often lacking or deemed “unacceptable” in mainstream society. I find this deeply humbling and fulfilling, and have heard from my clients that being held in a space at this level of honesty is profoundly peaceful, healing and uncommon.
Brandi Mazesticeon has been a great friend to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Brandi and your experience with them.
I have known Brandi since I lived in New York City, over 10 years ago. I immediately knew there was something special about her: she was (and still is) one of the most powerful people I have ever met…and I’ve met A LOT of powerful people ;). We started to get to know one another, and I became her client not too long after when I participated in one of her incredible programs.
During my time of working with Brandi as her client, I experienced extremely profound, palpable shifts in my life. I realise this might sound cliché, but my life genuinely changed – to the extent where I didn’t recognise myself or my life once I completed the program. Although I had worked with many well-regarded teachers and facilitators up until this point in my life, I realised very quickly that working with Brandi was something completely different. The difference was the experience of accelerated growth, which I had laid the foundation for in all of the previous inner work I had done, and that I was finally ready for this level of growth and empowerment.
As we worked together for 9 months, the shifts I experienced in such a short period of time were changes in my life that I was asking for for years, but could not manifest in reality. Working with Brandi allowed me to not only see unconscious blocks that were in the way, but actually move them so that I could make space in my life for what I truly desired. I had huge breakthroughs in every area of my life: from meeting my life partner, to experiencing financial freedom, to tapping into my dormant creativity, to healing generational, ancestral wounds that I was still storing in my body. To say the least, any one of these outcomes is huge but to experience them all happening simultaneously was mind-blowing.
After working with Brandi as a client, it was only natural that I wanted to continue to collaborate with her. Her vision for humanity and service is extremely moving, and something I could see myself supporting and standing behind – so I did! At this point in my career, I had enough experiences to know that I wanted to collaborate with others but had experienced many challenges in working relationships where finding the “right” people to work with, being aligned in a shared vision, and having the ability to execute the vision collaboratively, was very, very rare.
I am constantly in awe and left inspired in our work together. Since commencing our business partnership 3 years ago, what we offer has evolved. What I love about this evolution is that the work and how collaboration has flowed the entire time, even becoming more enjoyable as time passes. I believe we have skill sets and experiences that naturally complement each other, which contributes to the strength of our business partnership and ability to execute the vision of The Sacred Exchange.
Most of all, what I love about working with Brandi is that it is a deeply spiritual, magical experience yet equally grounded in reality. My commitment to continue to support others in their journeys as they participate in our programs in a balanced, integrated way.
Website: www.deathdoulamelbourne.com
Image Credits
Maxim Smirnov (all photos except personal photo and photo of blond girl) & Yunis Tmeizeh
