Looking back, I noticed that I started studying natural sciences since I was 14 years, when I enrolled in chemistry-biology high school class, not necessarily with a clear plan in mind. Then I followed the Biochemistry BSc and then later the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology MSc. And by that time, I was aware that I want to learn more about life, all that we can't see with the naked eye, but yet is there and makes us alive. And indeed I did, at the very molecular level, and I was fascinated by the simplicity behind some of the most complex structures that make the living world (e.g. our DNA is made only out of four distinct building blocks that repeat each other in various ways to generate kilometers of double strands).

Later, in 2012, I decided to experience a different educational system, so I moved from my home country (Romania) to the Netherlands for my PhD studies and simply fell in love with living here.

Now, during all my studies I was exposed to a lot of information from several fields of research where I learned that our bodies are created to be inherently healthy; hence they have various processes of regeneration, repair, recycling and fighting pathogens (or better said the unfamiliar), all meant to make us function optimally.

Job opportunities that came my way allowed me to learn more about pathological states of our bodies as well, but also prevention and treatment of infectious viral diseases. And, as I've always been an adept of the saying that it is better to prevent than to treat, that led me to work in the field of vaccine development.

Though I have spent nearly 18 years of my life in the academic environment as a student and then a scientist, in the past three years I have gradually been taken in by the field of hypnotherapy and all the wonderful benefits it can bring to our lives.

I would say my journey in the field of self-improvement or better stated, self-enlightenment started in 2017, after I had ended a 10-year relationship, recovered from a somewhat risky medical intervention and experienced a lightning fireball incident. The time I was not dedicated to work was spent on TedX talks, books and multiple courses. I can say I was discovering a world where scientists, doctors and other experts were sharing their findings and knowledge in a fun and engaging way. And all aimed at improving one's life experience and health. I was feeling in my element!

Later, in 2020, after the debut of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic and during the lockdown, one of my dear relatives died, back in Romania. It happened only 6 days after a similar medical intervention to the one I had, while still in the hospital, and the death was due to a predictable complication (a blood clot). As I could not join my family and attend the funeral, I was going to work and really struggling with all the emotions and thoughts, while trying to make sense of why a person younger than me would have such an unfair outcome.

This was one of the moments where I began to question what was different between my personal experience and the one of my relative. One of the things that surfaced, was a difference in the mental states – I was paying attention to cues my body was sending and did some investigations, while my relative did not do that, until the physiological changes actually became disturbing; before the medical intervention I had a clear plan how long, or better said how short, my recovery would take and the plans after, as I still needed to finish my PhD, while my relative's state of mind was “I won't make it to be 30 years old”, “this is the last time I'm eating pancakes” and so on. During our phone conversations prior to the medical intervention, I had rationally explained why one has to approach this “obstacle” with a positive outlook, with a focus on the healing process and as a given chance to start life over again. My advice seemed to click at a mental level, but emotionally, I later found out that it only got through in the last hours before being declared dead.

In my quest to make peace with this situation and loss, I came across Marisa Peer, a renowned hypnotherapist, and her words: "In the battle between emotion and logic, emotion always wins". As emotions are generated from our subconscious mind which is believed to control 95% of our activities, while logic/reasoning, stemming from our conscious mind, would get the leftover 5%. In other words, you will first feel something and then try to make sense of it with the thinking mind, a process that happens rather fast, especially if that path of though has been repeatedly used. This helped me clarify why I was not able to inspire and motivate my relative to have a positive focus on overcoming the massive challenge ahead, as the hopelessness experienced by this person was deeply rooted in loops of negative emotions and thoughts.

Marisa was and is an inspiration to me with all the videos regarding the power of one's mind to change and shape reality. It seemed natural to join her Rapid Transformational Therapy course, as I desire to learn more about using hypnosis, as well as overcome some of my own personal issues, for which I am incredibly grateful to my colleagues that have done their practice with me. 

My training in hypnosis continued with another course offered by OMNI hypnosis, where I learned more tools and techniques, but also expanded my network with specialists within the Netherlands.

Now, after learning and understanding so much more about the power of our minds, I am eager to approach emotional pain, disease and negative outcome prevention by using hypnosis to make everlasting changes in the subconscious mind, the one that generates our emotions and which supports the direction in which we want to go.