Elena Yudakova

I was trained as a lawyer in Russia, but even before I graduated, I knew it wasn’t my path. After a breakup and feeling completely unanchored, I followed a quiet inner pull and signed up for a student work-and-travel program. I ended up in Cape Town—and from the moment I arrived, something just felt right. It was the beginning of a much longer journey.

I worked as an au pair for a couple of years, then moved back to Russia and bounced between cruise ship jobs and entrepreneurial experiments: I opened a modeling agency, then a travel agency—but nothing felt fully aligned. Still, I carried this persistent knowing that I belonged somewhere else. I missed Cape Town deeply.

Eventually, I returned and started following what felt truly good. I trained as a personal trainer and sports massage therapist, and began my own practice. But in 2019, during a time of repeated heartbreak and emotional confusion, I discovered hypnotherapy. I had just four sessions—and something shifted. I started to unravel the subconscious patterns that had kept playing out in my relationships. Within six months, I met a partner who gave me a sense of safety I had never experienced before. It wasn’t just about falling in love—it was about realizing what I had always longed for, and what I had believed I didn’t deserve.

That experience deeply moved me. It made me want to offer others the same kind of release, clarity, and self-belief. I trained at the South African Institute of Hypnotism, expanded into NLP and Parts Therapy, and began integrating these methods with my massage clients. In 2024, I started offering hypnotherapy professionally—and now it’s become a central part of my work.

What lights me up most is helping people move past the old loops—emotional, relational, or subconscious—and into the space of remembering who they really are, what they can and deserve to have. I believe transformation doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle. When we work with the deeper mind, things begin to shift quickly and meaningfully.