Victoria Spul is a famous writer, author of numerous articles, 20 popular science books and four fiction novels. She admits that her own path to who she is today was difficult. &ldquo;I still have some work to do. But now, even when the road gets tough, at least I know I&rsquo;m going in the right direction and it&rsquo;s worth it!&rdquo; - says Victoria.

What makes an author interesting to the reader?
My guess is the ability to go into some very deep and dark places in your sole. I mean look at the success of &ldquo;50 shades of gray&rdquo;. Is the plot really that intriguing? Nope. And let&rsquo;s face it, the language is nowhere near Nabokov. And the characters are pretty boring and predictable. But everybody read that book, right? Why? Is it all about erotic scenes? Hardly. I mean we have access to all kinds of porn 24/7. So, the thing that made this book a world bestseller is probably the incredible courage of the author to look into her kinks not to say name them out loud and describe them with true commitment. You have got to have guts to write about your deepest fears, or desires, or pain. And when the writer dares to really go there and expose what he&rsquo;d prefer to hide, that bewitches readers.

Please describe the path that lead you to psychology?
Well, that was quite a journey. I have been interested in psychology since I was 18. I remember myself spending every night reading books from Richard Bandler&rsquo;s NLP to Freud. I was very much into the world of esoteric, meditation, subconscious study etc. I was obsessed with the idea that thoughts could be material, and I was researching and experimenting a lot with all those techniques that help you achieve your goals.
When I was 20, I happened to submit myself for an audition for a US reality pilot. It was called Naked Truth. The producer, Harris Salmon, really wanted me to host the whole thing, but since I was Russian, I didn&rsquo;t have a working visa. So, he came up with this idea that I must start my own YouTube channel. &ldquo;Shoot something! Anything! The wilder, the better! We need to create a buzz around you. We need to make you famous and fast. Then a working visa won&rsquo;t be a problem&rdquo;. I was pretty wild back then. I put on my best lingerie, laid in bed and started to talk about sex. I don&rsquo;t remember the topic exactly, but guess it was something funny like &ldquo;What you should and what you shouldn&rsquo;t keep in your bedroom not to scare men away&rdquo;. Of course, this video went viral. It never got me that job, but it was the start of my YouTube channel that started from sexy, witty pillow talks and then grew and developed into a deeply philosophical conversation about dreams and fears, faith and hope, love and self-esteem. At some point, I started to get invitations to do public talks around the world. Italy, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Russia, Latvia etc. It&rsquo;s funny how one failure can push you towards much bigger accomplishments. Although I must admit I still want to try myself as a TV host, and I&rsquo;m pretty sure I&rsquo;ll be damn good at that.&nbsp;

As a psychologist, please name the 5 main causes of female worries today.
Working with women for the last two decades, I could of course, come up with some 5 worries, but the truth is &ndash; that they all come down to one! Am I enough? Today&rsquo;s women are obsessed with the idea of never-ending personal growth. Like tomorrow, I have to be better than today. On the one hand, that&rsquo;s awesome and challenging. But there&rsquo;s a downside of this tendency to become the best possible version of yourself. And it&rsquo;s frustration, self-loathing, fear that I&rsquo;m not good enough the way I am. Unfortunately, we often go to improve ourselves not because of love, but because of hate. It&rsquo;s like &ldquo;I hate my body, I have to go to the gym and lose weight&raquo;. With this kind of attitude, you won&rsquo;t be treating your body like the most precious thing in the world that deserves to look and feel as good as it is humanly possible. More likely you&rsquo;d be punishing yourself during workouts, suffer a lot, be cruel to yourself. I guess the key to women&rsquo;s happiness is the choice, the decision: I want to be on my side! I&rsquo;m going to treat myself the way I&rsquo;d treat the dearest person in my life. And if I go into any kind of transformation, I make sure that I do it out of love and there&rsquo;s a lot of inspiration and joy for me. Life is too short to waste it on war with yourself. Cause there will be no victors in that one.&nbsp;
What was your own path to who you are today like?
It was and still is pretty hard for me. I mean I was raised a typical good girl. Very polite, nice and smiling, never saying no to anybody, always ready to please everyone around. Eventually, this kind of behavior got me addictions and panic disorder. And only when I hit rock bottom, I&rsquo;ve started to be more honest with myself. I admitted that deep down inside I wasn&rsquo;t a good girl. I hated being quiet and convenient. I couldn&rsquo;t stand being a rag under the feet of other people. So, I started to connect with my inner essence. Who I really was? What I really wanted? I developed new behavior patterns. I learned new words like &ldquo;no, sorry, I&rsquo;m not going to do this&rdquo; or &ldquo;don&rsquo;t treat me that way. It hurts&rdquo;. I realized that anger is my friend. It showed up to help me to protect my boundaries. I allowed myself to be sexy. I allowed myself to say what I really think. I&rsquo;m still in the process of going deeper into freedom of being truthful. There is still a lot to work on. But now, even when the path gets challenging, at least I know I&rsquo;m heading in the right direction, and it&rsquo;s totally worth it!

What supports you in the turbulence of the fast-changing world?
I have faith. It&rsquo;s not some kind of religion. It&rsquo;s more like philosophy. I believe that everything happens for a good reason, even if we can&rsquo;t see it. I believe we are all connected and we are all one. Anything I do to another person, I do for myself in the future. We reap what we saw. I believe that the Universe has no intention of punishing us. Since we&rsquo;re all one, the bigger system like the Universe wouldn&rsquo;t be interested in hurting or damaging its own parts. But the universe is interested in evolution, so everything we get in our life is a lesson to learn and to grow. And I do believe I can trust the Universe. It&rsquo;s much older than me, it&rsquo;s much bigger than me. It knows exactly what it is doing. My only task is to trust that whatever happens serves me, guides me into deeper levels of unconditional love.
You write both popular science books and fiction. How are they created?
Writing a book is the most exciting and painful thing I have ever experienced. Some days, words and ideas just stream like someone up in the sky, whispering, you in your ear what to write. When I get this flow, I&rsquo;m the happiest person in the world. Even when I write about my complicated feelings or the pain and drama I&rsquo;ve been through, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. Cause once it turns into art, it&rsquo;s such a relief. But there are days when you get stuck in your head and the voice inside screams, &ldquo;What if you never make it till the end of this novel?&rdquo; &ldquo;What if you won&rsquo;t sell it?&rdquo; &ldquo;What if readers hate it?&rdquo; &ldquo;What if you waste your time?&rdquo; Oh, I hate that! On days like that, all you can do is to curl up in bed with coffee and cookies watching &ldquo;Gossip Girl&rdquo; feeling powerless and defeated. And when my inner critic yells out loud, I can&rsquo;t get any messages or ideas from the streaming source (whatever and whoever that is). Thank God, those emotional swings only happen when I write fiction. When it comes to non-fiction books, it&rsquo;s so much easier. I just share knowledge which is not so painful and vulnerable as sharing feelings. Probably, this is why I have like 20 non-fiction self-help books, but only 4 novels.

What are the three main questions that everyone should ask themselves before entering a personal relationship?
How do I feel next to this person? That&rsquo;s the number one question that seems to be obvious, but in reality not so many women dare to look inside their feelings. They most likely will estimate if the guy is wealthy enough, perspective enough etc. They often settle for a man that could seem like Mister Right and be good on paper, but yet it might be completely wrong for them simply because they can&rsquo;t relax and be themselves with him and have to pretend in order to keep up the appearances.
The second question is: do we want the same thing? I mean the relationships can only work when your expectations match.
And the third question is what I want to give and invest in these relationships. Because love is all about giving. If you feel like you have something to give, then you have a great chance of finding true love.
In the era of social media, we very often chase someone else&rsquo;s dream...
Social media expand our vision. We see the world full of opportunities. It&rsquo;s inspiring, but also confusing. Is it something I truly want? Or was I just bewitched by a beautiful picture? In my seminars, I always recommend listening to your body. It never lies. If you think of your dream and immediately feel energy, the urge to go somewhere, do something &ndash; that&rsquo;s it! Also, you can test yourself. Just stand straight. Inhale and put your palm on your head, then with an exhalation move your palm from head to your belly. Ask yourself: is it something I truly want? If your body moves forward &ndash; the answer is yes. If your body moves back &ndash; the answer is no. Try it. Works like a charm.&nbsp;
How to remain feminine in a cruel male world?
I&rsquo;m a powerful woman. Sometimes it goes out of control and I lose connection with my feminine essence. It happens when I give into fear. And feel like I have got to control everything, push people, push myself. It&rsquo;s exhausting. So, when I find myself in this fear mode, I try to have an honest conversation with myself. Like: OK, what are you afraid of? How can I support you? Yoga and meditation do wonders with this anxiety. Within 15 minutes they can bring you back into feeling good about yourself. That&rsquo;s incredible. Also I love art as a tool of reconnecting with my feminine side. For the last three years I&rsquo;m a student at the world-famous Ivana Chubbuck Studio. It gave us incredible actors such as Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, Jim Carrey etc. When I&rsquo;m in my acting class I&rsquo;m deeply in touch with my emotions, I feel safe to be soft, vulnerable, imperfect. So, I believe art does wonders to our possibility to enjoy being a woman.

Which fashion trends do you fancy?
I really enjoy this old money style that became such an it-look lately. I think it&rsquo;s great that many people are over logo-obsession and very much into simplicity and minimalism. I really do love all these &ldquo;less is more&rdquo; kind of philosophy, especially when it comes to style.&nbsp;
But I have a guess that most people trying to look like a rich heir are doing that not because they are really fond of an old money style, but because it represents something they can&rsquo;t buy and no one can buy: class. I don&rsquo;t know, maybe it&rsquo;s a good thing? Maybe if you act like you don&rsquo;t try too hard, dress like you don&rsquo;t need to impress anyone, it will have some positive impact on your self-esteem. I'm not sure if this entire &ldquo;fake it until you make it&rdquo; philosophy really works.&nbsp;
Personally, I don&rsquo;t follow any trends just because it&rsquo;s hot and it&rsquo;s everywhere. I hate fast fashion that gives us FOMO and wardrobes full of disposable clothes. Old money seems like a long trend, at least, unlike Barbie-style etc. I&rsquo;m truly glad people are not as obsessed with trends as they used to be 10 years ago. Now it&rsquo;s so much more about your personal style, and it gives a lot of hope to bring the world to reasonable consumption!
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Victoria Spul: “I believe that the Universe has no purpose in punishing us”

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