ARINA ORLOVA

“I believe positive internal energy is a source of confidence and connection with people.”

I am an Esoteric Doctor. My practice is a psychic, healing and metaphysical centre. My aim is to help people be happy and healthy.

It was very hard for me to pick what I wanted to study. I come from Chernogolovka, a science center near Moscow. My parents were chemists,who sent me to an experimental advanced school. I did music, ballet, figure skating, basketball. I liked a lot of subjects and was interested in many things, so I couldn’t quite choose one.

Later on, looking at my karma, I understood why this was. But as a child I was always curious about magic and card readings, possibly because my grand-grandmother was a gypsy and my other grand-grandmother was a Mordovian healer.

After school I went to a musical college where I studied piano and music theory. I never really wanted to be in music, but my teacher pushed me, saying that I have a talent for it.

I ended up being a music teacher. I did that until my mid twenties. I didn’t love teaching music, but the kids loved me, and so did their parents.

But all along, I felt that it wasn’t really me. And when we decided to move, I got a chance to change it all.

I had dreamed of living abroad since I’ve been 14 or 15. I had many friends who emigrated to Israel in the 80’s, and I guess I envied them. I met my husband when I was 12, in a hospital, no less, so I’ve known him since childhood. Like me, he wanted to emigrate, so we put the wheels in motion together.

After I had my first baby, we started looking for ways to emigrate. We applied to 7 countries, and Australia accepted us. My husband is a nuclear physicist, so it was professional emigration. In 1992 we arrived in Melbourne.

I was so excited, I liked Australia immediately and felt at home here.

We came here with only 500 dollars, two kids and three suitcases.

It was amidst the recession and finding a job wasn’t easy. My husband found a university job which didn’t pay a lot, but it was a chance to start.

I started learning English and doing odd jobs like cleaning and selling roses in restaurants. Even a cleaning job was hard to find then. We got some financial assistance as well, which was much appreciated.

Then the person we worked for came up with an idea to open a flower shop. His wife taught us a bit about flower arrangement. Although I didn’t want to work for him, it gave me the idea to open my own shop.

I met some Russian friends at the language courses and we started selling roses in the neighborhood restaurants. The sales went well, and soon we had money to lease space and open a shop.

We learned everything by doing.

We leased a cheap space, in a Jewish quarter next to a dry cleaners, so there was a lot of foot traffic. At first we were scraping money for the bills.

Once an Indian man came into the shop and offered me a psychic reading. He told me that the shop would be very successful and asked for 300 dollars. I was gobsmacked, we barely even had 30 dollars then – but we scraped the money together to pay him.

And the Business did take off.

I promoted it by handing out our cards in restaurants, and coming up with the flower basket concept to sell in these restaurants, which encouraged people to compete with each other as to who can buy the most expensive one!

It helped us to be located within two distinct communities: Russian and Jewish. We sold a lot of flowers for weekly Shabbat and supplied the Russian venues.

I think one of the reasons business went so well was that we went out of our way to communicate with our customers, get involved in the communities.

My sales were always high – I think that’s because people can feel with they are dealing with positive energy!

I saw the flower business as a transition stage of my life, I didn’t know what was ahead. I liked doing flowers – both the arrangements and the business side of it. It’s hard to start something without enthusiasm. And I have a good business intuition which served me well.

This business ran for 20 years, but for the last 8 years I haven’t been involved in it, I passed the running of it to my partners and colleagues. I stopped devoting all my energy to it as I got other interests.

I was naturally a sceptic. I had to figure out all of my beliefs for myself. I was always attracted by the mysterious side of life, even when I was in business.

All my life, I felt a strong energy in my hands. I even had occasional visions – as I drifted off to sleep, I’d see different pictures and situations, that suggested the future. I didn’t know what it was yet, but I was very curious.

I started looking for meditation groups. I met a psychic who told me I have a lot of abilities and I need to develop my psychic talents.

It really was a journey of search. I met many people when I was looking for a mentor, and though some of them were fake, many others helped me.

Gradually I gained knowledge in all metaphysical sciences – astrology, numerology, Tarot, non-traditional medicine, magic, Feng Shui, palmistry, geomancy and some others. I studied in England, in Indonesia, in Russia.

I didn’t have particular goals, it was just something I felt I needed to know for myself.

I was still working at the flower shop, but I focused on increasing my knowledge in spirituality and metaphysics.

I participated in spiritual sessions and courses that helped develop my natural seeing and healing gifts. It was a guided meditation through which you could see things from the past or the future.

My husband was a bit sceptic, but when I could prove some of my abilities, he got very supportive of that. The kids were also mostly sceptic until one episode, when I helped my son’s girlfriend.

One day she couldn’t get up and walk, which was terrifying for her. I saw that she was affected by a strong negative energy.  I cleaned it, which was difficult and caused her to nearly collapse, but afterwards not only did she get up on her feet, she actually got up and started dancing!

It was a magic moment I’ll always remember.

For about 10 years I learnt all I could, following the inner drive that pushed me in those directions.

Once I achieved a certain level of knowledge, I was initiated in a ritual in Indonesia, which led to me to open my kundalini channel that links to the divine, higher energy.

That was a turning point, at which I felt like I could finally combine all my knowledge and my gifts and that inner drive and start practicing to help other people.

From the start, all my sessions were successful. I was proud to see my results and I seeing that I was moving in the right direction, I was encouraged. I started working from home for 3 days a week, and soon I had non-stop bookings from 8 am to 8 pm. A lot of it was word of mouth.

My strongest gift is feeling ailments and emotional conditions of people with my hands, and being able to heal these problems.

When I have someone in a session, I use not only use my bioenergetic resources, but also a whole scope of other knowledge. All metaphysical sciences are related – Tarot, astrology, numerology, magic, bioenergetics.

The same with religions.

I believe in God or A Higher Mind; I respect all religions – I think they are all one, and in my practice I use the knowledge I have gained from all of them.

In a session, I feel for a abnormality or a problem with my hand, examine every organ. But it’s not just the physical body, it’s also the energetic body, the aura, as it’s commonly known. And when it is torn away from the physical, it creates a lot of emotional and physical problems, pain. So it is important that your aura is healthy and at one with your physical body.

I do not deny traditional medicine, and the practices that I apply supplement it.

I am an Esoteric doctor, not a traditional doctor, so I can only recommend further exams if I feel with my hands, or see in the cards that something is very wrong with an organ.

Tarot uses the knowledge from Kabbalah. Tarot is a science for me, it is not just cards. When I do Tarot, at the same time I combine astrology and numerolgy, and that gives me a fuller picture of the person’s karma and their past, present and future.

As I mentioned, physical problems are tied to problems in our energetic body. So to start the healing process, we must heal the aura first, as the physical problems are often just the symptoms.

Often the aura is damaged by a long standing curse (which basically negative energy applied to your aura from the outside), and this negative energy must be expertly removed by a healer, whilst the aura must be cleaned and healed.

Another big aspect of my sessions is karmic advice.

If you start doing something and you encounter a lot of obstacles for a long time, it is a clear sign that you are not in the right place. You don’t always have to persevere and overcome everything. We all function in 10-year cycles, when we are influenced by energy in different ways.

If someone comes to me saying that everything seems to be against them, I look for reasons.

If there is no negative energy and it’s not the wrong year, it simply means that the person is going the wrong way for them.

For example, once I warned a client against starting a business at a particular time, I could see it wasn’t the right time or direction for her. She started it anyway. Three years later, she had spent a lot of money and energy,  with no success – and had to admit it was not the right way for her.

These days I work two full days in Glen Huntly for clients who cannot come to my practice in the Dandenong Ranges, and the rest of the time I have appointments here, up to 5 people a day. I also do Skype  consultations with clients all over the world.

Around 4 years ago we decided to move from Bentleigh. It was a convenient neighbourhood and where I ran my first practice, but I dreamt of moving here, to be amongst the woods and the mountains.

Because I had clients coming from other towns and states, my husband and I thought it would be a good idea to set up a practice with accommodation attached.

Down the track, that idea morphed into setting up a B&B as a retirement plan.

We started looking, but with little luck. I spent a lot of time looking for the right place with the right energy and Feng Shui, but nothing felt right. We shelved the idea.

A year ago we came back to it, started looking and found this house right away. When we came here, it really needed renovation. But I still loved it, I felt right.

It is located in the same way in terms of Feng Shui as our previous house, which is why we didn’t suffer a major shock from the move. I also liked that I coud have a separate free standing office for my practice.

We started running our B&B business just 3 months ago, but already we are booked out busy.

My husband takes  care of the advertising and some daily routines, while I take care of organizational details. We also have cleaning and gardening contractors helping us.

The idea for our B&B came from our travels. We like to travel a lot and enjoy staying in luxurious places. However, for us, ‘luxury’ doesn’t necessary mean something overly expensive or flashy. We see it as something unusual, unique – out of the ordinary life.

People come out for a day, and we need to make a fairy-tale escape for them. We did our research and found there were about 80 B&Bs in this area with a price of 200-250 dollars per night.

We decided to set our price somewhat higher, which ensured we were on a level that had much less competition. In this market, we must of course provide a higher service and an exceptional experience, but the people who tend to choose use are lot more easier to deal with than the bargain-hunters who looks for cheap deals.

We are continually developing and improving our concept, preparing various packages, making sure everything is special and interesting.

I want our guests to have really beautiful experiences, so I pay attention to the smallest details. The unique chocolates, the wine selection, the freshly baked home bread. People appreciate all this and are happy to pay a little extra for the difference.

But my core plans are still very much to continue with my Esoteric practice.

Right now I’m planning to write a book about the Karmic Journey of every individual. It will be based on my own experiences and knowledge gained on metaphysical and spiritual canons.

Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything.

I am so grateful to my destiny for being guided all my life.

Everything fell into place eventually. I never saw life as complicated, not even when I was cleaning and selling roses in restaurants – I felt a positivity in everything I’ve ever done. I believe positive internal energy is a source of confidence, and that’s the reason I’ve always had immediate connection with so many people.

Looking forward, I dream of expand my practice even further to travel nationally and even internationally to heal, help and educate people; to use my gifts and experience for the good of others.