Victoria Albina - Certified Life Coach, Nurse Practitioner, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, and Podcast Host

Victoria Albina

Victoria Albina is a Certified Life Coach and Certified Breathwork Meditation Facilitator with a passion for helping women with their most important relationship: the one with themselves. She’s also a nurse practitioner and functional medicine expert with a Master’s degree in Public Health as well as a certified breathwork facilitator, an herbalist, a life coach, and the host of the Feminist Wellness podcast.

She is UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, has a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. She has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and has a passion for helping women to heal mind, body and spirit.

I’m so excited for you to connect with Victoria, check out work, and follow along as she continues to help women reclaim their power, restore their confidence, and joyso that they learn to trust their intuition and live with radical, unapologetic, empowered self-love.

I'd love it if you'd introduce yourself, what you do, and what you're working on.

My name is Victoria Albina, and I’m the host of the Feminist Wellness podcast, a Certified Life Coach, a Nurse Practitioner, and a Certified Breathwork Facilitator. 

Right now, I’m working on a masterclass called The Feminist Wellness Guide to Overcoming Codependency. By the time you read this, we’ll have finished the first round, but you’re welcome to learn all about codependency on my podcast. :)

How did you get started?

I had been sick for my entire life with a combination of IBS, exhausting and painful heartburn, chronic pain, and intermittent depression and anxiety. I thought that it was normal to have a 24/7 stomach ache until my roommate at Oberlin College assured me that it was definitely NOT the norm.  

So I dove into the conventional medical machine with earnest (which is how I do everything). I saw all the doctors, had all the scans and took all the treatments that the western system had to offer… and after 2 years of it, I felt 0% better. In fact, I felt worse. 

That’s when a friend recommended I take the student-led women’s alternative health class which changed my life. I started learning about systems other than the drug-based, one-pill-for-one-ill system I had been raised in and started learning about the wise woman herbal tradition and this then bizarre concept to me called “having feelings” other than anger, joy and sadness. My horizons broadened, but my tummy was still a hot mess.

It wasn’t until after graduating college, training as a birth doula, studying herbal medicine, counseling at an abortion clinic, getting a Master’s degree in Public Health, and then moving to San Francisco to become a Nurse Practitioner that I began to heal thanks to a blend of holistic and functional medicine. 

While my body started healing, my mindset was still a mess. But that’s exactly what inspired the work I’m doing now.

What inspired the work that you're doing?

I taught registered nurses at UCSF and studied breathwork for a while before moving to New York City where I got sick again because of stress. 

That’s around the time when I got certified as a Life Coach with The Life Coach School which is the best boutique program in the country, and it changed everything. I had learned about life coaching from my dear friend Beca who took the risk and pointed out my codependent and perfectionist mindset habits to me. 

She recommended that I try working with a life coach and I’m glad I took her advice! Once I did that, I started to see my old thought habits in technicolor - all the ways I was putting others ahead of myself and always keeping myself last. 

Learning and implementing the Thought Work protocol from life coaching changed everything for me, and seeing it change the lives of my clients every day continues to inspire me.

What is your biggest passion? Do you feel like you're living your passion and purpose?

I spent the first 30 years of my life not knowing how to listen to my body, to feel my feelings, or to put myself before others. 

Yes, I needed to deal with a parasite, with my leaky gut, and with small intestine and large intestine bacterial overgrowth, but one of the key reasons I stayed sick was because of my chronic codependent and perfectionist thoughts that what other people thought of me, their needs, and their desires were more important than my own dreams and aspirations.

I spent a lifetime trying to be everything to everyone and kept coming up short because I wasn’t in alignment with my own authentic self. I was living for other people, and it showed in my physical and mental health.

I was stuck in old thoughts that kept me playing both victim and villain in my own life story, and this realization eventually brought me to my life’s passion and purpose. Learning how to retrain my mind helped me heal my physical life, but most importantly, it helped me take back control of my life. 

It taught me that I’m my own best healer and that self-love is the first and most important supplement to take every day for a healthy mind, body, and spirit.

What is your joy blueprint? What lights you up, brings you joy, and makes you feel the most alive?

I feel most alive, in my joy and my light when I’m being my most authentic, silly, ridiculous and amazing self. This is when I’m dancing in my kitchen, making up songs, coaching my amazing clients, and being true to myself and accepting of myself and the people in my world just as we are, not trying to change anyone or anything, not wishing life was different, but rather, focusing on radical love and acceptance.

How do you live intentionally? Are there tools/resources/practices that you rely on to help you stay mindful and grounded?

My daily journaling, Thought Work (the self-coaching protocol I teach my clients and practice daily myself) and breathwork meditation help me stay grounded and present.

What would your younger self think about what you're doing now?

She is so thrilled! I do Inner Child and Reparenting work daily -- both concepts that I talk about on my podcast -- and I’m in contact with little me throughout the day. She is SO proud of me and so inspired that I learned how to really and truly love and accept myself and that I stopped worrying what other people think about my choices, my thoughts, my path. She would love that I’m authentically ME! 

She is also so happy that I’m helping women to break free from the codependency and perfectionism -- two thought habits that kept younger me from living into her (our!) joy.

Do you have a go-to mantra or affirmation?

Absolutely! I start every day by declaring my own wild love of myself, out loud. First thing when I open my eyes, I say “Maria Victoria Albina Cordero, I love you!” and wow, does that help me start the day off with loving positive energy. 

After a lifetime of looking outside myself for validation, approval and healing, I remind myself throughout the day that “I am the medicine I need. I am my own best healer.”

What is your biggest dream?

To help women and folx socialized as women to live with intention and radical self love, to release the old stories that are holding us all down, and to learn how to live life on our own terms.

I also dream of a world where there is true equality and equity for all humans, animals, and the earth… where we are all held up as perfect, amazing and worthy of endless and unconditional love and care.

To learn more about Victoria, her free meditations, and her work visit her website https://victoriaalbina.com and on Instagram @victoriaalbinawellness and on Facebook @VictoriaAlbinaWellness

Joy Corner is an interview-style blog series brought to you by Seek The Joy Podcast. Our mission continues to be a desire to share your stories, truths, joys and inspiration in your words. We invite you to join our corner, and share your joys, passions, and moments of inspiration as we continue to seek the joy, together. Join this series here