Inspiration: Ksenia Oustiougova

I met Ksenia a few years back at the UW Business Plan Competition.  She was starting Lilipip, now a successful video animation marketing company.  She struck me as a very charming, intense and extremely intelligent woman.  Beautiful, too.  Her team and mine formed a good camaraderie with mutual encouragement and respect.  At the end we were both prize winners.

Fast forward to present day, she has been on the forefront of the social media bandwagon, having been highly successful with her businesses using such vehicles.  She has spoken on it many times and is a recognized expert on the subject.

Then she dropped the bomb.

She started a blog, with her own name on it, talking about the life as an incest survivor.

In the beautifully written posts, she talked about her life story since she was a child.  She did not mince words on the graphic details and the effect it has on her.  She talked about her ongoing healing process.  It is refreshing to read that someone can be so intimately in touch with one’s own emotions and feelings.  In a world of superficial and unrealistic “dreams”, and people who are skittish of talking about or sometimes even refuse to look at anything negative, it takes genuine courage to openly discuss it. It takes genuine strength to admit and acknowledge it publicly without regards of how other people would think of her.  And it takes an incredible sense of self to feel and express it.  The world is a dark place, let’s not paint it as artificially fine.  It is not, and it takes our collective strengths to change it.  This reminds me of a line in The American (2010): “You cannot deny the existence of hell. You live in it.”  It is, however, not a place without love.  It is up to you to give.

The whole blog is an avalanche of impactful emotions, impeccably organized and beautifully presented, of one of the ugliest events in human existence.  I encourage you to read it.  People who live in bubbles never live a full life, they just exist.  To live, one gets in touch with their emotions, acknowledges them and expresses them.  One faces their fear, and looks at the demons in the eyes and pierces through them.

Her blog’s subtitle is “writer, entrepreneur, incest survivor”.  I would add “inspirational friend” and “loving mother”.  We are collaborating on a book project on this.

Makeup & hair by Brandee Slosar

Tagged as: author, entrepreneur, ksenia, ksenia oustiougova, leo lam, lilipip, photograph, writer