Hi,I'm Elina
A mother, entrepreneur, therapeutic chef, writer, inventor, former international journalist, and cancer conqueror, dedicated to helping you heal after a cancer diagnosis.
Through my bespoke Cancer Healing Journey and the Fuhrman Protocol, I help people like you balance the body, mind and spirit to support and activate your innate ability to heal. Transcending the boundaries of traditional medicine and holistic healing, I offer a new paradigm of cancer treatment, prevention and transformation.
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I’M SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE.
Because after going through cancer myself and remaining cancer-free after 17 years, here’s what I know for sure:
Cancer is not just a physical disease. When we are in balance, we are able to heal. Our feelings when buried alive never die and our emotional, subconscious and energetic landscape can make or break our health. True healing happens when we get to the physical, emotional and spiritual roots of why we became ill in the first place.
I’m a living testament to that truth. And when you get to the root cause of your cancer, you heal.
I didn’t know any of this until my cancer diagnosis.
I had just turned 40, and cancer certainly wasn’t part of my birthday celebration. The diagnosis rocked my world. I was scared, overwhelmed and terrified that I wouldn’t be here to watch my daughters grow up. Especially since my tests were showing a possible metastasis within 17 months.
I cried my eyes out, begging to survive. I even wrote a note to God, asking for guidance in finding a natural way to heal my cancer. I made a promise that if I do, I will devote my life to helping others.
THERE IS A DEEPER STORY TO MY MISSION THAT MOST DON’T KNOW.
I was born in Moldavia, a former Soviet Republic, during the Cold War. My country is now called Moldova and it’s one the smallest countries in Europe, yet it is an ancient land that has lived under kings, empires and communism, and carries all that memory. I grew up the way most families did there, in a small apartment, sharing two bedrooms with my parents and grandparents. Instead of a bed, I slept on a convertible armchair. But from the time I was very little, my mother taught me something that defined my life:
“If not you, then who?”
Meaning, your circumstances do not define you. You can always find a way and there’s nothing in life that you can’t achieve if you believe in yourself. It was this belief that carried me, at 20 years old, just weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the United States. I arrived in America with just $61 in my pocket, I didn’t know a soul and had no place to stay. But in my heart I knew that I would find my way.
Curiosity has always been my compass, especially when it comes to health and the human body. I wanted to know what exactly made some people vibrant and healthy, and others sick. I grew up with digestive issues, and spent enough of my childhood in doctors’ offices. At home, my grandmothers rubbed herbal ointments onto my skin, made me special soups and drinks, and told me I would be okay.
I studied medicine alongside my English degree in Moscow. Later, in the United States, I took pre-med and nutrition courses alongside my Journalism degree. Even while working full-time as a journalist at CNN International, I freelanced for the CNN Medical Unit, producing heath stories and segments. My work led to an invitation to sit on the board of the Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Wherever my reporting took me, I found myself wandering into pharmacies, herbal shops, and healing spaces, seeking out local healers, learning ancient remedies, and asking questions about how people healed long before modern medicine existed. I was always searching, even when I did not yet know for what.
At the same time, I was drawn to psychology, spirituality, writing, dance, fashion, drawing and storytelling. What looked like a scattered collection of interests from the outside was, in truth, a long apprenticeship. Everything was connected, I just couldn’t see it yet.
My professional life took me through some of the most defining chapters of our time. I helped launch technologies that would change how the world communicated, including DirecTV, the first digital phone, and the transition of GPS from military to commercial use. I briefed members of U.S. Congress on human rights abuses in East Timor, worked to bring international attention to forgotten crises, and reported from war zones. I was one of the first journalists on the ground in Afghanistan after September 11th, work that earned me two Emmy nominations. I also received a Freddie Award nomination for my medical reporting, an early sign that health and healing were always calling me toward something deeper. I then spent over a decade as a travel journalist, wandering through exotic countries, seeking out the best the world had to offer and writing about it for magazines and newspapers around the globe.
I spent much of my life telling other people’s stories and fighting for their truths. I rarely stopped to ask what my own body and soul were asking of me.
From the outside, my life looked full and successful. I was married. I was raising two young daughters. I was doing meaningful work.
Then one morning, standing in the shower, I felt a lump in my breast.
A biopsy a few days later revealed it was cancer. In an instant, the life I knew began to unravel. Just the word alone carries the weight of a death sentence. I mourned my body, my future, and the version of myself I believed I was losing. I questioned the diagnosis, convinced it was a mistake.
Surely the docs looked at someone else’s mammogram, I thought. I’m certain it wasn’t my tissue they tested, I told myself. I was convinced that they would figure out the mishap; it was just a matter of time. How could they not? I had just turned 40 and I was healthy. I had no family history of any cancer. I ate well, I exercised, I took care of myself, I breastfed my kids when they were babies. I lived what I believed was a healthy life.
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But the more tests the doctors ran, the more concerned they got. I was “lucky,” they told me, I’d “caught it early.” But the bad news was that the cancer was aggressive and growing fast, so they wanted me to do everything medically possible to stop it in its tracks. Except that I didn’t want to. The treatment choices I faced didn’t support the way I wanted to live.
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I HAVE A HUNCH YOU’RE HERE BECAUSE YOU FEEL THE SAME WAY.
In my search for clarity, I turned to God. I grew up in the Soviet Union and we were taught that God didn’t exist, but in the moments of despair I needed to find him. I had to believe he would help me. I also connected with some of the most knowledgeable and well-known people in the medical and holistic communities, and what I learned shocked me.
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I found out that cancer is not some kind of mysterious disease we have no control over. I learned that there was no medical cure, but rather, health is a choice, and my daily choices, whether I realized it or not, were making a direct impact on my health.
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Even as a journalist, I was overwhelmed by all the information. My turning point came months after my diagnosis, in the midst of my internal struggle over whether to agree to the chemotherapy my doctors were insisting on. A cancer researcher suggested my tissue be retested by Dr. Craig Allred, a renowned pathologist whose work helped define how hormone-driven breast cancers are evaluated worldwide.
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I will never forget when he called me after reviewing my slides. If you want to heal, you cannot do nothing, he said. What should I do? I asked.
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You have to change your life.
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What does that mean, to change my life?
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Dr. Allred said that by observing how my cells were behaving, it was clear that if nothing in my life changed, I would not survive. Whether or not I do chemotherapy, my life itself had to change.
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I hung up the phone and stared at the wall for hours. How do you change a life you believe is already good? How do let go of an identity that looks successful from the outside but feels increasingly misaligned on the inside?
That was the beginning of my healing journey.
It was the moment I became what I now call a cancer healing strategist. Not a coach, not a guide, but someone who builds a complete, personalized roadmap for healing, body, mind and spirit. Someone who has walked this path herself and knows every turn.
I declined chemotherapy and approached my diagnosis as the most important investigative assignment of my life. I became a voracious student of all things health and healing, integrating ancient traditions and modern therapies to transform a cancer diagnosis into vibrant living. I examined my suppressed emotions, my stress patterns, how I nourished myself, how often I ignored my needs, and how my so-called perfect life was quickly draining me. I came to understand cancer not as a random event, but as a signal of deeper imbalance.
Healing became a full body, full life transformation.
By addressing the biological, emotional and spiritual roots of my illness, I changed the epigenetic expression of my genes, shifting from patterns that were hurting me to patterns that supported healing. As Dr. Daniel Amen, MD, founder of The Amen Clinics and one of the most respected names in medicine, later said of my journey:
"Elina changed the epigenetic expression of her genes to help her heal rather than hurt her. I am inspired by Elina's story and wish more people would take control of their health as she did."
Two years after my diagnosis, my oncologist pronounced me cured, and I cried tears of joy.
Aren’t you supposed to wait for five years? I asked, almost defensively. The five-year cancer-free milestone is a significant marker but it doesn’t always mean a complete cure. For my oncologist to tell me I’m cured after only two years felt like I had won life’s most important lottery.
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AND THEN THE REAL JOURNEY BEGAN.​
Over the past 17 years, I have continued to study, test, and live what it truly means to heal. I have learned from the world-renowned oncologists, naturopaths, Chinese Medicine doctors, and integrative and functional medicine practitioners. But it was my spiritual journey that cracked me open in ways I never anticipated.
I traveled the globe in search of ancient wisdom. In India, I immersed myself in Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old science of life that predates modern medicine and remains one of the most sophisticated healing systems ever developed. I studied directly with Ayurvedic doctors and chefs, learning how food, herbs, seasons, and daily rhythms work together to restore the body to its natural state of balance. I also dove deep into Vedanta, the ancient philosophical tradition that explores the nature of consciousness, the self, and what it truly means to be whole. In Bali, I meditated with a divine Siddha master whose presence alone felt like medicine. In Brazil, Africa, and Costa Rica, I sat with ancient plant medicines and learned from shamans and medicine people who carry healing knowledge that has been passed down for thousands of years. Back home, I dove into Kundalini yoga and metaphysical anatomy, learning to map the emotional and spiritual roots of physical disease onto the body itself. I completed seven Siddha Maha retreats, each one peeling back another layer of what I thought I knew about healing and about myself.
Each experience deepened both my knowledge and my intuition. I began to understand that I wasn't just learning about healing. I was discovering my own gift for it.​
Healing became my life’s work, not only because I promised God but also because I had to share what I had learned.
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I’m healed from cancer but I continue to discover ancient rituals and learn new therapies each day, expanding my own understanding of what it means to live a vibrant, healthy and meaningful life.
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This path led to the creation of Soupelina, born from my own healing kitchen where food, ritual, and intention became my medicine. What began as a deeply personal journey became a way of walking alongside others navigating diagnosis, chronic illness, and profound life transitions. I have helped thousands of people cleanse, heal and reclaim their health. I have worked with hospitals and cancer centers to educate people undergoing cancer treatments how to support their healing from the inside out.
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Which brings me to you.
I am here to serve. Whether you are newly diagnosed, in the midst of treatment, or searching for another way forward, I bring clarity, compassion, and lived experience. I know the fear. I know the overwhelm. I also know what is possible.
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LET ME SHOW YOU HOW.
Fun Facts
about Elina
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1.
I am a proud mom of two amazing humans. My older daughter, Madeline, is a renaissance woman and a gifted musician. She’s also the secret sauce behind Soupelina. My younger daughter, Isabelle, is a famous actor who you probably recognize from movies and TV.
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I love fashion. I sketched, designed and sew my own clothes when I was a teenager. I still secretly dream of having a clothing brand. I also have different wardrobes depending on where I’m traveling, so I can blend in with the locals.
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English is not my native language. My daughters often laugh at the slip-ups that slide in to my everyday talk.
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Discovering myself and others through travel is what fuels and inspires me. I spent 15 years as a travel journalist, writing not just about destinations but about connection of people to places. I rarely visit landmarks and instead immerse into cultures as a native, going off-the-beaten paths and making friends along the way.
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I see into the future. For real. I know what will happen 10 years before it happens.
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I talk to my vegetables, trees and birds. I’ve always been sensitive to energy and believe that everything is quietly communicating with us if we slow down to listen.
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I’m passionate about food and design, developing recipes, cooking delicious meals, plating the food and arranging an elegant dinner table. Nothing makes me happier than sharing a beautiful meal with my family and friends.
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I trained to compete in a bodybuilding competition but never entered it.
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I’m endlessly fascinated by the cosmic side of life. Astrology, Numerology, Human Design, Gene Keys, and even past lives are rabbit holes I happily fall into, because I love exploring the deeper patterns that shape who we are. The idea that our souls might be carrying stories far older than this lifetime never stops intriguing me.
Healing Journey
Choose Your
A private, 90-day 1:1 partnership integrating therapeutic nutrition, strategic supplementation, nervous system regulation, spiritual guidance, intuitive medicine, sacred rituals, and profound inner work.
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This is for the woman who is ready to go all in.
A 90-day small group healing experience built on the complete cancer recovery framework at the foundation of all my work. Delivered through weekly live group calls, precise protocols, nutritional strategy, educational guidance, detox support, and ritual integration, alongside the strength and accountability of an intimate community.