Raisat KebedovaThe Doors That Waited Two Years

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I’ve seen it so many times: a woman understands everything about herself — and still lives the old way. But with Raisat, that gap took on a perfect physical form: doors. Bought, delivered, leaned against the wall — and left uninstalled for two years.

It wasn’t that she was doing nothing. She was a lawyer, then spent four years in coaching: clients and sessions, a Telegram channel and a YouTube channel, spiritual practices, case reviews with colleagues. She could visualize a slim body and a state of abundance, and get goosebumps from a spot-on insight. Meanwhile, the doors stood against the wall. The debts didn’t go away. The tension at home kept growing.

I know this trap: the more a person understands, the more convincing her own explanation of why now isn’t the right time. Insight becomes a way of not changing anything.

Today one room is finished, the hinges and handles for the doors have been bought, and a router has been ordered to cut them in. Raisat laughs: two years of nothing, and then it was like a switch flipped. Only she no longer calls it a “switch” — every change turned out to have a down-to-earth action behind it: order, buy, arrange, do. And repeat tomorrow.

That’s why I left the doors at the start of this story. Not to dismiss faith, searching or inner work — for Raisat, they are all real. But to name something that’s rarely said out loud in the helping professions: understanding without action is just one more beautiful thought.

Her story is about the day a thought finally became an action.

Victory Naydenova · Founder of CLIRIUM® ME

My name is Raisat Kebedova, and I’m thirty-six. I was born in sunny Dagestan — a mostly Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus — in the high mountain village of Khunzakh, and today I live in Makhachkala, the capital, with my husband and our four children: three sons and our sweetheart of a daughter. Our youngest is just a year old. I trained as a lawyer, though psychology and esotericism — the world of spiritual and mystical teachings — have fascinated me for practically my whole adult life. For a long time I didn’t separate the two at all; as I put it now, they were “sharing the same chair.”

Four years ago I trained as a coach, began working with clients, running sessions, started a Telegram channel and a YouTube channel, later became more active on Instagram and gradually stepped into the public eye. For the past year I haven’t worked with clients because I’m on maternity leave (in Russia it can last up to three years). And this period, which at first could have looked like a forced pause in my career, unexpectedly made me look at myself far more closely than all my trainings and sessions ever had.

Today I can call myself a happy woman, but the word “happiness” means something very different to me than it did a few years ago. I’m a Muslim, and for me happiness is first of all about being able to rely on myself and on Almighty Allah, not making idols of anyone, not comparing my life to other people’s, and not waiting for someone to come along and tell me how to live. That last one was especially hard for me, because for much of my adult life that’s exactly the person I was looking for.

In 2024 my aunt died — one of the most important women in my life, someone who had a huge influence on me, my decisions and our family. After her death it was as if my inner framework collapsed, and for a long time I couldn’t put myself back together. My husband saw how hard I was taking the loss and even suggested once that we hang up her photo, so her image could keep motivating me and give me a reason to keep going.

At the time there was nothing strange about that suggestion to me, because I truly believed it was natural for a person to need an outside source of strength to move forward: a mentor, an authority, someone close — someone to give you that push after which you finally pull yourself together and act. Only much later did I see how deeply that logic was built into almost everything I did. If things were hard, I looked for a specialist; if I didn’t understand what was happening, I went to another session; if I couldn’t make a decision, I wanted to find someone who would help me see the right answer.

I worked with colleagues, coaches and accountability buddies. I talked things through, analyzed, got feedback and went back to inner work again and again, because I sincerely believed that if you understood the cause well enough, change would automatically follow. But it often didn’t. After my youngest was born, my usual escape from my own reality — into work, classes and endless “working through” — mostly disappeared. Maternity leave literally left me inside my everyday life: with the kids, my husband, the house, my own body and the questions I used to be able to escape, if only for a few hours, by stepping into my professional role.

My husband makes, assembles and installs furniture. Orders usually slow down in winter, but at the end of 2025 the usual seasonal slump stretched out to almost five months, starting around mid-November. We had to live mostly on government child benefits, and I don’t want to dress that period up in pretty words: for our family it didn’t feel like temporarily cutting back. It felt like survival.

I’m grateful to Allah for everything we had to go through, but gratitude doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared, or that it wasn’t hard or shameful. Quite the opposite: that’s when it became impossible to keep explaining what was happening by outside circumstances alone. I started asking myself a different question: what exactly in my life right now irritates and hurts me so much — and what of it can I actually change through my own decisions?

In March 2026 there was a flood in Dagestan, and for about a week and a half our whole family was essentially trapped in our own house. Against the backdrop of financial strain, worsening relationships with my husband and children, and being tired of myself, I suddenly saw very clearly a desire I used to be very good at disguising as being busy with work: I wanted to run away. Not necessarily to physically leave home — I could escape into someone else’s problem, another session, a course, analysis, a spiritual practice — anywhere, as long as I didn’t have to stay face to face with my own daily life, my relationships and myself.

With a baby, that familiar exit was almost completely closed, and for the first time I asked myself, very bluntly: what kind of helping practitioner am I if I can’t help myself? That question hurt more than many of my earlier insights precisely because I wasn’t someone who knew nothing about herself. On the contrary, I knew a great deal — and gradually, the sheer amount of understanding began to reveal the real problem: knowledge wasn’t automatically turning into a new life.

I came to CLIRIUM® ME after watching Victory’s free material about “I have to,” “they owe me” and double standards. I recognized myself in it so strongly that those phrases later even made their way into our family conversations with the kids. But what I really came with was far less flattering than a wish to become more mindful: I came with a lack of discipline, an inability to start things and finish them, and a belief I can now put quite plainly — I’m allowed anything.

At some point I really did decide that I could make a promise and not keep it. Then I’d feel ashamed, I’d tuck the guilt away “up my sleeve,” as I call it, and after a while I’d do the same thing again. I did practices for abundance, well-being, wealth, success, visibility and a slim body. I knew how to create the right inner state, but I had no idea what to do once the practice was over.

Today I can see that freedom without responsibility turns into chaos very quickly. I came for discipline and for what I called “wealthy habits,” but what I got first of all was an uncomfortable mirror: the way I saw myself inside didn’t match what was happening in my outer life. I dreamed a lot, I was great at visualizing, I could look at the world through rose-colored glasses — and honestly not understand what concrete next step I needed to take.

One of my unexpected discoveries was about my own intuition. I always believed I read people very well: I felt I understood almost instantly what someone meant, why they did what they did and what would happen next. In conversations with other members I began to notice that everyone has their own point of view, and that what I took for feeling was sometimes just a very fast chain of logic.

I really am good at connecting facts quickly, and sometimes the picture comes together in my head before it does for the people around me. But the picture in my head isn’t another person’s reality. For me this was an important encounter with my own magical thinking, because if you’re sure you already know what someone else feels, you have no reason to ask. And asking was exactly what I needed to start doing — especially with my husband.

It’s hard for me to talk publicly about the family side of this story. My husband and I have been together for many years, and from the outside our family could really look like it was doing great, but on the inside things were more complicated. Over the past few months I’ve begun to understand my husband’s needs and his character much better — what recognition and respect mean to him — and I’ve gradually started doing the thing I used to escape from into analysis: actually talking with him.

Probably the most painful admission is that coaching sessions may have been where I ran to avoid those conversations. It’s so much easier to discuss a relationship with a professional, unpack the scripts and look for causes than to sit across from the person you love and ask what he feels, what he’s missing and what is happening between you right now. I began to notice how much the simple things matter: to say it, to ask, to listen, to give someone recognition, to stop deciding in advance what he thinks.

My relationship with my husband became warmer, the way I talk with my children changed, and along with that my attitude toward people in general began to change. I’m someone who takes offense easily — even admitting that publicly isn’t easy for me — but now I try not to build an entire reality around every hurt. Telling the truth really can hurt, but I no longer want to live only in the goosebumps of the next insight, after which my behavior stays exactly the same.

In working with people, I’ve seen many times a state that’s very easy to mistake for deep growth: a person reads a lot, analyzes, sees specialists, knows the psychological terms, can explain her own reactions and sometimes even helps others professionally. All of that can be real work. But there comes a point where understanding quietly turns into one more way to put off action.

What makes Raisat’s story so interesting is that she doesn’t give up psychology, faith or inner searching. She stops demanding that they do what they can’t do for her. Insight can show you the door, but it can’t hang it on its hinges; understanding can explain your money script, but it doesn’t make the loan payment; visualization can remind you of the body you want, but muscles still need movement. There’s no conflict here between the inner and the outer. On the contrary, maturity begins where one finally supports the other.

Body-focused practices were a whole separate part of my old life. I pictured myself slim, visualized movement, building muscle and a new state — but after my last difficult delivery, in reality it was hard for me to walk for long. And one day I had to face an almost comically simple truth: to start walking farther, I didn’t need to imagine walking better. I needed to actually start walking.

A step challenge started in our group chat, and I began gradually, without any idea of instantly becoming a different woman. Every day I added a little, walked a bit farther than before, and over time I worked up to about ten thousand steps a day. I started doing planks, working on my body, buying scrubs, creams, oils and brushes, and giving myself attention — not before an event or so someone would notice, but because for the first time I began to see caring for my body as my own responsibility to myself.

When I stepped on the scale one day and saw I was down five kilograms (about 11 pounds), my first reaction was surprise: did I really do this? And the answer turned out to be very simple — yes, I did. Only not in my imagination. I walked day after day, gradually increased the load, and for the first time I got a physical result not from a state I was trying to create, but from a behavior I kept repeating.

There’s one more part of my story that’s hard for me to talk about, but without it this account of responsibility would be incomplete. We were cheated out of a large sum of money: we took out a loan hoping to grow it, and we lost it. After that I felt enormous resistance to the very idea of paying the loan back. My reasoning went something like this: if nobody gave me my money back, why should I pay back theirs?

Now I understand how closely that logic was tied to the same inner permission not to keep my promises. At some point my husband and I simply decided to repay the debt. Not because the situation suddenly became fair, and not because we stopped feeling wronged, but because it was our obligation. Gradually work came back, money came in, and we began paying off the small debts and putting more toward the big ones.

For me, what matters most isn’t even the financial result — it’s that words have regained their meaning. My husband was always much clearer about this: if he promised, he did it. I had to relearn that a promise isn’t the mood you’re in when you make it, but the action that comes afterward.

When I was working with clients, I was tormented by a question I couldn’t yet fully turn on myself: why do some people come back to me a year later with almost the same issues, and why doesn’t the result someone gets in a session always stick in their life? I could help someone see the problem, bring them into a powerful state, guide them through emotionally important work — but then they’d go back to their familiar surroundings and often rebuild the same old behavior.

Today I understand that question much more deeply, because one day I turned it on myself. How can I lead someone to a place where I don’t know how to stay myself? I could understand a lot, explain things well, guide someone through a powerful experience — but if behavior doesn’t change afterward, the old life very quickly puts everything back where it was. For me as a helping practitioner, this was one of the most unpleasant and at the same time most valuable admissions: I wasn’t the product of my own product.

Now I see professional responsibility differently. It’s no longer enough for me to give someone a beautiful insight and see their emotional reaction in a session. I need to understand what will happen next, what behavior will anchor the new decision, and how much I myself live by what I offer others. That’s why the path I’m on today is not only personal for me, but professional too.

I want to say something separately that is fundamental for me as a Muslim woman. I couldn’t stay long in a space if I felt its ideas contradicted my religion or forced me to choose between psychological work and faith. My reliance on Almighty Allah hasn’t disappeared or grown smaller; on the contrary, I’ve become clearer about where my faith is and where my human responsibility begins — for my decisions, my body, my family, my promises and my actions.

It matters to me that I can work on myself without making a new idol out of a mentor, a psychologist or a system. I used to be far too quick to look for someone who would know for me what to do next. Now I’m closer to a different position: to receive knowledge and support, but not to hand anyone else the responsibility for my own life. For me that isn’t a conflict with faith — it’s a more mature relationship both with faith and with myself.

Just a few months ago, caring for my body easily turned into either a project to fix myself or something I could put off forever. Now I notice a completely different feeling. I buy scrubs, creams, oils, brushes, I do planks, I walk, I take care of myself — and I’m gradually learning to do all this not because I have to look a certain way in front of people, but because I genuinely enjoy giving myself attention.

The same thing happened with my family. I enjoy taking care of the people I love — not out of a heavy “I have to,” but because I choose it and understand why it matters to me. To me that’s a very subtle but huge difference. The idea of putting myself first used to turn into selfishness — into permission not to keep promises and to do only what I felt like in the moment. Today what’s gradually taking first place isn’t a whim, but respect for my own life.

I’ve started to think of my body as something I truly owe: to feed it, move it, get it medical care, give it care, sleep and the kind of exercise that makes it stronger. This is no longer a story about someday liking what I see in the mirror. It’s a story about how I want to live my life in the body I’ve been given.

It would be very easy to reduce Raisat’s story to the slogan “stop believing and start doing,” but that would be both inaccurate and unfair to her. Raisat doesn’t give up her religion, doesn’t dismiss the inner world and doesn’t declare all imagination pointless. What she rethinks is something else: the attempt to use a thought, a practice or a spiritual explanation where concrete human action is required.

That’s why her path out of magical thinking doesn’t look like a move from faith to cynicism. It’s more a move from the idea of total control over reality to a more grown-up distinction: there’s what I can’t influence, there’s what I believe in, and there’s my area of responsibility, where I need to make the call, have the conversation, make the payment, get the treatment, take the steps, buy the hinges and finally hang the door.

If I put the woman I was in the spring of 2026 next to the woman I am today, I really do see two very different women — even though my life hasn’t become perfect and I haven’t even finished the whole program. We still have financial obligations, the renovation isn’t done, I’m still learning discipline, and my relationships with myself and the people I love don’t become perfect just because I’ve understood something.

But now I’m building the life of a woman who makes her wishes come true not only in her head. I come up with a dream — and then I try to map out the steps toward it. Not fifteen new practices, but fifteen actions you can take one after another. I no longer want to rush and demand instant results from myself; it’s far more important to move in a way where each next step exists not only in my imagination.

If I could speak to my former self today, I’d say: Raisat, stop talking so much about what you’ll do someday, and start doing it. You’re wonderful at dreaming — you’re a master of imagining and visualizing — so don’t give up that gift. Dream up the craziest dream you want, and then sit down and write out the concrete steps toward it. Don’t rush. Just start walking.

Maybe that’s why my thoughts keep coming back to our doors. For two years they stood against the wall while I pictured a finished house. Now the hinges and handles have been bought, the router has been ordered, one room is already done, and the interior work is finally underway. I can still look at it all and say: it’s like magic. Only now I know what that magic is made of. A thought that didn’t end as just a thought. A decision followed by action. And the next action that needs to happen tomorrow.

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