Alima Nazaralieva“Taking Action Is the Hardest Part”

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Alima and I met in 2021 at the Xiucai program. Over these years I have seen her in many states—in crises, and in moments when everything finally came together. From January to March 2026 she went through CLIRIUM® ME with me. Only a few months have passed, and the woman in front of me is a different person. So when she sent in her answers for the magazine, I didn’t read them as an editor. I read them as someone who remembers where it all began.

I saw Alima as a gentle, very beautiful woman with a core of steel. And I always knew she was a leader and a guide for women.

Six months of apathy. Nothing brings joy, no work, no money. Only the urge to fly away—anywhere, as long as it isn’t here. I hear this story very often. And almost always, at that moment, a woman looks for the answer outside herself: in signs, in other people’s words, in an endless search for her “purpose.” She reads, listens, collects other people’s truths—and every day drifts further from her own life.

I have long said that a woman is more than any of her roles. More than the daughter who has to live up to expectations. More than “the one who is doing just fine.” More than the seeker who spends years getting ready to live but never quite begins. Alima’s story is about how one of those roles came to an end.

Alima did what sounds simplest and is hardest of all. She stopped searching—and started acting.

From here, she tells it herself. In her own words.

Founder of CLIRIUM® ME · Editor-in-Chief, Clirium’s Magazine

In January 2026 I joined the CLIRIUM® ME program. At the time I wasn’t working. I had been in apathy for six months. Before that I had worked, but I earned less—and it wasn’t something I truly loved.

I felt lost. Nothing appealed to me. I wanted to leave the country—but I didn’t have the money.

I took responsibility and let go of magical thinking. I understood that I create my own reality. And that instead of digging around inside myself, I needed to act. I accepted my own nature.

Before that came a year of highs and my first grown-up falls. Illusions crumbled; my childlike view of the world was wrecked. At first I just wanted to take offense: it turned out the world isn’t always fair, not everyone repays kindness with kindness, and far from everything can be controlled with your mind and awareness—even if you’ve been “working on yourself” for years. Sometimes something heavy comes into your life, and the cause isn’t you or your “level”—it’s another person. Maturity is no joke.

But that was exactly when I stopped waiting for life to sort itself out as long as I thought the right thoughts. Beautiful thoughts are good. But life changes only through what you do.

There’s no need to search for your purpose and ask everyone, “Where is my fulfillment?” You need to understand what your talent is and what you can bring to people—and actually start doing it.

— key points

Around the same time I understood something else. For a long time it seemed to me that life was a course of study: working through traumas, figuring myself out, becoming better. And then I saw that the task could be different—learning to enjoy life and to be happy.

It sounds easy, but it may be the hardest path of all. Especially for us, the children of children of the Soviet Union, who were taught from childhood to endure, to earn our place and not to stand out. To live with pleasure, you need to know yourself. And allow yourself to be a big person—with big desires.

And not drown in other people’s ideas of what your happiness should look like. Not everyone has global financial goals or a lifelong mission—and that’s fine. For some people, the mission is life itself.

I started talking about the new meanings I had found. I started looking for clients. I stopped waiting for “higher meanings” and signs before I began. I simply started acting.

It sounds simple. But starting to act is the hardest part. And I’ve known that about myself for a long time.

At university I could party at a club until four in the morning before an exam, come home, read in one night a math textbook I hadn’t touched all semester—and by nine a.m. pass with 90 points. I was very proud of that. And, honestly, I still am a little.

Only later did I realize: it’s a superpower, but a very unhealthy one. A habit of living on stress and adrenaline. Your nervous system gets used to surviving, and with age it gets tired—and what once felt like a talent starts getting badly in the way.

Behind procrastination there is almost always anxiety and perfectionism. When a task really matters, your mind chooses not to start at all—so you never have to face disappointment. Procrastination isn’t laziness or being disorganized. It’s fear of failure.

That’s why, for me, “to start” is a word with weight. And when I finally started—without the perfect moment and without guarantees—everything moved faster than I could have imagined.

In my very first month, in two weeks, I earned $3,500—and, just as I had wanted, flew to Bali.

Today I manage the Aktengir retreat center on Lake Issyk-Kul. My father created this place—and he entrusted it to me. For me it isn’t just a business: it’s my family’s work, which now continues in my hands. We are handling the construction ourselves. In the last two months I’ve held my third retreat already: ten people sign up within a week, without any strain.

Funny, but it took me a while to understand what truly feels like mine. I traveled a lot: Bali, Paris, Munich, Ibiza, Jordan. Recently I went to the island of Sumba to get to know the local culture—completely different, as if from another time. It was one of the most soulful trips of my life. I lived by the ocean, among palm trees, and thought I loved everything the world had to offer.

And it turned out that what’s closest to me is cool weather, calm lakes, green trees and mountains. In other words, exactly the place where I now work. Sometimes, to find what’s yours, you have to travel halfway around the world and come back home.

I also paint in oils. I think the best way to grow interested in yourself is to fall in love with different hobbies. My teacher talked me into trying to sell one piece—a 100 × 70 cm canvas. I was sure no one would buy it. It sold for $570, and, as I had promised, I gave part of the money to children. For me it’s one more proof of the same rule: until you try, you won’t know.

I’m a manager, and I like being a manager. I like the freedom to choose and the chance to create. My income has grown from zero to $5,000 a month.

And there is one more thing that matters to me more than any numbers. The person I love is by my side; we live together. The girl who for six months wanted nothing can now say it simply and honestly: I’m doing well.

I look at my retreat center, where I can create and build—and I understand: yes, I did this.

— key points

I hold retreats for women. It’s three days at Aktengir, and we work with what keeps us from living freely: fear and shame.

We didn’t invent them. They were put into us—by a society in which a woman is “not supposed to” do many things, by parents, by competition, by violence, by a sense of duty, by taboos and endless limits. Every day we have to play roles, meet expectations, and still somehow find time for ourselves, for our own cycles, for self-care.

At the retreat we work with inner prohibitions. Not only everyday ones, but prohibitions on being wealthy, on being yourself in relationships, on simply being. A retreat is a chance to hear yourself again, to feel your body and finally to make friends with yourself. To work when work flows, and to rest when it’s time to rest.

After one of the retreats I wrote: only three days, yet it feels as if I’ve lived a small lifetime. Practices, conversations, new friendships between women. The most precious thing is that women who didn’t know each other yesterday easily find common ground, open up, relax and simply get to be themselves. I’m very grateful both to the participants and to my team.

I truly believe in friendship between women. By the age of twenty-five I had understood the main thing about it. Women who carry no envy inside don’t envy. And those who are sure that everyone around envies one another are often envious themselves—they just don’t admit it. We see in others a reflection of the part of ourselves we don’t want to notice.

The world already has enough pressure, circumstances and people who wear down our strength. We don’t need to do that to each other. Women should love one another—and at a retreat that happens very quickly.

I don’t only lead retreats at home: I have also gathered women in Bali. But right now my place is Issyk-Kul. In November we have two new women’s retreats.

I’ve known Victory since 2021. Every transformation, every crisis I went through with her. Sometimes five or ten minutes of conversation were enough to pull me out of a negative state. Change happens quickly: everything in your head simply falls into place.

Victory doesn’t lead you into the darkness of her own philosophy and keep you there. She gives you fuel that you can then work with on your own. She doesn’t keep you dependent. That is exactly what built my trust in her and my wish to keep coming back.

If you start, it will work out. If you act and set a goal, you can reach it. You don’t have to sit, think and torment yourself.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment, a sign or someone’s permission. Find what you’re good at and take the first step today. Even a small one. The rest will start falling into place once you’re already on your way.

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