After 25 years together, my husband and I reached a new level of closeness and mutual understanding

When I came to Alchemy of a Woman, I did not have the feeling that my life was falling apart

On the contrary, from the outside, everything looked fine: family, 25 years of marriage, children, my own projects, a business, a developmental studio, experience in feminine transformation and entrepreneurship. I knew how to launch, lead, gather people, create meaning, hold responsibility, and deliver results.

I am one of those women who «sees the goal, does not see the obstacles». If it needs to be done, we will do it. If no one knows how, I will figure it out.

For a long time this strategy worked. Thanks to it I achieved a lot. But at some point I began to feel: one more project would not make me happier.

Not because doing meaningful work had become unimportant – I still love projects, ideas, people, growth. I simply began to ask myself a different question:

If my life ended right now – what would I be truly proud of, and what would I still want to make better?

When I honestly placed «one more achievement» on one side of the scale, and my relationship with my husband on the other – the relationship outweighed.

That was my real question when I came to Alchemy. Not to quit my business and «become a housewife». But to stop looking for the next level only in work, and to see that the quality of a relationship is also scale. Sometimes a more honest scale than the next beautiful business goal.

I was strong in achievement, but in the role of woman and wife I saw my growth point

My husband and I have 25 years of marriage.

When the children are small, the relationship is largely held together by logistics: drop off, pick up, decide, organise, buy, arrange. You are a team that runs the family quest every day. Sometimes with a bonus level called «find the second sock before school».

But when the children become teenagers, a different stage begins. You look at the man next to you and ask yourself: who are we to each other now?

Not just mum and dad. Not just husband and wife who have been together many years. But two people for whom it is still interesting to walk side by side.

Not when everything revolves around me and my «I want it the way I decided». But when it is comfortable to go into any adventure next to the other person. When the interests of both are taken into account. When I can keep working on my ideas, flying with my own projects – and at the same time I do not feel that my husband is becoming an obstacle. When the man does not say, «What have you come up with now?» He says, «If this is important to you, I accept that.»

That is where I wanted to go.

«Can you leave the teacher at school?»

Iron discipline and one-hundred-percent responsibility are my strengths. But every strength has a reverse side, and I did not notice this one for a long time: at home I was also number one.

I knew best how things should be done. Where to go on holiday – I decided, because I knew best. When I was also working as a teacher, my husband one day could not take it: «Can you leave the teacher at school?» Because I would come home and continue teaching everyone on autopilot – directing, correcting, explaining.

It was only in Alchemy that I understood what was going on. I was so tense that my habit of pushing through and deciding everything myself turned on automatically. And my husband constantly walked around the house with the feeling that he was next to a powder keg – not knowing what it would all turn into.

And that same tension lived in my body. I came once for a massage, and the therapist said: «Relax.» I answered, «What do you mean?» I honestly did not understand what it meant to relax.

«Your body is so tense, that I cannot even work it.»

That was the key moment. I understood that my body had become so used to living in tension that I could not even recognise it as tension. For me it was the norm. When you have a pile of tasks, projects, responsibilities, you are always collected and always in your head.

Why I chose Alchemy of a Woman, specifically

By the time I signed up for Alchemy, I had tried almost everything on the market. I call it training surfing – moving from one programme to the next, collecting knowledge.

At some point, relationship courses started to make me laugh. One guide seriously advised: put on a long skirt, cook borshch, and your husband will start bringing you flowers. I honestly tried – my husband asked, «What is this clowning about?»

No business training makes a woman the kind of woman next to whom a man relaxes. That is a different dimension; it cannot be learned with the head. I understood that intellectually – and inside I still lived in tension.

I have known Elizabeth since 2018: I went through many of her programmes, was a curator on some – and I saw what she is like in work and in life.

I did not need another theory. I needed tools tested on a living person – not «knowledge about femininity», but practices she had lived through herself.

I gave myself Alchemy for my birthday.

An hour of practice a day

Discipline is innate in me – I trained in sport professionally, and the habit of doing what is agreed comes from there. If Elizabeth said an hour of practice a day, I did an hour of practice a day. Every assignment, every live meeting, no exceptions and no «I am tired today».

And here is what matters: it was not discipline through force. The opposite – through the practices I gradually began to feel that the result was not coming because I had gathered myself even more tightly, but because I was starting to relax, to breathe, to return to my body.

About a month and a half in, I went back to my massage therapist. She put her hands on me and asked without preamble: «What did you start doing? You have a different body.»

That was the first sign that something serious had shifted in me.

The practice after which I saw my husband differently

I will not retell every practice – there were many. But I will tell you about one, after which a real transformation happened in me.

We were studying the dynamic between man and woman in a family. I clearly remember the question Elizabeth asked:

If you swapped places with your husband for a minute – would you want to live next to a woman who is the way you are now?

At that moment I clearly saw: when a woman constantly demonstrates that she knows better, the man spends an enormous amount of energy trying to prove that he is also worth something – instead of living his own life and doing his own work. With my control, I was leaving him no room to show up.

After that, my focus shifted. I stopped thinking «how can I get my husband to support me», and started thinking «what kind of woman am I next to him, and can he feel free next to me». And this is not about becoming accommodating and giving up myself. The new level for me is when the interests of both are taken into account. My trips and my experience are still important to me. I simply stopped pushing them through with force.

What changed between us

After that, the changes went on of their own accord.

Before, my husband approached my ideas warily – he was picking up the tension, not knowing what each new passion would lead to. When I became calmer, he started to relax too.

«I began to look at my husband through the eyes of a woman who had acknowledged him in the first, rightful place. Respect appeared for what was important to him.»

I saw my husband «in three dimensions»: it turned out you could talk with him about subjects I had been closing off on his behalf. The same spiritual topics – I had thought he was not interested. It turned out that I had decided for both of us in advance. When trust grew, those conversations flowed quietly. There was more closeness – both human and physical.

And then something happened that I would not have believed a year before. My husband agreed to come with me on a retreat to the Places of Power – even though, before that, he had not believed in any of it.

And this is not a story about a man adjusting to a strong woman. The opposite. By his example, he showed me what I was only beginning to understand myself: to yield is not to lose.

«Not arguing about where to go, but agreeing so as to please someone close – that is great strength. I had been taking it for granted, and now I saw what it actually costs.»

The business forum I organised – we went together with my husband, and he was my support.

I live in total trust in life

Another change, which earlier I would have considered unimportant – I stopped controlling everything. Let me show you with one day.

April, I was in Moscow on a training, and in the evening I had a return flight. My friend and I had agreed to go to the airport together. The training ran long: an hour and a bit until boarding, I order a taxi – and it shows 58 minutes to Sheremetyevo. On top of that, it was Easter, and the centre was blocked off.

The old me would have switched on combat mode: rush, call, look for detours, get anxious, infect everyone around with panic. But this time – my friend was worried we would be late because of me, and I said calmly: if we do not make it, I will buy tickets for the next flight at my own expense. And I caught myself thinking: my state matters more to me right now than spending this hour fighting. I sat in the taxi and closed my eyes.

Five minutes in, the driver said it himself: «Do not worry, you will still have time for a coffee.» The road the navigation gave at an hour, we covered in 28 minutes. At Sheremetyevo there were almost no queues, security – a matter of minutes. We boarded the plane on time. My friend looked at me:

«You really are a witch!»

Before, my trust in life was a three out of ten: everything has to be held, controlled, pushed through. That day – for the first time, a full ten. And it turned out that exactly when you stop fighting, everything falls into place by itself, and better than if you had been struggling.

Unexpected surprises from the programme

Body and state – what can be measured

I track my state and activity every day with a WHOOP fitness tracker. There was a day when I was not feeling well and my recovery indicator dropped very low. I did the practice – and watched it go up.

Then a pattern: did not do the practice – certain readings. Did the practice – recovery higher, sleep better, the stress I had not even noticed in my data was leaving overnight.

Among the nice surprises – I lost weight without dieting and without the gym. The habit of eating my tension simply disappeared, because the tension was gone. My eating patterns shifted on their own: I moved to a vegetarian diet, I stopped reading the news.

«Our body is truly unique, and how important it is to find the right keys to it. At Alchemy, we have a whole bunch of them.»

Opportunities I did not dare reach for before

There is an expert I used to look up to – it seemed unreachable. And this year she wrote to me herself and invited me onto her course; we met in Moscow as equals. I explain it simply: she did not change – I changed, and people of a different level began to be drawn to me. When I was all in tension and control, it was harder to work with me too.

Four new collaborative projects

Before Alchemy, I often chose projects through my own «I want». I find it interesting, it suits me, I see potential.

After the programme, a different question appeared: if this person has come to me, perhaps, through my competence, I can give them something important right now.

Earlier I might not have even looked toward some projects. Now I have started to see opportunities where I used to walk past. That is how one of the projects came together – a business forum for entrepreneurs. In two days we closed every seat. Without a marketing budget.

For me it became a vivid example of the new approach: not to sell, but to create the desire to buy. Not to chase people, like a flower chases bees, but to bloom so that the bees come on their own.

I decided to write a book

An acquaintance of mine had been inviting me to her course for a long time, and once she said: «You will write a book, and it will change many lives.» I just brushed it off: «Sasha, what book and what me?»

And during one of the practices, the wish to write a book came to me on its own – not because someone said «you should», but from inside: I understood what I wanted to talk about, and why.

If you gather it all into one phrase, Alchemy gave me the chance to see how life can be lived differently

As a woman who dances her life, fulfils her soul's calling, creates projects, builds relationships – but not through fighting.

Now I am learning to attract what I want through state. This does not mean doing nothing. I do a lot, but the action is different now.

• Not a thousand chaotic movements out of anxiety – but one precise action out of trust.
• Not «get what I want at any cost» – but «I see the options, and I choose the one where there is life».
• Not «I know better» – but «I hear myself, the other person, and the space».

And that is a completely different level.

Who Alchemy is NOT for

I will be honest about who will find it hard. Someone who is not ready to be honest with themselves. The main instrument here is your honesty; if you are not ready to look at yourself without illusions, the mind will invent comfortable explanations, and nothing will shift.

And the word «alchemy» puts people on guard – it seems to be about esotericism and «magic». When I told friends, the first question was: «Are you doing chemistry over there?» In reality, this is body-based practice and work with state – what helps you hear yourself. If you are looking for miracles, this is not the place. If you are looking for working tools for your state, welcome.

What I would say to the me before the programme

I would say: go.

Not because it will be easy and beautiful every minute. But because there you will receive a concentrate of experience, practices, and states that are hard to assemble on your own.

You can spend years going to retreats, looking for masters, trying different approaches, studying practices. Or you can find yourself in a space where the guide has already walked this path, tested the practices on herself, and passes on not theory but working tools.

For me, this was very valuable.

«Elizabeth did not just give knowledge. She shared lived experience. And at the same time she left freedom: try, feel, take what fits you.»

That was the strength of the programme.