Iryna Nemova "Never doubt your uniqueness, exclusivity, beauty and sexuality"

The new DIGITAL cover of BOMOND VIP fashion magazine is dedicated to Iryna Nemova - a certified business coach, ICF career coach, psychologist, international speaker and author of the "Power of the Word" methodology.

In a constantly changing world, Ms. Irina does not offer universal answers or ready-made formulas for success. Instead, it speaks of much more important - internal flexibility, the ability to hear yourself, review one's own beliefs, not to lose support in times of change and to remain open to life. It is this philosophy that runs through the entire interview: do not look for simple solutions where deep work on yourself is needed, and remember that development does not begin with other people's advice, but with an honest conversation with yourself.

In a conversation for BOMOND VIP fashion magazine, Iryna Nemova reflects on inner strength, self-love, the nature of codependency, the psychology of success, and why true maturity is born from the ability to remain flexible in the face of new challenges in life.

"A woman is a universe capable of accommodating other universes without competing with them for recognition."

Ms. Iryna, the magazine's editorial staff's acquaintance with you began with your words: "Being yourself is a movement in which there is more permission to feel and speak from the inside." These words are particularly relevant today. For more than 14 years, you have been working in the field of human development, helping to find inner support, regain clarity and go through difficult life periods without destroying yourself. Tell me, please, how was the beginning of your history before the coaching profession?

It's not so easy to remember how it all started when you're 45. Every woman, especially Ukrainian, and even more so Ukrainian emigrant, has such a great past, so many stories behind her - and all of them are somehow about active self-search and the ability to adapt to the circumstances. My story is no exception.

I became interested in psychology when I was sixteen — these were the times without Instagram, without mobile phones, without the Internet, the times, I'm kidding, of "dinosaurs". I literally obtained literature - about esotericism, psychology, neurobiology, philosophy of other cultures, theology, spiritual development, mental health. For the most part, these were English-language texts by American and British researchers — there were practically no Ukrainian or even Russian materials. I was interested in one thing: how the human psyche is arranged, why, despite all the achievements of psychotherapy, a person becomes more and more dependent on external circumstances and less and less happy.

At the same time, my first education is technical, economic. I worked in large corporations, in the financial and insurance spheres, managed large banking and insurance companies. Psychology has been my hobby all this time — something I've always found time for.

I received my second higher education consciously, at my own request — corporate experience, resources, and time allowed it. She studied at the Dragomanov Pedagogical University as a psychologist-teacher-methodologist. What I have been studying on my own for ten years has grown into training with the best professionals in the country. Around the same time, I obtained the ICF coach certification — it was a huge job: with clients, mentors, and in adapting the American coaching system to our mentality.

Thanks to this education, I also founded kindergartens - I was both the founder and the author of the methods. I always bet that the child should learn several languages at the same time, so I built an English-speaking environment and hired only teachers who trained abroad with native speakers. When the war began and my graduates had to emigrate - to English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, German-speaking countries - they were the ones who adapted and socialized faster than others. Psychology has been with me for a very long time, and I still get bonuses from it in a variety of spheres of life - I am sincerely proud of this.

The image of a modern woman today goes far beyond the usual roles. She builds a career, creates projects, inspires, changes the rules of the game in the conditions of constant transformations of the world. If you were an artist and had the opportunity to create a portrait of a modern woman, what would it be in your eyes?

The first thing that comes to mind is the image of a woman next to other women. In societies on different continents, women are increasingly ceasing to compete with each other and feel a sincere desire to unite, to create together, without rivalry - neither among themselves nor with men. This is how the understanding returns that it is a woman who helps a woman to raise a healthy, mentally stable generation. Two hundred or three hundred years ago, there were always grandmothers, aunts, neighbors - and it was natural. In emigration, such support is often lacking, but that is why we have a chance to build new, warm relationships with other women who are going the same way.

This trend manifests itself even in those who are in a happy, long-term marriage: supporting a woman with a woman is not about replacing male support, but about something else. Women are able to truly "connect" each other even with their own partners. So there would definitely be men in this picture.

Finally, women realized that self-love is not only a concern for appearance, but also the right to loneliness, to one's own, only one's routine. You don't have to be in constant motion to feel alive — whatever state you live in is important.

A woman is a universe capable of accommodating other universes without competing with them for recognition. This portrait is three-dimensional, bright, lively: a woman who knows how to hear both herself and the outside world, support in difficult moments and rejoice in happy ones. And, of course, there would be a lot of greenery, water, sun, flowers in this picture - and a cup of coffee, and a beautiful avocado toast. Everything that our daily life consists of, because these small details are the most important for a woman.

External success is almost never an accident. Behind him are years of work on himself, discipline, difficult decisions, internal crises and willingness to take responsibility for his own life. You work in the format of premium coaching for strong and successful people. Tell us, please, what challenges are most often faced by those who are used to considering successful by society, and why even strong people sometimes need a mentor?

Many people still live in the paradigm that you have to pay for success — and to some extent it is. If you look at the "balance wheel" of a successful person, it often turns out that the sphere of money and influence is at the maximum, and other spheres are in the deep minus. However, step by step, people are increasingly looking for balance: coaching and psychotherapy have become a healthy mainstream, and going to a specialist about an emotional state or relationship is as normal as going to a doctor.

Most often, the payment for success is health and relationships. And that is why now, thanks to coaching and psychology, people are trying to build relationships - with themselves, with their bodies, with their psyche and with other people. Communication is the main request of successful people today, because it has become clear: a person needs a person, and you can feel the fullness of life only next to others.

It's no secret that people in power are often quite selfish and tough, not always choosing words in communication. But this changes - because happiness is only possible when you look into the eyes of your partner, opponent or team and feel mutual respect. Emigration also contributes to this.

So most of my coaching sessions — even those where we build business systems — are based on one foundation: how you talk to yourself, to your body, and what words you say to others to be understood correctly. We were all taught to think well, but we were not taught to communicate honestly and openly; we were taught to adapt to and influence circumstances, but we were not taught to be ourselves in conversation with people. Therefore, the lion's share of coaching programs today is about this: emotions, feelings, and how to translate them into words.

Chronic fatigue has become one of the most common conditions of modern man. At the same time, many continue to perceive it as a manifestation of weakness or lack of willpower, although in fact it is often an important signal to our body. In your opinion, what is most often trying to tell a person chronic fatigue and why is it so important to hear this signal in time?

Chronic fatigue is a rather philosophical phenomenon, a consequence of the paradigm in which we were brought up, what we dreamed of as children. We grew up in a culture of "successful success", where the highest, faster, stronger won. Hence the FOMO effect: the world has become so fast that it seems as if the day should last not twenty-four hours, but forty-eight, and we have to manage even more. It is this constant pursuit in the long run that leads to chronic fatigue and burnout.

For a long time, we did not have a culture of real rest - the understanding that you can simply do nothing, look at the wall and be silent alone with yourself. Previously, such behavior would have been suspected of weirdness rather than recognized as rest. Today, we are gradually accepting that rest is not only meditation, travel or digital detox, but also silence alone with yourself: without a social media feed, without a podcast, without a book, without sports - just being, without even trying to stop the flow of your own thoughts.

I believe that very soon chronic fatigue will give way to a quiet, understandable awareness of how exactly I want to rest - not when I am already exhausted, but as part of my routine.

In short: chronic fatigue is trying to tell us one thing - it's time to immerse yourself in yourself and honestly understand what is a rest for you personally. For some, it's to cook a new dish according to a French recipe just for the sake of curiosity, and for others to drive and sing loudly. To reach this honesty, it is often necessary to immerse yourself in yourself, and a coach or psychologist can help a lot on this path: after all, society rarely allows us to recognize an answer that looks "incorrect" or "non-serious".

I recently paid attention to one of your posts with a rather provocative title: "Five reasons to give a chance to a man who does not suit you." The most interesting thing is that there was no reason there) And this makes you think about how many people stay in a relationship for years just because they once made a choice or are afraid of change. Why do you think people so often continue to hold on to something that has long ceased to be, or was not theirs?

Here you can explain through the structure of the brain. The largest and oldest part of it is the reptile brain, which is responsible for automatic reactions: hit, run or free. And the part responsible for emotions, social connections, free will and the ability to consciously experience stress is much younger and much smaller. And most often it is the reptilian brain that dictates the strategy: it is difficult to hold on to the familiar, even if it is familiar, because it is still looking for the easiest way inside it.

Often it is external circumstances, crises that force us to go through the defense of this ancient mechanism and move to a new reality. Therefore, clarity — something that is being talked about so much now — is more important than the desire for something new: there is always more fear in the unknown.

There is an interesting paradox here. ADHD is now diagnosed in the vast majority of people - partly because social networks have taught us to keep our attention on many things at once. And it turns out: when you constantly jump from one task to another, the total stress is huge, but subjectively you hardly feel it - because you do not have time to fix at any point of tension. Similarly, society, having gone through war and emigration, gradually learns to experience stress more easily - simply because it gets used to jumping from crisis to crisis.

We live in a very interesting period, when the old methods of psychology work worse and worse, and the new ones - faster and more effective - are just forming. But to follow this path, you need the courage to meet the unknown and find a new support for one's own clarity. It seems to me that more and more people will dare to build a life based on an inner feeling, rather than a "successful success" from Instagram - and coaches and psychologists can support you very well in this.

As for the question of why people remain in relationships that do not suit them: even in difficult relationships, the behavior of another person is familiar and predictable, and it is scary to go into the unknown - especially when you are responsible not only for yourself, but also for the children. In our culture, a woman bears full responsibility for a child and never leaves it — and this is a real reason to be proud of Ukrainian women. Therefore, clarity for the sake of the child's happiness still outweighs the desire for change.

But this is also changing quickly. We live in a time of rapid transformations: the pendulum has swayed towards maximum freedom, and this is also good in its own way — over time it will find its balance. I believe that very soon people will learn to find clarity in the unknown - with the support of those who know how to accompany on this path.

Continuing the topic of relationships, I would like to touch on another phenomenon that occurs much more often than it may seem at first glance - codependency. Very often it disguises itself as love, care or devotion, although in fact it gradually deprives a person of the freedom to be himself. How to recognize codependent relationships and where is the line between love and losing one's own boundaries?

Here I will probably surprise part of the audience, because I am not a supporter of the concept of building personal boundaries in the form in which it is now popular. After more than fourteen years of working with a large number of people - men, women, families - I see a clear trend: those who have learned to defend borders exclusively, in a word, come to loneliness. In two words, to total loneliness. Three - to total loneliness and hidden aggression against the whole world. A person with too rigid boundaries often either suppresses aggression or does not know how to express it ecologically, and at the same time, despite the fact that he chooses this strategy first, she almost always feels lonely inside. Because all the resources are spent on building - "as you can with me, as you can not with me" - and there is no energy left on the ability to withstand contact with a person and tolerate other people's emotions.

Therefore, I am not a specialist who teaches to build boundaries — I teach how to train emotional tolerance. That is, quickly understand what exactly is happening to you at the level of emotions, and quickly understand how to react to the emotions of another person - depending on your real need to communicate with them. Sometimes you need to calm the person, sometimes - so that they leave and you never meet again. The main thing is that this need should be ecological for both you and the other person - then the feeling of loneliness from the "protection of borders" simply does not arise, because at the same time you take care of yourself and try to feel the other, closing his needs too. I don't even hire people who strive to "build boundaries" if I see at the first consultation that my philosophy - that this is a direct path to loneliness - does not resonate with them. Even if they are very famous people.

The second point is also quite provocative: we are all in a dependent relationship. First, we depend on what happens inside us, then on external circumstances, and, finally, on who we communicate with: partner, child, employee, manager, state, police, tax, insurance agent, plumber — anyone. An independent relationship is possible only on a desert island. So the idea of "getting out of an addictive relationship" is also wrong - it simply does not work: no successful person wants to be alone, because then there is no one to reflect their success, there is no one to see it, and this is also communication, also addiction.

I'm in favor of changing the paradigm itself. We are all in an addictive relationship: falling in love, we automatically become dependent on the emotions of the other person, on how their working day went; we are now dependent on external circumstances as well as on the closest people. Struggling to get out of dependent relationships is pointless - you have to accept that we are always in a relationship of dependence, and the only question is that these relationships are ecological for each of us. You need to understand who you are in this relationship so that you feel comfortable, pleasant and interesting in it - even going through stress together.

That's a different concept, and it's not for everyone. It is quite popular among successful people, so I always have clients at this level: I do not work with methods and techniques - they sooner or later stop working - but with a foundation, a concept on which you can then string new rules, a new routine, new tools. Therefore, crises pass easier - there is something to rely on.

Personal boundaries, in my opinion, should not be "defanded" - they should be manifested. To show: "I would like it to be so, and I am ready to hear as you would like." This is an adult conversation about our mutual rules and wishes for the future - after all, in any communication, the personality changes, and the agreements that worked today, tomorrow may look different simply because we ourselves change thanks to this communication. I understand that the answer is complicated, but it works — and, by the way, this is where the consequences of turbulence and rapid changes in our world are manifested.

It is very important to understand the very concept that I have repeatedly observed and because of which I am not a supporter of building personal boundaries in the sense that now dominates our space. When a person has built boundaries, the next step is to learn to invite another person to them so that they feel good and can remain themselves within these boundaries. That is, the "building" itself is a rather small task.

To put it down to the point, it is primarily the ability to say "no" - and, perhaps, the greatest difficulty is here. Not just say "no", but do it in such a way as not to ench the boundaries of the other person, while remaining tolerant. Because for the most part, we learned to say "no" in the format "it doesn't suit me like that", "you can't do that with me" - and that's the end of it. The person turns around and goes, because he showed the border, but did not do it ecologically: it turned out as if she is the only one in charge here, and she is not going to invite anyone to her inner world.

The second point is simpler: the ability to sit down at the negotiating table and ask. It's not difficult, although it's usually not even perceived as a manifestation of personal boundaries. But the first point is the most difficult, and not every person is capable of it, and not even every specialist talks about it: most people stop at the very idea of "building boundaries" and do not go further.

To put it in general, it's really a quick path to loneliness. But if you build everything correctly, the borders should be flexible - otherwise there is a risk of just being alone. This is not an easy job, and very little is said about it — even among Ukrainian-speaking speakers, I can't immediately remember someone who does it so openly.

The topic of personal boundaries is now very popular, but it is quite simplified and distorted. It is possible and necessary to develop it, it is a great topic, but it is about the manifestation of borders, not about their "protection". In general, I am against the fact that words about the protection of personal boundaries become a tool for distancing a person from a person - in personal or in close working relationships. It is much more interesting to understand the flexibility of your boundaries, to know how to invite another person to them, to allow him to be himself, and to develop with him - not because the boundaries are violated, but because you both know about them and skillfully invited each other to your close circle.

When we talk about financial realization, a paradoxical situation often arises: a person strives for more, but being on the threshold of a new level, he begins to stop himself. As if internally already ready for change, but unconsciously postpones a step forward. Why do you think people sabotage their own success and what is most often behind the fear of moving to a new level of life?

If we talk about the fear of moving to a new level and sabotage of one's own success, most often we are talking about responsibility, limiting beliefs and lack of real support. Words like "you will succeed, I believe in you" are support only in words, and money and realization are completely physical processes: something specific needs to be done. And often, when it comes down to it, a person is left alone.

In our youth, we believe in ourselves and in the promises of others. With age, there is an experience - both positive and negative - when words of support are found in the wrong words, at the wrong moment. And the brain, choosing the path of the least resistance, avoids situations where it is scary and where there is no real support.

Again, it's about responsibility. Money always passes through people — whether it's sales, services, or information — and therefore, any increase in income means responsibility to communicate with the people who are involved in that communication. When an entrepreneur hires a team, he often without even realizing it, commits to other people - and it's scary. The unknown is also terrible: the brain chooses the understandable and even uncomfortable, but predictable, because the predicted bad is closer to the psyche than the unpredictable good.

Therefore, many people stay where they are, even after several attempts to take risks: if the project did not succeed as desired, a person may no longer dare to take a new field, even with other support. And it is important to understand: not everyone is created for an ambitious career or entrepreneurship — and this is not a reason to feel worse. If your inner rule is to be a one hundred percent good specialist in any job, even the one you don't like, you will be a happy person in this job, ambitious or not. And this will not prevent you from looking for a better job - you will just do it consciously, realizing that you are doing your job well not for the sake of praise, but because it is your internal rule. Such a person may well be financially secure, having neither a team nor responsibility for others — and there are many such stories among my clients. I have many CEOs who have reached their level and feel comfortable on it; someone wants to move to the next level, but exclusively ecologically - so that no other sphere of life will fail during the transition: neither health, nor family, nor hobbies. It is on this balance that they come to coaching.

Separately, I want to talk about the environment. Before any financial leap, it is important to honestly, in an adult way, determine who and what exactly I can count on. One person will sincerely support with a word — and that's all the support you should expect from her. The other will really help with money or business at three o'clock in the morning. Most often, we mention the environment already in the crisis, although financial growth also often occurs through the crisis - so this support network should be built in advance, consciously negotiating with people: with someone - about financial resistance, with someone - about help with children, with someone - about words of support. And the brain must also be prepared in advance for this stress — the stress of honest negotiations with the people you count on, even before something difficult happens.

And here we return to the topic of personal boundaries: a person who has only learned to say "no" and defend himself will never be able to invite the right people to his close circle so openly, in advance. It's really a difficult job. But now, finally, more and more people are ready to go into this depth — and it is because of this that they are moving towards a clear, happy life.

The topic of self-love today sounds extremely frequent. At the same time, there is a great distance between beautiful quotes and real self-acceptance. What does self-love mean to you personally and what mistakes do people most often make when trying to find it?

For me, self-love is primarily a common concern: what I eat, what I drink, who I communicate with, what I buy for my health, body, beauty. What I do and buy for the sake of mental health, so that my emotional state remains exactly as I want it to feel. That is, it is about how you organize the best living conditions for yourself — within the limits of what is really available. I'm not a billionaire and I can't afford a private jet, but I know exactly at what level I want to take care of myself and what I'm ready to buy for this.

But a much larger part of self-love is inner work: which thoughts I filter, which emotions I control, and which appear myself — and what I do with them as a person responsible for his own inner state. It's always my responsibility how I react to any emotion that has arisen due to external influence. I managed to deal with her - well. It didn't work out — it's okay too, the main thing is that I'm doing it next.

So now for me, self-love is when everything is already organized outside, and I can watch what is happening inside as carefully as possible, despite the fact that external circumstances are constantly changing. I am both the one who controls and the one who allows any manifestations of other people, the world, the environment. Observer's position: I observe, control, react, and all this happens simultaneously both outside and inside.

This path is the result of a great personal transformation, largely due to emigration: external circumstances push you out of your comfort zone, and by expanding the range of your influence, you go through the discomfort to make the new scale your new norm.

We live in a physical, material world, so it is important to understand how much the life you want to organize for yourself costs, and what you need to do for this - and at the same time constantly work with the inner state. A person who has stopped in the development of his inner state stops on the path of the hero - ceases to feel the taste of life. And it's definitely not about self-love. Therefore, there is constant movement, but within your chosen pace, when external needs are already closed and you know for sure that you are "on board".

I want to offer a little creative experiment. Let's imagine that you are the author of the book and the reader has already opened the first page where your author's preface. What would be the first words you would like to leave to every woman holding this book in her hands?

Never, ever, never doubt your uniqueness, exclusivity, beauty and sexuality. And if the doubt still covers you, run to your environment and say it directly: I need your support, dear.

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