Episode #30:

Emotional, Mental, and Physical Fitness in Motherhood with Ludmila Woodruff

What does it mean to be a mother? So many of us are raising children whilst trying to maintain a sense of identity. It can be a challenge in ordinary circumstances, but in the current circumstances, it can feel impossible! Personal and professional lives are intertwined, there are no longer any physical boundaries in place and more is required of us than it was before. Today’s guest joins us to explain how to maintain our sanity through motherhood and be the Moms we all want to be.

Ludmila Woodruff is a certified Life Coach who specializes in helping women who experience identity changes in motherhood. After finding herself unprepared for parenting, she became lost, frustrated, and unable to cope with the strains of becoming a mother. With help from her own Mom, she made the necessary changes in her life to pick herself up, pay more attention to her physical and emotional habits, and start taking better care of herself. She now helps other women to do the same in their own lives.

Join us on the podcast this week where we’ll talk about all things motherhood. We’ll break down the taboo of a lack of fulfillment in motherhood and discuss why we all need to talk more and communicate what we need. Transform the mother, and you’ll transform the family – let’s learn how we can all take better care of ourselves!

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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The importance of physical activity.

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Why we all need to be more compassionate with ourselves.

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How to learn into emotional vulnerability.

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Why what you see on social media isn’t always a reflection of real life.

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How to take care of yourself mentally, physically and emotionally.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Check out more episodes of the podcast here!

TRANSCRIPT

Susan Crockett: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast, with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 30: Emotional, Mental and Physical Fitness in Motherhood. An interview with fellow Certified Life Coach, Ludmila Woodruff. This episode is dedicated to Ludmila’s mom, Galena and her husband Douglas, both for giving her tremendous strength.

Female Announcer: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, where women learn to love their lives. Do you find yourself frustrated by society’s expectations? Looking for practical advice on how to discover your talents and level up your life? You’ve found the right place. Here’s your host, US News top doctor, robotic surgeon and Certified Life Coach, Dr. Susan Crockett.

Susan Crockett: Hello, my virtuosas and my virtuosas in training, my VITs. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I am your host, Dr. Susan Crockett, and you can call me Sue because I’m not actually being your doctor here. Not being your doctor, such good grammar. I am not doing medicine today; I am bringing to you a really fun podcast with one of my favorite inspiring coaches. Her name is Ludmila Woodruff. She has got an exceptional story.

And she had me laughing in tears. I’ve got to tell you all a back story here. So when we do these interview podcasts I send the coaches the link with some instructions. And most of them have not done podcasting before, or been interviewed. So we kind of spend the first couple of minutes getting the technology set up right and then getting just a little bit of background on some tips on doing some podcasting.

I’m a podcaster now; you all remember 30 episodes before at the beginning of the year I was like “I don’t know how to do this.” And now I’m like, “Yeah, let me show you how.” That’s transformation, people, that’s transformation. Anyway, so we spend a couple of minutes just talking about how to speak a little bit lower, how to speak a little bit slower, how we want this to be conversational so as you guys are listening, it just seems like very comfortable, like you’re kind of listening to us have a girl chat.

So we were going through Ludmila’s content, which we do before we actually do the recording and she had me laughing, you all, I have not laughed so hard in so long. She had me laughing so hard, she is so much fun. And I’ve got to tell you all, we got all the way through the whole thing and then we were kind of texting at the end about just some details about stuff. And she’s like, “By the way, I am also a standup comedienne.” And I’m like, “Alright, that’s going in the show opening then.” That’s amazing.

So she is a very brilliant funny woman. So, today we are going to talk about emotional, mental and physical fitness in motherhood, or in other words, how not to drink when you feel like you want to kill your children when you’re quarantined. It was like oh my gosh, so funny. So without further ado here is Ludmila.

Susan Crockett: Alright, Ludmila.

Ludmila Woodruff: Alright, alright.

Susan Crockett: Did I say that right, Ludmila?

Ludmila Woodruff: Ludmila, yes. You know what my name means?

Susan Crockett: What?

Ludmila Woodruff: Nice to people.

Susan Crockett: That’s beautiful.

Ludmila Woodruff: I know. I know. It’s a Russian name, yeah.

Susan Crockett: Beautiful.

Ludmila Woodruff: Thank you.

Susan Crockett: So glad to have you here today. Okay, we’ve got to settle down or we’re not going to get through this.

Ludmila Woodruff: I know, the whole focus will be like this, this is crazy. Okay, you tell me when you start recording.

Susan Crockett: It’s already recording. Okay, today we’re going to talk about motherhood, yes, how to not kill your kids, or drink, something like that.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly, and become like an alcoholic while raising your kids, yeah.

Susan Crockett: Exactly. I love that. Okay, tell me about how you came to life coaching and specifically to being a motherhood coach? Fascinating.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, it’s fascinating. Never thought I would be here. So I grew up in Poland and I moved around four countries and four cultures. And I studied in translation when I was in college. I also had psychology and intercultural communications. So I think from a very early stage of my education I was interested in psychology, communication, languages, how to connect with people.

And then I became a mom, I married my husband who is American, amazing person. And I thought I had it all figured out, I was like, I know what I’m doing.

Susan Crockett: I got it, I’m college educated. I have a husband, a degree, okay.

Ludmila Woodruff: Right. And I thought this is the dream come true, I have amazing husband, now I’m going to have a child, I’m educated, this is it. This is it.

Susan Crockett: This is the life, we’re living it.

Ludmila Woodruff: This is the life. Yes, this is the high life, yes. And then I started waking up and thinking is this the life? On the other side of it, is this the life? Is meaning, I think we were completely unprepared for the parenting. The parenting, what it really takes from you and what it requires of you.

Susan Crockett: It is the hardest job I have ever done, being a parent, being a mama.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly, exactly that. And I would talk to my mom, and my mom would say, “What do you mean? It’s the best part of your life.” And I would say, “Wait a second, I had more fun before I had a child, so I’m not sure about that.”

Susan Crockett: No, I’m not buying that, where did you get that from?

Ludmila Woodruff: Yeah, I’m not buying that, exactly. So I really found myself in kind of a dark space. I think the identity change coming into the motherhood was awakening for me. I found myself feeling kind of frustrated. You don’t sleep much in the early months of motherhood. I was feeling pretty exhausted mentally and emotionally. And the only coping skill I had was to eat. I would hide in the pantry and eat.

Susan Crockett: Wow.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, that was my coping skill. I would also find myself feeling this is not what it’s supposed to be. My whole mindset was it was like a battle of it should be better. I should feel better. Why is this so overwhelming? I thought it would be different. And there were moments…

Susan Crockett: Goodness.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yeah. And there were moments where I felt amazing, but there were a lot of moments where I felt I would look in the mirror and think who is this person, who is this person?

Susan Crockett: I think you are very much not alone in that. I think motherhood is so glorified and it’s kind of taboo to even bring up that you’re not completely enthralled and fulfilled through motherhood. But I know that you’re not alone in this. I know that most of us have those moments; probably all of us have those moments. And it’s just degrees in how much that penetrates your life and how you think about it and make the decisions about what you do with it and all of that.

But I think that’s something that is a rude awakening to motherhood and isn’t talked about enough, because it is hard. You can’t prepare yourself for it. Looking, coming in like you said, you think you know how it’s going to be and then you get there and then it’s like a completely different country.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly.

Susan Crockett: I thought I was going to France and I ended up in Italy or India.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly. And I think there is so much shame and guilt about having those conversations with women. And we set ourselves up for feeling like a failure, because there are not enough conversations around that. We are human, we can be ambitious, educated, amazing, and we are also human. And we need to understand that as human beings we don’t have all the answers. We are not super heroes, and we need support, and we need to be able to ask for help, and ask for what we really need.

And it’s painful to see mothers think I have to figure it out on my own, and if I don’t there must be something wrong with me, or I’m weak, or I’m not equipped. And that’s where I think we as a collective need to start the conversation about what it really is to be a mother, what it means to raise our children, and what it means to be still a woman and a wife in the motherhood.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, it’s terrific. So that’s how you came to do this. So your coaching practice is essentially this, motherhood?

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, so what happened was when we had our second son, my mother came to visit us, we were at the time living in US in California. She came to visit us and I just had my second son and she looked at me and she was the mirror I needed. She looked at me and she…

Susan Crockett: Oh no.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, she’s fantastic. She said, “Excuse me, what happened to you?”

Susan Crockett: No, she did not?

Ludmila Woodruff: Of course, that is just the beginning. Then she said, “You worry about your children, you worry about your husband. I’m looking at them, they’re fine. I’m looking at you, you are not fine.”

Susan Crockett: Oh my gosh, wow.

Ludmila Woodruff: And then she said, “Look in the mirror, is this who your husband married?” Slap.

Susan Crockett: Goodness, what a wake-up call.

Ludmila Woodruff: Wake-up.

Susan Crockett: Wow. Wow.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes. But you know what, I needed that. I needed that because it’s not about my husband even, she didn’t mean I have to be this person for him or for my children. It was really a message to me.

Susan Crockett: To take care of yourself.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes. What happened to your self-care? Where is this energetic person who is the trailblazer, who is the creator of joy and light and happiness? And where is the dancing to music? It’s like it’s all gone. So that was the awakening call and I started with picking myself up by physical activity. That’s why I talk about physical fitness. The first thing I knew to do is to start being active again.

And I found an amazing fitness studio in California who was owned by the women’s health magazine fitness star, Dina Juve, and Melissa Oberti who was managing it and I became a client there. And my first class I almost died, I looked around the studio and I…

Susan Crockett: Seriously?

Ludmila Woodruff: Seriously. And I said, “What happened to me? Those women are like 10, 20 years older and I’m dying on the floor.” So this cannot be happening. So that was my first goal, to really pull myself from the overwhelm and exhaustion by physical activity. That’s why I think physical fitness is so important, whatever that means for you, because the moment I started to feel better in my body I could pay more attention to my mental and emotional habits, because those are just habits. What I think, how I feel, yeah.

Susan Crockett: So that’s the triad that you talk about when you’re teaching is taking care of yourself emotionally, mentally and physically. So we’re going to get a little bit more into that. How old are your kids?

Ludmila Woodruff: Now they are four and nine, both boys.

Susan Crockett: Two boys, I know about boys. So mine are a little older, they’re 17, 19, 21 and 23. And my oldest is the only girl so yeah, I’m glad that mine are older, in what we’re going through with this Covid stuff right now. Because I don’t think I could handle four and nine right now. I know a lot of other moms are feeling the same way. I have friends and employees and patients whose families have small children and they’re all struggling. We’re all struggling, but they’re particularly struggling with what to do with the kids, but I see it in the moms too.

So tell me a little bit about what kind of advice you would give those moms other than get up and get out and start moving again? Which I think is very, very key and I think we totally underestimate the power of physical activity. But talk with me about the other two a little bit, the emotional and mental health part of it.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yeah. So I think first of all for all the women, almost all my clients, and I think all of the women listening, we need to realize that we are in an emotionally enhanced environment right now. Even though it’s emotionally enhanced…

Susan Crockett: Enhanced.

Ludmila Woodruff: Enhanced environment.

Susan Crockett: Environment, okay.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, right now.

Susan Crockett: Tell me what you mean by that.

Ludmila Woodruff: Well, what I mean by that is this is our new normal. We know this is our new normal. And this is still emotionally challenging. Meaning because you are spending so much more time with your family, your work life, your private life, personal life is so intertwined that there are almost no real boundaries, physical boundaries. We are now home schooling, we are the teachers, we are the moms, we are the professionals, we are wives. It’s all happening in one space.

And we need to just be aware that it requires more of us than what it used to be before, when we used to leave the house to go to work or kids used to go to school. And we had a choice to leave the house and meet with friends and socialize more and do more. Now it’s completely different. I mean we have a choice. You can always leave your house if you want to, but it’s very different.

It’s very different and we just need to be more compassionate with ourselves, because I think what a lot of women think, they should be doing the same amount of work, they should be taking care of the kids even more. Because it’s our responsibility, we think we are only good moms if we do all the shoulds.

Susan Crockett: And then we feel shame when we can’t or when we are unhappy or worn out, we’re exhausted.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly. And so I think the first thing to understand is this environment and this situation requires more from us. And we need to be very compassionate and figuring out what can we really commit to right now. So what in this new environment, what is our new self-care? How much time do we really want to give to kids and can give to kids? And just really asking ourselves what does it look like during Covid for us? What is the self-care during Covid? How much time, even though kids are at home, how much time can we spend and want to spend with children?

And being very realistic instead of the wonderful shoulds that we give to ourselves all the time and stop measuring us as being great mothers if we look at our to do list and what we give to others. I just think we all need to accept that if we love our children and we do our best we are great mothers no matter what, no matter what.

Susan Crockett: So when you’re counseling your clients, your moms that are struggling with this stuff, do you have them each kind of look at their family and their own circumstances? So you’re not prescribing a specific amount of time to engage with the kids or let them be on their own on video games or what have you? You’re just like, look, it’s your life and realize that it’s not the same and have compassion on yourself for that and figure out what feels right to you, what the balance is for you, is that how you handle it?

Ludmila Woodruff: Correct, because it’s very personal. Every family has different values. Every family has a different approach to parenting, to schooling. So it really is a very personal process. So I ask what matters to them, how do they measure why they should spend so much time with the children? How do they measure why they should allow kids to play on video games?

Because there will be some parents that will tell me, “I need to work. And I am okay with my choice, allowing my children to be on video games or watching TV for hours because that’s the time I give myself to really be working.” And some parents will say, “Well, I’m better to hire people because I don’t want my children to be on video games.” But it really comes to the belief of what is right for my children, what I’m at peace with allowing them to do. And it’s really very, very personal, very personal.

Susan Crockett: I like that, you really are getting away from the shoulds and the judging and what everybody on Facebook is doing. It’s really what works for me and my family.

Ludmila Woodruff: And this is another feedback I’m getting, we need to realize when we look at social media, that’s why I use my social media mainly for my business. Only see the beautiful pictures, the beautiful family, everybody’s happy on the picture. But I work with those clients and I’m one of them, I used to be one of them. You can have a beautiful picture but you have no idea what’s happening behind the picture.

Susan Crockett: Exactly, you just don’t, you don’t see it.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, you don’t. And people – we are living in a culture of emotional vulnerability is seen as a weakness still. There is a lot of work happening around that, Brené Brown works a lot with emotional vulnerability.

Susan Crockett: I love Brené Brown, yeah.

Ludmila Woodruff: Love Brené Brown, we are making progress but it’s still so much work to be done. And people feel ashamed of their feelings, and people think that feeling negative feelings or crying makes them look weak, where this is the strength. You need to lean in right now into your emotional vulnerability into – this is what emotional fitness is. Emotional fitness is really the ability, capability to recognize your feelings, to know how to process them and express them in a healthy and productive way.

Susan Crockett: All the feelings, even the crying?

Ludmila Woodruff: All them, all the crying. And it’s very interesting, yesterday I was speaking to my son and his best friend, they are both nine and ten years old and they are boys. And it’s amazing how if we as mothers do our own work we can give it to our children. We were talking about feelings with them and his best friend said, “Sometimes I have very strong feelings and I don’t want to share them sometimes because I start crying when I feel emotional. And I feel embarrassed and some people will think I’m weak.”

So we had a whole conversation about how this is exactly what he needs to do and my son as well. And my son was saying, “No, this is all good, you can cry, you can call me and cry, we can cry together. This is a normal emotion, [inaudible] feel sad or frustrated.” And all the emotions are healthy unless you know how to express them without saying mean things and breaking things or being very mad, like disrespectful. So it was amazing. And I think this is what…

Susan Crockett: That’s so cool.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, this is the impact I want to make. And really for me it’s more than just work, it’s the impact I want to make on families and communities because I believe truly if we can influence the mother, we can transform the family and I truly, truly believe that.

Susan Crockett: That is so true. The mama is the central figure. I’ve talked about this with regards to healthcare with lots of administrators, where the mama decides to take the family for healthcare is where the family goes, that’s where the husband goes. And so sometimes we see hospital systems really catering to the male side of medicine like cardiology or orthopedics, which are awesome. But what they don’t understand is it’s not the husband that’s choosing that hospital for those things, it’s the wife behind him that’s choosing where he’s going.

And I think that’s kind of a similar metaphor for what you’re talking about here like the emotional fitness of the mom, if mom is happy, everybody’s happy. So learning – I think it’s really important for our listeners to hear that it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to feel shame, it’s okay, and not just okay, but necessary. It’s part of being human, if you’re resisting that or neglecting that it’s like you’re resisting part of being human. And that doesn’t work, that’s very inauthentic and it just, it breaks down over time, it’s much more healthy to recognize and process those emotions. Awesome.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly. And when I’m coaching now to married couples and the women started coaching with me. And then after a while they ask if I can coach also their husbands. And what was beautiful to see on one side [inaudible] on the other side is how men, even more than women, were programmed not to express themselves. And holding space in a coaching session for a man who is a father and a husband, and loves his family and he was never able to really express how he feels.

And we sit in a session for half an hour crying, just crying and allowing what comes up for him and talking through this and breathing through it. And at the end of 30 minutes he said, “Wow, I never thought that this is what it means to feel, really allowed the negative emotion to come out because I’ve always suppressed that.”

Susan Crockett: Goodness.

Ludmila Woodruff: How freeing is that? And now, you have two children, how freeing is that?

Susan Crockett: But they have permission and a role model now to be emotionally fit.

Ludmila Woodruff: Exactly. Exactly that, exactly that. And I think it’s so important because all of our emotions as we know, drive our results. And if you can ask yourself what are the three emotions I feel daily? If those three are frustration, overwhelm and exhaustion, then you know what you are creating for yourself and your family, it’s nothing pretty.

Susan Crockett: No. Goodness. Okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about physical fitness, talked about emotional fitness. Talk to me a little bit about this third thing, this mental fitness. How is mental fitness different than emotional fitness and what do you teach here?

Ludmila Woodruff: Well, so the mental fitness goes really to your mental resilience, but it’s beyond that, it’s really engaging in a thought provoking thinking that is also inspiring. So what do I mean? Is you give yourself space to recognize your thinking patterns, what do you believe? What are your expectations? Where do you really use your mental power? And do you engage mentally in thoughts, beliefs that are supporting you to create the life you want?

Or are you still just going on the automatic pilot of beliefs like I’m never enough, I’m not doing enough, I need to be doing more, I should be doing this, I’m not a good enough mother, I can’t have it all, and something needs to give? This is a very disempowering way of thinking. And we are so unaware that this is happening in our unconscious mind and it becomes a habit. So for me the mental fitness is really looking at the thoughts because they create your feelings, so looking at what you are thinking every day and what you are creating.

And asking yourself, if this what I want to keep believing or I want to question it? And am I sloppy? Because this is what I – I call it like a mental exercise. Engaging in thoughts, for example, if you want to be a more patient mother, for example, the mental exercise would be what would be the thoughts and beliefs I want to practice that will be challenging me? Because now I believe something else, what I want to practice to become that person. So right now I’m thinking I’m just a short tempered person, I’m a yeller.

Susan Crockett: It’s just the way I am.

Ludmila Woodruff: That’s who I am, I’m very reactive. I’ve always been this person. I have a very strong personality. You can keep believing that but you are creating very negative results for yourself and for your family. So the mental exercise is to really challenge these beliefs, challenge the way you think about yourself.

And create thoughts that will be challenging maybe to believe at this moment, but this is what you want to create. So I’m becoming a person who can be calm. I’m becoming a person who knows how to manage her emotions. I’m becoming a person who can stay emotionally calm in challenging situations. And for many people we really identify who we are with our thoughts, and we are not our thoughts. We are not our thoughts.

And I’m all for personality testing and Myers-Briggs and all of it. But the question I always propose to my clients, you can even believe that this is true. You can believe that you are inpatient person. But if you look at the actions you take from that belief and they are not serving you, what’s the point of keeping that belief for yourself?

Susan Crockett: Exactly. And you have a choice.

Ludmila Woodruff: And you have a choice to change it, there is nobody there to tell you this is what you need to keep thinking, yes.

Susan Crockett: Yeah. It’s awesome. Cool, okay, so you have a couple of things that you want to leave with our listeners, a couple of things that you want them to know.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes, couple of things. So I think I already mentioned throughout the podcast. First of all start with, for all the women out there, you are enough, you are worthy of love, and you are perfect as you are just right now in this moment.

Susan Crockett: I love that, wait, say that again, I needed to hear that today and just tell me that again.

Ludmila Woodruff: So every time I talk to my clients and almost all of them come with some kind of insecurities and not being confident enough. I tell them to close their eyes, if it’s helpful, put their hand on their heart and say, “I am enough.

Susan Crockett: I am enough.

Ludmila Woodruff: I am worthy of love.

Susan Crockett: I am worthy of love.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yes. I am worthy of receiving love.

Susan Crockett: I’m worthy of receiving love.

Ludmila Woodruff: And I’m perfect with my imperfections.

Susan Crockett: And I’m perfect with my imperfections.

Ludmila Woodruff: Yeah.

Susan Crockett: I love that.

Ludmila Woodruff: I think this needs to become a daily mantra for us as women, and that’s what I teach my children, because I don’t want them to struggle with insecurities of I’m not being good enough. We are human beings. Yes, we are human beings, we all mistakes.

Susan Crockett: Amazing. Amazing. Ludmila, I cannot say your name. Say it again.

Ludmila Woodruff: Ludmila. Ludmila, perfect.

Susan Crockett: Ludmila.

Ludmila Woodruff: Perfect.

Susan Crockett: I have so enjoyed talking to you today, thanks for coming on the show, it was such great material.

Ludmila Woodruff: Thank you so much.

Susan Crockett: I feel like we could have talked for another three hours.

Ludmila Woodruff: I can, just invite me over for the next one. I can talk about this all day long.

Susan Crockett: We’ll do another one. What you taught today though, I think is so valuable, and we really haven’t had somebody come on and talk to moms at this level about these habits in the context of what we’re dealing with right now. So, thank you so much, thank you for taking out time on your Saturday to meet with us and yeah, have a wonderful week.

Ludmila Woodruff: Thank you so much; you too, thank you for having me and thank you for inspiring all the women out there.

Susan Crockett: Thank you.

Alright, what we have shown you today is how to maintain your sanity without buffering with alcohol, how not to drink when you feel like everything’s going wrong and going crazy. And how to just take a step back and take a little bit better sense, and take a little bit better care of yourself as we’re getting through this. And we’re all in this together you all, we’ve got this.

What we’re listening to and what we’re reading today. So Ludmila picked these out, I thought they were really interesting and brilliant. So she listens to Kundalini music. Specifically there’s one called Emotion to Body that you can look up on YouTube. We will put the link in the show notes, just really relaxing. A good way for you to get out of your head and into your body and what’s really sensing and going on with you right now.

What she’s reading is a book by Gabby Bernstein called The Universe Has Your Back, fantastic book. I really highly recommend this read.

And then what she’s watching are two individual podcast interviews by people that we’ve talked about before. The first one is Esther Perel. She is featured on a podcast called Love in the Time of Covid, really, really great podcast. And then Dr. Shefali Tsabary, we really want you to check out her podcast on The Art of Conscious Parenting. Those are really fun things for you to watch, a little encouragement for this week, it gives your brain something to attach to and to build on until we meet next week.

And next week we are going to have an interview with life coach Janet Cagle, about how to believe new things, totally cool, how to believe new things. So that is the key to transformation, any transformative process begins with your brain and figuring out how you move from what you’re thinking to where you want to be thinking and everything flows from that.

So please tune in next week, I’ll see you then. Until then have a great week my virtuosas, I love you. Love always, Sue. And I will see you next week in episode 31. Bye.

Female Announcer: Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. If you want to find out more, come check out virtuosacoaching.com. That’s virtuosa - with an A - coaching.com. See you next week.

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