Diet Culture, Healing from Trauma, Self Confidence, SoulCycle, and Becoming a Doula with Kaitlyn Wozniak

Today we’re talking with Kaitlyn Wozniak, a multifaceted fitness expert, doula, and ambitious entrepreneur.  Kaitlyn opens up about her transformative journey—from overcoming an eating disorder to her immersion in the fitness world, and ultimately embracing the roles of  SoulCycle instructor and doula.

Kaitlyn candidly delves into stories of self confidence, healing from trauma, and the profound nuances of finding out who you are and aligning that with work.

This episode is packed with truths about the joys and challenges of motherhood, underlining the power of self-confidence and resilience.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:58 Kaitlyn's Multifaceted Career
• 3:17 The Evolution of Kaitlyn's Career and Personal Growth
• 4:54 Empowering Women Through Fitness and Motherhood
• 11:25 The Transformative Power of Community and Fitness
• 17:57 Aligning Passion, Career, and Authenticity
• 22:39 Understanding the Role of a Doula
• 30:10 Reflecting on Personal Growth and Empowerment
• 34:26 The Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery
• 42:09 Embracing Motherhood
• 45:19 Launching a New Venture
• 47:35 Connecting and Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:17

Welcome to this episode of The Gateless Podcast. Haley is sick today, so I am recording this introduction to a fabulous conversation that we had with Caitlin Wozniak. She is so multifaceted, which is, I think, what made this conversation so, incredible and inspiring. Caitlin Wozniak is a doula. She is a fitness professional. She does pre and postnatal personal training. She is a soul cycle instructor. She has a mom, she has a wife, she has a friend, she has so many things, both personally and professionally. And we dug into a lot of them and she took us on the journey of her story and how she even got started in the world of fitness and how that evolved into her multi faceted business model as it stands today. We talked a lot about where her journey began, uh, In college, studying psychology,, dipped her toe into diet culture and developed an eating disorder to a next phase where she started building her career around blending fitness, community, helping women enter and thrive in motherhood. She, she shares a lot about her experiences as a doula. And for those that don't know, doulas are, non medical. sO she'll, she'll tell you a lot more about that, but there's some crazy experiences that she's had catching babies in hospitals or not in hospitals. home birth, hospital, she was at my birth. Um, not my birth, the birth of my son, I cannot even describe how amazing that that was for me. She, she is really raw and honest about, um, some of the family trauma that she's been through and healing. Healing through the childhood traumas, the family traumas, the mental and emotional roller coaster of just being a woman in today's society and how she healed through those things to become her most authentic and thriving self. Then we do talk a lot about just. Empowering yourself through, with her context, she helps women empower themselves through their fitness journey, through motherhood, and it's really incredible the impact that Caitlin has had on, on people's lives, not just women, but she's definitely touched a lot of women's lives for the better. This is. Just one of my favorite conversations. I listen in, just get to know her a little bit. She's so authentic and raw and honest, and there's so many wonderful qualities, but she's also just a spunky fun gal. So please enjoy this episode with Caitlin Mosniak..... I can't believe it's been so long since I was with you. But I, yeah, my story is like such a long one. So I try to make this as concise as possible when I'm on podcasts and sharing this, but my. Journey that I think is this really important. I started my path. I think my trajectory really began when I was 13, 14 and dipped my toe into diet culture and developed an eating disorder. Which really through all of that and very covering throughout the course of college really made me want to empower women to have deeper connections with their bodies, whether it was through movement or nutrition, this, that, the other. And it was in 2011. I found an indoor cycling studio that had nothing to do with metrics. It was really just about moving the body and I was simultaneously working with a lot of mentorship programs with eating disorder counseling. And I pivoted at the time. I thought I'm studying psychology at American University. I thought for sure I was going to go into clinical counseling and I. learn very quickly that I have way too much energy to sit still all day. And I was like, this is such a cool thing. No one is blending these two passions that are so closely tied, right? So many athletes, so many people who pursue fitness. As a consumer are really dealing with a lot of deeply rooted body image concerns and truly a deep disconnect from themselves. And so that's what I decided to do. I started my fitness career. I exclusively trained women and I wanted to really empower women. Like I said, to connect deeper to their bodies. And a lot of my clients were becoming pregnant and. I've so deeply felt drawn to pre and postnatal personal training, but I felt like this like imposter syndrome because I'd never been a mom. I had never been pregnant, but I wanted to help my clients. And I knew I couldn't do it well enough at the time. Like I was like grasping at straws. There weren't a lot of really well structured pre and postnatal certifications locally, and I didn't have a lot of resources. So I sat my fears. And I took a deep dive into a really expansive pre and post natal certification. And three days later, I found out I was pregnant with my son. And I was like, this is meant to be like, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And it just felt so beautifully serendipitous. I. Got to learn alongside my clients and what I was applying with my clients, which was so cool. So anyway, fast forward, pandemic hits, I'm doing all of this virtually. And at the, in the fall of 2020, I had several clients coming to me, postpartum, physical and emotional birth traumas who were like, I could not have gotten through this without my doula and I think you would be a great doula. And I was like, this makes so much sense, right? Like how can we empower women through pregnancy and then leave them hanging? And one of the most like formative, most magical moments of their lives. And so I became a birth doula and started the fit doula. So now my business is all pre and postnatal personal training. I do birth doula support, some postpartum support, and I'm about to launch a brand new facet of the fit doula, which I'm really excited about that really empowers women in motherhood. There's so much in there. And I want to hear, I do want to come back to and hear more about the new facet of your dual programming, but okay. So going back to your dip, your toe dip into diet culture, that was I'm sure there were many different things that contributed to it, but I think that part of that was pressures from. Like something you were doing in your life, right? Weren't you in pageants and you were basically competing based on physical appearance and pressures. Can you talk a little bit about that? Totally. And there's definitely something to be said. I don't know how much you guys or your audience are aware of eating disorders and the catalysts. for disordered eating, but there's a phrase within the eating disorder community that genetics load the gun. Society pulls the trigger, so to speak. So there's a huge hereditary component. It's almost this nature nurture of there's genetics involved, hereditary factors. Some of us are predisposed. To things like anxiety, depression, and other mental health illnesses. And then you have a multitude of external factors that can create the manifestation of some other, catalysts for these to become whether manageable or. Way blown out of proportion hard to manage without clinical intervention. I think the reason I bring that up is that I had a great deal of, I think, predeterminable factors from my youth, right? Whether it was like hyper perfectionistic tendencies, severe anxiety, depression and a very deep lack of self confidence. Joining pageants while it was intended to boost my confidence and help me make friends and help me like Learn how to love myself There's an inherent part of that culture that has you standing on a stage being judged on your appearance And as much as it's sold the interview is such a, we've really get to know who you are and how smart you are and all these things, right? At the end of the day, you are on a stage under bright lights being scrutinized and picked apart. And there are these little fora there used to be back in the day, these forums and all this like dark underground world and the pageant. pageantry world that I remember being in college and like I was competing and I would go on and be like, what are they saying about me? And so you could be so confident and so sure of yourself and still be really harmed by just the basic. Tenants of like you are judged based on how you look and that determines your value in the world, right? Yeah, it was definitely detrimental and I think there was a, there were a multitude of factors that contributed, but I learned very quickly that I had to get out of that space if I wanted to preserve the hard work that I poured into digging myself out of the trenches of. Mental health challenges and the person that you are now and what you represent and what you help other women find in themselves and have for themselves just feel so far away from like this person that is lacking confidence and unsure of Like their value and so that journey is there's no way we're gonna get into every bit of it Insane. And so the highlights that you mentioned were around how your career and fitness evolved slowly into one that is like exclusively about supporting women, finding their power, understanding their value and who they are. And especially as it relates to becoming a mother and how your journey totally changes after that. But I'm also really curious, like Back closer to when you were still very much struggling with self-confidence and not that anybody is ever fully through that. Like it's a day-to-day thing with everybody. Sure. Yeah. Even somebody as like amazing and confident as you, I'm sure. When, how did you go from the first spin studio that wasn't metrics driven to. creating this real in my opinion, movement and community and group of positive, supportive people that wanted to hang out together at Equinox in D. C. And that's how I, so Kaylee, I don't know if you knew this, but I met Caitlin because I was living in D. C. going to Equinox, the gym. And taking her spin classes and they were just they made me feel better about myself when I left them and I had never felt like that about fitness necessarily it was like something I did because I knew health was important and like it did make exercise obviously made me feel good but I never felt so confident after leaving classes until I found Caitlin's class and that's when I started to get very curious about like how is she this confident and how does she exude that and it's infectious. It's infectious. and other people. And so I'm really curious about like around that time, what, how much of that was just you stepping into what felt right for you? How much of it was intentional? I just want to hear about that phase. Yeah. And it's funny, I actually, I feel like my voice is starting to come back. I taught eight classes this past week and I think like I took a hiatus from group and my body is just like reacclimating. But I say that because It's always been for me, every step of my career then too has been so intuitive and really driven by my heart. And I've never really stepped into something to make a business out of it or be strategic or manipulative or calculated. I don't have those characteristics in my spirit at all. I've always just been driven by passion and. Cycling was what saved me in so many ways, right? It brought me out of the depths of toxic relationships with movement. It. My cycling instructors have inspired me over the years, and I wanted to come into, Kara, I was met with so much resistance at Equinox, they hated the way I taught cycling, everything at Equinox was supposed to be like performance based, right? Everything about metrics, BPMs, RPMs, watts, the whole thing. And I hated it because to me, it was so icky. It felt so unnatural, so Disconnected from everything I loved about moving my body. And so I think the thing that, and there were so many ways or things that really made me want to create. Such a strong community outside of the gym itself. But I saw how many of the writers at Equinox wanted the same thing. We all we're like a little army that we're like, you don't like it. You want to take it away from us? Watch us fill this room day in, day out, line out the door. And I was like, these are my people, man. If they, if you guys were able to show up and give the same reciprocated energy and fight for something the same way that I was doing it, like I owed it to give back to you guys to create something bigger, right? And I've always thought too that it shouldn't just be about like those 45 minutes or those 60 minutes of sweating together. That's a community. And I think like how special to be able to them, like we started doing monthly happy hours and monthly, like private, like crazy Friday night rides, and we'd have like cocktails after, and it really brought a sense of community in a space that, and to your point, DC, like it's so hard to make friends. People don't want friends. Yeah, people want to work. People grind and hustle. And what I think what it taught a lot of us was that like, no we're all looking for the same thing, that same form of connection, and to be seen and supported and celebrated. But it just takes the willingness to like, get out there and find it and be a little vulnerable and a little uncomfortable. And, I even think I have such beautiful memories of Your farewell party, like when you left D. C. and so many of those people were from like our little fitness bubble. Yeah. I don't know if you consciously know this, but taking those classes for a couple of years and feeling the community aspect of not even Equinox, it wasn't Equinox. It was like those actual classes and the people that went to those classes gave me the first like bit of confidence to realize a part of myself that I hadn't Explored that much, which was, I was always, just like you said, everybody in DC is very career focused and doing the job and grinding. And that was totally me. And it still is in some ways, but what it was the first glimpse at, wait a second, I have this other side of myself and this passion that I also want to connect people. And I also have this. Very strong interest in health and wellness and fitness. And I also think that there's something there I should be doing more of that, not just focused on my my full time career. And I remember I messaged you or texted you or something. And I was like, I don't actually know what my question is for you, but can we go to coffee? And I maybe want to be a group fitness instructor, but I don't know. I'm just interested in what you do and the way you make people feel. And I now in hindsight, I think what I was interested in was like the way you made. The way you took your passion and your skills and made people feel a certain way was what I wanted to figure out how I could do. And it's all makes a lot more sense to me now, you gave me the confidence to go take the group fitness instructor tests and I passed. And I was like, Holy shit. I don't know any, I like, I don't know anything about any of that stuff. And I just, yeah, and she helped me get classes on the schedule at Equinox and all these things. I didn't know that. Yeah. But it was all. She's a star. It was all about I don't, in hindsight, yeah, sure, would I love to teach a couple yoga classes sometimes and thing, in a Tabata class and running and all this stuff? Yes, still. But what I really actually, what I really wanted. And I didn't know that at the time was to find a way to make people feel the way that you made people feel which was like confident, excited, centered in themselves, and like able to take on all the other things in their life that had that they had going on. I know that you didn't, did some of that consciously, did not do some of that consciously. But I think that's a big part of some other people's struggle is at what point did for you, the thoughts you were having in your brain, the words that you were saying out loud, the things that you were doing in your actions all feel like they started to align. Because I know that there are people that listen to this that are like. I've got this thing and this potential, and it's what I think about all day long, but it does not align with what I have to be doing all day. It does not align with maybe the things that I say out loud, and I need to figure out how to align these things, and maybe you could walk us through that journey. Yeah. And I don't know if this will Land for everyone in other professions, like a pro tip from me as a seasoned fitness professional, especially group fitness, I never make playlists in advance and I think this, yeah, I always like I'll make them day of, because like I want them to be, yeah. A very, I want to be connected to the message, right? I don't want it to be a bunch of platitudes and me blowing smoke up someone's ass for 45 minutes. I want it to be authentic and real and raw. And my life has been very textured. I've been through a lot of really dark things and some days I'm healing and some days I'm celebrating and some days I feel like a badass. Some days I don't. And so if I like make a playlist, that's revved up and I don't know, like a little Wayne theme bride, a really rough day, like I'm not going to be able to sell that. And it's going to feel really inauthentic and everyone will feel it. And so I guess like the thing that I share in the same way with my clients like I, when I bring on clients. I, there's a mandatory Zoom or FaceTime where we feel each other out and just as much as someone's hiring me, I am hiring them. And I think that the common denominator there is authenticity. Invulnerability and the ability to say I get to be an active participant and what I'm involved in, right? It's the same way. I like, set up my clients for births. You get to be an active participant in this experience. The system doesn't get to happen to you. And as long as what your preferences are, what your rights are, And what things really feel important to you, you could go in feeling like armed with confidence to navigate that space. And so it's different in every facet of my career, because I do a lot of different things. But again, I think it's just at the end of the day, to me, it's always about authenticity, vulnerability, transparency. And, it takes a lot of deep self work. We can't run. We can't expect a career that's rooted. That's so people forward and forward facing and my brand is me. I don't have a team. It's just me. And I've been asked several times, is it detrimental for you to share so much of your personal life and your personal story? When you're cultivating a brand identity and. I argue that I gravitate toward brands with people that like I can feel their energy, right? I feel safe with, I want to support, I want to consume from, and I'd rather my clients get to know me just as well as I'm asking to get to know them, right? Like walking into someone's birth space, for example, is again, it's. Raw. It is vulnerable. You are asking somebody to hold your fear and hold your primal energy. And you are in essence handing over your safety right to somebody who can. Hold you and tell you, yes, this is normal. This is okay. And you can look them in the eye and say oh, I trust you that I'm going with you. I feel the resistance is I want to fight this, but I see you and I trust you and I know you. So I'm going to walk with you. And I think I don't know. I feel like that's a bit of a tangent, but because there's again, like so many different hats here, but at the end of the day, I've always just wanted to lead from like authenticity. And again, I think that just takes, it requires the willingness to dive deep in yourself, to do the shadow work, to do the deep self work, to the healing, to learn who you are. So you can talk and speak and walk from a very authentic space.. I feel like for the people who are listening who are like me and don't have kids yet and haven't gone through that experience, can you just explain a little bit about what a doula does? Yeah. So a birth doula were non medical birth professionals. Okay. So we are not doing anything medical. We're not doing fetal heart rate checks. We're not doing cervical exams. We're not doing ultrasounds. I have caught babies on accident, but that's not really my job either. And by accident, sometimes they just come really fast. And yeah, we're all it's, but we are, I like to say like we're a birth coach, we're birth nerds and birth coaches who like love to understand birth. But at the heart of it, we want to support women and uplift women through the process of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. And so our job is to provide evidence based. education think childbirth education, and in a really intimate setting physical support throughout the course of childbirth, emotional support throughout the course of pregnancy and childbirth and postpartum. And so we become like the one. Consistent member of your support team from the moment you sign a contract with me, like you have unlimited tech support for me. We see each other frequently for prenatals. I'm the one person that you consistently have on your side as part of your support team, because your nurses. I adored like labor delivery nurses, 90 percent of them are doing God's work, like they are phenomenal. I love them. But they have shift changes, right? They have charting to do. They have other patients they have to take care of. And sometimes you do get a bad egg, I'm not going to lie. And then you have doctors who, especially in DC, the nature of a lot of the DC based care practices are. 6 to 12 providers under one umbrella and you're meeting with each of them at every prenatal appointment. So you don't have really rapport with the doctor who's coming into your labor and delivery space and catching your baby. So your doula is really like that one person who's like a grounding support person, your biggest cheerleader, right? Throughout your journey to motherhood. Okay. Awesome. I was like, I've seen things on the internet about doulas, but I forgot that it wasn't just like a home birth type of thing. So that's a big misconception. And I think that I argue that in a hospital environment, doulas are almost even more critical. I think when you're at home and you're in the safety of a home birth with all the oxytocin pouring because it's familiar, it's comfortable, it's cozy. Births tend to move a little bit swifter and more smoothly at home. Obviously, the emotional support and physical support is so powerful, but in a hospital, we see so much more. higher rates of unnecessary medical interventions. A lot of rigidity and rules being applied. And I remember Kara, I don't know. Are you comfortable with me sharing? Walking into your birth space. I'm in D. C. I traveled to florida to support Kara labor and delivery and It was a very different experience because do you remember they were like you have your doula we'll just leave you alone. That doesn't really happen, right? Usually there's a lot of hands on deck, a lot of meddling, a lot of a little bit of medical coercion sometimes or misinformation. I hate saying that because I don't like to put fear and anxieties in people's heads, but there's, there, I've seen some really traumatic things happen at hospitalized birth. And so I argue that as a doula attending hospital births. Our job's a little bit more important. We have to be really vigilant to watch for, and your doctor was also really patient about allowing you to like breathe through your pushes and push on your side, but that doesn't usually happen. So it's a lot of liaisoning between the medical jargon, translating things and reminding like. My clients of what their rights are in that space. So that they aren't again like the systems that happening to them, they're in charge. It's, it's impossible almost to stay calm in a scenario where you feel so out of control and you don't, and you know that. Everyone around you knows more than you do about what could happen, what's about to happen, what is ha that is really scary, especially for somebody who likes to be in control and likes to be well researched and totally understand what's about to happen. I found that The your presence, it's honestly, it's all the way back to the way that you make. The reason that people trust you is the way that you make them feel and you make them feel confident and empowered. And I was like, I don't I don't know anything about what's about to happen with this childbirth. I'm going to do my own research, but I definitely trust Caitlin knows what she's doing and she's going to do her research. But most importantly, I know she's going to make me feel a certain way there. And in that context, it was. feel empowered that I had choices, feel empowered that I was going to be safe, feel empowered that I could say no if something was going down that I didn't love. And I just think like a lot of people don't even realize that's an option in your birth experience, which is why I found having a dual and especially you as a dual. So just I'll never do it another way. I have. I'll never forget. I share this story a lot, and you can cut this if it's a waste of space in the episode, but walking over to your house that morning. And she, when I tell you, Kara, this was this Kara moment, she's in like a bodycon dress, just sitting there with her headband in, she's I think I'm ready to go to the hospital. I was like, no, you're not. Go sit on your birth ball. We're going to eat. Your mom had made coffee cake. I was like, we are not ready. I was saving cake and I was bouncing on a ball, fully dressed. I was like, girl, you are too put together. You are not doing, it is not time. That is a Kara moment for sure. She's I think it's time. We can go now. It wasn't too much longer. It wasn't too much longer, but I, like you, especially when someone's planning like a certain style of birth, namely like an unmedicated delivery, you're like, we need to like really get you there. Like when things are like hot and heavy, I was like, you look too good right now. Spend as little time as possible in that hot tub. You're just over prepared to get in there. Let's just go ahead and get in there. Let's get it done. It was I'm so glad I did it that way. It was such a fond memory. And even, I think we've, it's come up even on this show I don't remember exactly when, but maybe about moments we're most proud of. I. Oh yeah. By far the most proud I've ever been of myself was after I had a child, I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that a body can do that. I'm still alive. Yeah. And it not ripped apart and I feel happy and, That wasn't traumatic. It was so cool. Yeah. So it's crazy. So Caitlin sorry, Kara go ahead. I, we, I feel like we really like this question, but we're curious, what were you like when you were growing up? What things was there anything that kind of hinted to what you're doing now? So I've talked about this a little bit. I was so shy. And I think a lot of people are shocked by that. I grew up like my dad was incarcerated for most of my life. I witnessed domestic violence. I witnessed. Addiction. And I had very high like perfectionistic tendencies and who knows if that was like a, like a guard up or like a survival mode, right? But I was like a very type A student. Yeah, like I was a shy, timid. Very insecure kid. I had a lot of friends. I was like smart and involved and engaged, but I think it was always with this even through like high school, really the driving factor there for me was to be the best I could be. Show everyone that I could do it and it wasn't like an intrinsic motivation. It was about a lot of like external pressures. And there's always like an uneasiness in my gut and in my spirit because I think about this too, when we are born, we have no individualized thoughts. We have like hormonal drives of hunger and the need for connection and physical touch and love and safety, but we're immediately influenced by our family and the people in the world around us. So it takes a long time to really start developing individual thoughts. And if you come from a family, that's not open minded or a community, it's an open minded. You're not really encouraged to do that. And so it wasn't until I went away to college. It was like, I'm free, I think that's when I really started to I was recovering from an eating disorder. I was starting to break away and find people that allowed me that space to Explore who I really was. One thing that I do think is interesting is, I think even all of that is sets you up and gives me a huge motivator to do the work that I do to empower women, right? Maybe not in the way that people expect it, but I look back and I never want a woman to Or a young girl who is in my orbit or in the world in general to like ever feel those things. It's isolating. It's lonely. It's scary. And I hope that anybody that I like engage with or interact with feels Kara that's the greatest gift, right? For me. There's no better screw pageants I don't care about that at all. The way that you describe feeling is that's all I've ever wanted. I get emotional because that's so special, right? And a lot of that stems from the way I grew up. But I Share this little anecdote. I was in high school my oldest cousin and I were raised like sisters and She had her first baby and I was there her labor went so fast that I Was effectively her doula and I was like 15 15 years old I like came in my field hockey uniform and Was by her head, coaching her through birth, I cut the umbilical cord and I was like, I think back on that and I was like, Oh my God, I, maybe I was destined to be a doula. Yeah, I think like a lot of those things, some funny, some a little deep and darker, but I think. I really have strived my whole life to see a path forward, right? Linear growth always. I don't want to like staying the same, staying complacent. Like those are arguably the most like terrifying things for me. I want to take like hard things and alchemize them into something bigger and more powerful. And yeah, love that. The you've mentioned you've mentioned it a few times, but I know for sure that you've put a ton of work into healing the traumas that you have been through, or at least healing the impact that they have on you and then working just really intentionally about self confidence evolution. And it takes a long time, it's a journey, but I, as you look back on like how far you've come, are there things, specific things that you did or focused on that really helped move the needle in the way you felt about yourself and the way you moved through some of those traumas that other people could take away and try to apply themselves? Yeah, I think anybody. Would say that therapy is number one, being able to really face yourself and the hard part with that is that a therapy is not as accessible as it should be. Let's get that out of the way. Yeah, it's a privilege to go to therapy, which it should not be. But I think that we go to therapy for a lot of people. We get to name the catalyst, right? We become self aware enough to say this is why I do this thing, but that's never enough, right? We have to change behaviors, like naming it, calling it to the forefront of our brain and our awareness is really powerful. And that's like the first step, but that's just the first step. It was a huge road ahead there. And so the ability to hold ourselves accountable, to start like weeding out people in our lives that like enable Toxic patterns of behavior, because we all have them, especially when we're young and start really being like holding yourself like humility. Yeah, totally. But also being able to say not be afraid to say, I am worthy and deserving of so much more. And that starts with the people that we keep in our, in our bubble. Weeding out friends who don't encourage healthy behaviors or don't support you, don't support your business, don't support your family, whatever. I've now been estranged from my dad for a long time, not a long time. It's actually recent, but I think it was like a buildup, right? And being able to say this is. The healthiest thing I can do for myself, right? Creating boundaries and be really stringent with those boundaries as a means to protect yourself. I think sometimes motherhood makes us like more willing to do those things. And I think flexing the confidence muscle as often as we can, right? Like I talked about this recently in my class at SoulCycle the world does not want us to be confident, right? The world does not want us to be confident. I actually have this like a draft in my Instagram to post this today, actually, like the world does not want us to be confident because we're harder to control. And or we're threatening. And that's an ego response from anybody who's around you who's not comfortable with your confidence, your power. And so the more that we can carve out spaces where we can flex that confidence muscle, the better, whether it is in a group fitness class. And it's this is darker with loud music. No one's eyes are on me. I'm going to add the extra turn of resistance and try. And then you learn Oh, I wasn't at my max performance. I can keep going. I tried something different today. And I proved to myself that I'm powerful and I'm strong. And you take that with you. I think that's why I love about fitness so much. It's there's always a return on your investment. Always, like every time you walk into a space, you're like, okay, I showed if I don't hit a PR today, that's cool. But like I showed up for myself and I created that space, like pour into my soul and into my spirit and into my body. And that just trickles down. Yeah, I think it's the therapy, the calling out, like the self awareness to name the things that like have harmed us and create that ripple effect. Being really conscious about the people that you spend your time with and who you whose energy you're allowing yourself to consume, because that's so I can like, really cut deep when I noticed that people are just like trauma dumping on me or pouring just it's just all negative all the time. I can hold space for people. But if it's a constant thing. And my gut, like my spidey senses come out. I'm like, okay, I have to start to consciously like uncouple from this for a little bit and then come back. Boundary setting, even if it's your family um, and just flexing that muscle. Like I said, just like over and over again, as often as you can, because it doesn't, it's not isolated to that event. It pours into every facet of your life. That's so true. All of that. You even posted something, you said you have a draft waiting, but you even posted something the other day about the revolution is when women realize that. They really only need themselves to get what they want. Yeah. And I think too like we are programmed as women, especially to need other things and other people to feel fulfilled. That same message doesn't get said to men. And I am known all over the freaking interwebs as, a man hater, that's okay. I Don't hate men. I hate the narrative that the patriarchy has put forth to say that women are less fulfilled or less than when we don't have a bunch of shit and a bunch of people and our lives, like we can be enough for ourselves. And I just got a new tattoo. It says love yourself first. I don't think there's anything negative or toxic about that because we can't pour from an empty cup. And Haley, if you do choose to step into motherhood, like it becomes even more prominent. It's you have to pour into you so that you can continue to show up bigger for everyone else. Women are, I could talk about this all day and I'll try to make it as simple as possible, but I really do think that, and I've seen it amongst my friends and the people I love who have been actively dating and they're like, maybe I should just settle. Maybe I should, maybe I'm like my expectations are too high. No, that, that leads to resentment, right? That leads to. yOu started to doubt yourself. And when the second you start doubting yourself, you are going to welcome in less than desirable people into your space. And I think we deserve to feel really worthy. We deserve to feel like we are powerful and independent and capable and anybody who can come in, whether it's, career partnerships or friendships or intimate relationships or, family, whoever, like I only want people in my space who are going to add value to it. I work too hard. I've got too much going on. Life's hard enough as it is. If you're coming into my space and not adding value to it, I'm good. I can do I've proven to myself I can do this on my own, right? We all can. We all have that in our gut. It doesn't mean we have, we should do things alone all the time. We're not superheroes, but I think it's, we're allowed to be more discerning than the world has allowed us or enabled us to be for so long. We should be discerning with our energy and who are allowing to permeate our space so that we can continue to grow. That's such an important message. I needed to have this conversation today more than I realized. I love starting the day this way. Caitlin, could we, do you want to talk a little bit about the New doula stuff that you have coming out. I don't even know. So I have had this on my gut for at least, I don't know, probably like the big get in going back to the way that like, I've always run my career has always just been like these gut feelings, right? What feels natural? What am I passionate about? Cause I never want to be like stuck in a job. I'm sure you guys relate to this deeply. That just feels. Like a chore, right? I want to do things that light me up so that like when I show up, I'm in it and I'm deep in it and I'm invested and it's. ouR careers are challenging. They're time consuming. Anything that takes me away from my kids has to be worth my time. And that starts with me, like feeling really like deeply motivated and lit up. And in the past, like two years, I think, probably last, I'll say the last year because Betty's about to be two. So my daughter's turning two in a couple of weeks. And I've always made it a really big point. Even when Recy was born, I went back to work. I didn't have a choice, but I went back to work at six weeks, but my husband had already been back at work. So I was, He was everywhere with me. I got out of the house almost immediately. It was going to target trying to flex the confidence muscle. How do I work this travel system? How do I like push a stroller and drink a coffee? Cause I can't sit on my butt. I, that's not how I'm wired. And so the idea of self care as a mom has always been at the forefront of my journey into motherhood and subconsciously, I think, too, right? And at the same time, I've seen a lot of my friends, a lot of women in my life, a lot of clients really struggle in postpartum to find the pockets where they can. Honor themselves and take care of themselves. They can get out of the house and know that I have a partner who is more than capable of being a dad, right? Like their dads, they could do this too. My kid's going to be okay. If I step away for two hours to do a workout or go get my nails done or go get dinner with a friend, I don't think that the world. tells women enough that in motherhood, they are still a person, right? It's, you're a mom. I wear the mama necklace. Like we all do it, right? It's I love being a mom. I love my kids. I'm obsessed with my kids, but I'm also a woman. I'm also a person. I have passion still the whole freaking life to live and I wasn't ready to give that up. And I see so many women, I'm telling you, like my DMS get flooded with it. Whenever I do an ask me anything like a Q and a box. How do you do it? How do you go to a workout class on a Sunday morning? How do you get dinner on a Thursday night after work? How do you? Half the time to run a business and also be a mom. And all that to say, I've seen the cry for it. I've been passionate about it. And the vision that I've had for this is I hate the life coaching term, but it's, so I've called it mama mentorship. And it's really just about. helping the women who are craving more like the ability to tap back into themselves, create more equity in their partnerships with their husbands or spouses get back to their passions and how what are the roadblocks? First of all, what are your goals? What are your dreams? What are your dreams as the woman who is a mom and what are your roadblocks and how do we get you there? And maybe it's just as simple as I want more time to myself. I need space because we also don't. allow women to say being a mom sometimes sucks, right? Sometimes it's boring. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I'm lonely. We're supposed to just be like, Oh, you have these beautiful kids and you're just like soak it up and love it. Love every second. And that's no, I don't. Sometimes I don't love it all the time and that's okay. I love my kids. Sometimes I don't love. Pieces of motherhood that like, yeah, like I wish more women felt comfortable saying that. So anyway, it could be as simple as I need more time for myself or I. Don't even know who I am anymore, right? And so the idea is like taking all those things, like the goals, the dreams, the hopes, the desires, understanding the roadblocks and helping my clients find a path forward. And that might look like creating like mama groups of their own, right? Or like finding a new career and starting a new job. Or maybe again, it's just like, how can you release the shame and the guilt that the world has imposed on you and motherhood to say I'm allowed to be a person too. And that's only going to enhance the way I show up with my kids and within my home. So yeah. That's amazing. Awesome. So amazing. So is this already, can people already sign up for it? Yeah, so I have been like slowly hinting at it on Instagram and then recently posted a little bit more about it. I decided to soft launch before January. So it's out there. And I think like January one, my plan is to really just start going hard on it and hit the ground running for the new year. Okay, so where can people connect with you and find you? I am really only on Instagram in terms of social media. And it's Caitlin Denae and my website is caitlinwozniak. com. Caitlin Denae it's K A I T L Y N D I N E H. Denae is my middle name. So it sometimes confuses people. Caitlin Wozniak is the website. Perfect. This was such a great conversation. Thank you for sharing all of this. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. so much. This was fun. Yeah. Thank you, guys.