Episode 34: Communication, Self-Leadership and Finding Fulfilment with Maria Rush

Hello and welcome to the Mum Means Business podcast, where we shine a light on inspiring women who have one thing in common. When they’re not managing tantrums, homework, P.E. kits and play dates, they are busting their gut to create something from nothing, to turn their passion into a thriving business and build a better life for themselves and their families. We dig into what motivates devoted mothers to pursue entrepreneurship and how they integrate their work and family life.

I’m Victoria Phipps, your host, and if you’re an ambitious mum in need of some solidarity whilst navigating the messy middle of making your big dream a reality, then stick around. This is for you.

NOTE: This is the transcript from the original recording, rather than the edited episode so timings may vary.

Victoria (00:01)
My guest today is a leadership mentor, speaker and host of the Women Don’t Rush podcast. For the past 15 years, she has dedicated her time and energy not only to raising her two children, who are now teenagers, but to promoting self leadership, emotional intelligence and solution based communication, both as an entrepreneur and within state organizations and private businesses. Maria Rush is fascinated by people.

and her work explores the ways in which we can communicate and connect more deeply with ourselves and others by becoming our authentic selves. Maria now helps capable and high achieving women and mothers who despite their success often feel tired, overwhelmed and unfulfilled. Through a proven framework, she guides her clients to discover that missing link, the connection between outer success and inner fulfillment.

In her signature calm and collected manner, Maria is on a mission to help us all experience more clarity and a deeper sense of calm, joy and purpose along the road to success because she believes that we all deserve to feel fulfilled, not just accomplished. They say opposites attract and when I first heard Maria speak, I was immediately drawn to the tempered tranquility of her communication style.

to the extent that a few weeks later, I invited her to come and talk with me in the relative chaos of my world, and here we are. So Maria, welcome to the Mummy’s Business Podcast.

Maria Rush (01:34)
Thank so much Victoria. I’m so excited to be here with you today and thank you so much for the invite.

Victoria (01:41)
Oh, it’s a pleasure. am I am ready to calm down. So I have I’m having a bit of a mad mum juggle day. My little one is at home poorly. And so me and my partner are tag teaming and it’s literally been like handover on the stairs and swapping and chopping and changing. And it’s all part of this messy middle, which is what this podcast is all about. And I am ready to

have Maria Rush bring me back down to a place of kind of tranquility and stability. So let’s start at the beginning of your story, if that’s all right with you.

Maria Rush (02:17)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I had a long think about this coming to join you today, Victoria, and I see my journey as, like many women do, I think we find ourselves in different seasons of life. And I definitely had a season pre-parenthood, which was…

ignorant and blissful, I think, in certain ways. Happy days, right? I had no idea what I was doing. I did focus a lot, you know, looking back, I did focus a lot on the outer things in life and I was quite sort of a high achieving person, achieving anything I really wanted. I’ve always had great confidence.

Victoria (02:45)
Yeah. Happy days. Yeah.

Maria Rush (03:09)
But becoming a mum, which was then my sort of second season I can see, I realised that my self-esteem and my self-knowledge and my self-awareness was not quite up to par with perhaps what I thought I had. So going into that second season of becoming a mum was actually really, really painful. ⁓

I had a difficult birth, which I’d been to one of those NCT classes and groups and I’m quite sort of a textbook type of person, or used to be, so not having that sort of birth, it threw me totally. And I felt really lonely and sadly I did not connect with our son the way I thought mothers would naturally do.

I played the game so when the local nurse came to check in on us, she did the traditional questionnaire of how I was feeling. I ticked all the right boxes with the right correct answers and she let me go. Everything was fine but not everything was fine. Looking back I may have had some sort of postnatal depression or going into but I carried on and

you know, my son grew and he was thriving and… But then when he was about two, I really had a think about this with being a mother and it did not sit well with me at all. I still didn’t connect with him on a sort of deeper level and he was always angry and you know, you could say it’s the terrible twos or it’s this and that, but I had a deeper feeling that there was something missing.

And of course, not being so self-aware, I thought it was him. That would have been very sort of easy. I tell you this, I even went to the doctors and talked about it. And the healthful nurse said to me, does he divide his food up in different corners of the plate? I was like, no.

Okay, so he doesn’t eat meatballs separately and the peas separately. I said, no, well, he won’t have ADHD then. And I was like, he won’t, what? And it threw me even further back of feeling lonely and quite desperate. I tried all the different parental methods and nothing felt good for either him or me.

Victoria (05:50)
Mmm.

Maria Rush (06:01)
until I realised that everything he was doing, everything he was acting out was just a reflection of myself. And that was really hard. but it became very clear that he was showing me everything that I had missed as a child. I grew up with very nice, decent parents who are still married today and we had a good childhood, but…

Personally, I would have needed more empathy, compassion, being able to have a connection with my parents of talking about more important things than we did. And this is what our son was showing me. I, after that initial sadness, I think, I really did see it as an opportunity. I could actually name this thing that had followed me around for a long, time, and I was able to identify it. So I…

I’ve read up about empathy and compassion and solution-based communication, anything I could find, and I truly felt enlightened. ⁓ Literally within a week or two, my relationship with our son totally changed. It changed for a deeper, happier, easier, more lovable, connected relationship.

Victoria (07:18)
Wow.

That’s incredible that you can change so quickly. And I really appreciate you sharing both. mean, it’s, we laugh because it’s kind of hilarious. We can all, think, remember ourselves in our twenties when we’re kind of full, loose and fancy free and we’re so self-absorbed. And if there’s a problem, it’s anything but our problem. And we kind of can so often carry that into motherhood.

Maria Rush (07:51)
Yes. ⁓

Victoria (07:55)
And if your child is acting up, yeah, of course, like, well, you mean to get him, and especially these days, what should we diagnose this child with? And it’s actually so mature, but also really vulnerable of you to actually flip that and think, well, actually, he’s a baby. You know, I’m the grownup. And to consider.

Maria Rush (08:02)
Yes, absolutely.

Victoria (08:22)
that it might be something in your own behavior. That takes a lot of courage, I think, to do that. How did that feel at the time? And did you talk to people about it? Did you talk to your husband about it or… Yeah.

Maria Rush (08:34)
Yeah. I did, I did.

But that was also perhaps another challenge. He’s British, I’m Swedish. And you may think that those two cultures are quite similar, which there are in many ways. But he was brought up in one way, I was brought up in a different way. But we did struggle together.

I more emotionally vulnerable and upset even though I wasn’t able to identify that at the time. But I came to such a low point where I literally thought, what is the point of this? How can society thrive with parents in it if parenthood is like this? I really, really thought it was so hard.

However, when I found those little nuggets of hope, because that’s what it really is for me, when I could see something that actually worked. I needed something tangible and I could see the results coming out of it. It was, I was unstoppable. There was nothing that could come in my way. And I felt so empowered that I knew I was onto something good.

at the same time, it made me also more vulnerable to, you know when that jigsaw puzzle piece falls into place, everything becomes so clear, but it also became clear that a lot of other people were struggling with the same thing as I did and that became quite painful actually. So it sort of leads me into the second…

really third season of my life when I had learned, I’d sort of practised this new way of communication and communicating with my family. But then I had to look deeper within me because that face with the communication with our children, that was so much focus on them to…

get that connection, but by doing so as well, I was feeding it back to my own child and healing that phase in my life. But then the hard work really started when I really had to look at myself and my behaviors. And I know we had a quick chat about this the other day, Victoria, about certain things that I had to almost force myself to stop doing.

I saw myself as, again, this is looking back, because I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but I saw myself as literally the Rush family CEO. Excuse me. I was the one who, my, ⁓ sorry, can you take that off perhaps? I’m just going to grab a quick glass of water, hang on.

Victoria (11:28)
It’s alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, go, go,

If you start and just say, I saw myself as the Roche family CEO, we’ll start from there.

Maria Rush (11:47)
Yeah, yes, yes,

super. Yes, so I saw myself as the Rush family CEO. I was the one who was organizing everything, everything from food shopping to the house to nursery and school to work, holidays, everything. I…

Later in life, I could joke about this because I saw myself as a big Swedish snow plough. It’s one of those things they at the front of a tractor, yes, that literally clears away all the snow on the roads to clear the path for everyone else behind me to have plain sailing walking.

Victoria (12:22)
Okay? Yeah?

Yeah, I think a lot of mothers will relate to that very Swedish metaphor.

Maria Rush (12:39)
Yes!

⁓

But you know what? I also wore it with pride. I used to say how much I did and how much my husband did not do, etc. etc. I had that deep need for control. I think I was bordering on emasculating my husband. I did not give him a chance to do any of these things because I had to do it.

But at the same time, I was feeling really unfulfilled. I had it all with the family, the house, the work, everything, but I still felt quite empty, you know, for myself. And this is really when I started to, trying to understand, you know, what was coming next.

I had to start actually sitting on my skills. I literally had to sit on my hands and be quiet a lot of the time. I had to stop doing things like going to the supermarket. I had to force myself not to do it. Only to practise for myself to listen more to others, but also foremost to myself.

to really give me that time in quietness to see what was actually coming up within me. It was so hard, it was so challenging. So I didn’t have the vocabulary, but also I don’t think I really wanted to listen to what was coming up.

Victoria (14:20)
Yeah.

Maria Rush (14:25)
That was a really, really challenging time in my life, but it was also so rewarding because the more I practiced, the easier my life became, the calmer I became, I had more quality time with people I love, and…

I didn’t have so much drama in my life. Nothing really sort of came towards me. It all went very peaceful and quiet. And that’s when I obviously realized I was onto something really, really interesting. Yeah.

Victoria (14:55)
Yeah.

There is so much in this that I relate to. And, you know, your children are teenagers, my children are four and three. And so I imagine if you project back to when your children were around the same time, you’re probably only beginning to sort of get into this work. And motherhood, you you talked about having to remother the mother and

You know, and in this sense, it’s similar with business. You know, there is so much personal growth that is forced through motherhood and through business. And if you’re doing both at the same time and trying to navigate your path, both as, you know, self-imposed CEO of your family and also in whatever direction you’re taking your career. If you resist listening to yourself, it’s hard, but it can also

Maria Rush (15:32)
Hmm.

Victoria (15:56)
be so hard to stop and listen. You know, I really feel that I have experienced exactly what you’re describing, where it’s almost safer to just keep doing all the things and not to stop. And I absolutely, I could go and get him now, he’s upstairs with my youngest, doing his bit.

I could go and get him now and I could say, do you feel like I emasculated you during the first three years of our family? And he would say, without a doubt, yes. And we had to go into a lot of therapy for that because I at first couldn’t see it and I would do the same thing and it’s so destructive. was definitely the mum that was doing all the whinging about how I was so busy.

and I was doing everything and he was doing nothing. And I’m not saying that it was all on me. He could have also tried to step up, but I was not encouraging it. I was almost holding him down. And I think had we both resisted doing that work together, and I still have a long way to go with this, to catch up to you and to reach your level of calm and tranquility.

Maria Rush (16:54)
Yeah.

you

Victoria (17:13)
But had we not done that, I’m not sure the relationship would have survived. And it speaks a lot to the stresses and the pressures of that early season of parenthood for a relationship as well. And this is where your communication really becomes absolutely crucial, but you’re both exhausted. And the opportunity for real, honest connection is just from a time.

Maria Rush (17:25)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Victoria (17:41)
point of view, very, very limited. And to find a moment where you are both in the mood to actually connect with each other with a good conversation is rare. And so I would like to understand a bit more about this kind of discovery of a different and arguably better way of communicating first with your son, also, you know, with your partner and your family more broadly.

Maria Rush (17:43)
Yeah.

it is.

Mm.

Mmm.

Victoria (18:11)
And then with yourself, you know, this problem-based communication, like how do you define that? What did you learn about it? And, you know, can you give us some examples of what that means practically? What does it look like?

Maria Rush (18:23)
Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. So I really appreciate what you say there Victoria, about the time and there’s a point in time where you may come to this feeling and sense that something needs to be done. You need to take that time because that’s exactly what happened to me. I sat down and I thought to myself,

when our son was about three, and I said to myself, in 10 years time, when he’s 13, will I be able to look back and truly say that I tried to figure this out? Did I really try to figure me out in order to?

become my most authentic self and for them to have a mum that was truly present and was able to be empathetic and compassionate? And the answer was no. It was such a clear no at that time that that actually propelled me forward to like, I am investing time and energy and myself to aim

to reach a lot further than I was at the time. And I am 10 plus years down the line now. And I can look back and feel really proud of both myself and my family for having done all this work. It hasn’t always been easy and I still trip myself up sometimes when I’m, you know, haven’t eaten properly, I’m too tired or I just want to be on my own, you know, but.

We know we have that deeper sense of trust and connection that we know we can slip up and it’s okay. Because we got a very basic mm, mm, mm, yeah.

Victoria (20:21)
and it’s grace.

you know,

even after all that work, we’re not perfect. We’re still going to have moments, and particularly if we feel like we have a lot on our plate, or you know, there’s something coming up we’re anxious about, or anything is a problem, a challenge in your extended family, friends, whatever it might be, and we feel a little bit under pressure and distressed, we will probably sink back into those same kind of behaviors because it’s so innate in our conditioning.

Maria Rush (20:30)
No, no.

Mm.

Yes.

Yeah. ⁓

Victoria (20:54)
from childhood,

but it’s then it’s just catching it and also just not beating yourself up. Just being like, okay, yes, I did do that, I’m sorry. But it’s because of this and being able to hang the hat on, it’s because I’m worried about this thing that’s happening next week, that’s why. And I think that’s part of the learning as well is like, where’s the source of this stress?

Maria Rush (21:03)
Yeah.

Mmm. That’s why. Mmm.

And of course at that time I didn’t have that vocabulary and understanding that that’s what it was all about, that it is emotional, it is about finding a way to communicate.

where I am willing to listen, but I’m also able to express myself fully through my own emotions and needs, because that was certainly nothing I was sort of brought up with. And I know that a lot of women and men have never been sort of taught that way of thinking. But it’s finding that the solution-based communication is all about…

finding a solution that works for everyone involved. It may not work every time, at least with the majority feel happy about it instead of I have decided that this is what’s happening. So I can give you an example. This is when our little ones were perhaps they were like four and six or something like that and

On Fridays, we lived in Sweden at the time, on Fridays after nursery and school, it’s like we always went to the supermarket to get like a little Friday evening treat. And they wanted some biscuits. And our daughter said that, I want those biscuits in the green box that are like little letters.

I was like, okay, that sounds good. And our son said, yeah, but no, I want the pink packet with the animal shaped biscuits. And my first thought was like, okay, I’m the grownup. I can take an executive decision about this and make it fair. So it’s like, my thoughts are running quite fast. So I was thinking, if our daughter gets to choose this time, then our son can choose next Friday.

But then I stopped myself. No, hang on, what happened was I met someone I knew, so I was slightly distracted for a couple of minutes and I started chatting to this lady. And then I turn around and our children were standing there and with a third box of biscuits, not any other two that they had talked about. So they themselves had…

Victoria (23:30)
Okay, yep.

Maria Rush (23:37)
come up with a solution based strategy of finding a third option that they agreed both on, that they were happy with. So it wasn’t the pink or the green packet, it was a blue packet. And that taught me something that day that is like, okay, I think I have so many solutions and suggestions to a problematic situation, but it’s not my job. It was not a me problem. It was a them problem that…

Victoria (23:50)
When? ⁓

Maria Rush (24:05)
they were able to solve themselves. About the same time, another good example where I really had one of those like, okay, I’m practicing this was our son, might have been a little bit young, he went to nursery and he came home one day and he was clearly upset. So I said, you know.

doing and he said I’m really really angry and I said all right I can see if you’ve had a tough day at nursery what’s do you want to talk about it and he said to me yes I was going to play with some friends but all they wanted to do was run around with their sticks out in the playground and I didn’t feel happy with that I was like I didn’t want to do that my first reaction inside was like don’t

you know, don’t play with those boys. Go and play with that nice boy called John, let’s say, instead. He’s great. Because that is me finding a solution in my head, like within a second. Great, I thought, that’s a great solution. But I had to bite my tongue and I was so as quiet and asked him like, okay, so what would you like to do tomorrow, going back to nursery? said, I don’t know. I said, okay, should we ever think about it? And then he said,

Well actually, if I don’t like playing with the sticks, I want to play with someone else. Perhaps I can go and speak to that new boy, he’s really nice. John, do you know him? And I was like, yeah, I know John. He’s nice. You get on really, really well. And they did. And they are still best friends at age 17. So that, hmm.

Victoria (25:35)
Yeah.

⁓ amazing. This is, this

is, it’s just so relatable. So I mentioned earlier, we were, we had to do a bit of therapy by a bit, I mean, like two plus years. And I was diagnosed as being a fixer. And that is, I think, essentially what you’re describing. And

Maria Rush (25:57)
Yeah.

Victoria (26:12)
It’s your instinct to solve the problem and you don’t give anyone else the opportunity to solve it themselves. And I’d never clocked this in myself, but actually in motherhood, it came out and it probably still does manifest itself. But just having somebody point that out and actually give you permission not to fix and those questions like what would happen if you didn’t fix that problem?

Because again, and it comes back to kind of emasculating your partner in a relationship, if you’re in a heterosexual relationship, you know, I’ll do it, like give it to me, do this and sort of dictate and lead always. And you’ve got the right answer and we need to move on quickly. And actually also that sometimes it’s all right to just, and she would say, just sit in the shit. Just be, sometimes someone will come to you with a problem.

Maria Rush (27:01)
Hmm.

Victoria (27:12)
and they don’t want you to fix it. So why are you inviting yourself into that space? And I would do it relentlessly. And it can be quite suffocating for the other person, which is something that I never had considered. And I honestly just thought I was being really helpful. And you probably did too. And you’re just helping everybody to, and it’s part of that snowplow. You’re just moving all the challenges and the problems out of everybody’s way. But then what happens when your children

Maria Rush (27:13)
⁓ No. ⁓

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Victoria (27:41)
are 13, what happens when they’re 17? And they suddenly have a problem and you’re not there. Really, in terms of parenting, it’s a big deal to kind of reflect upon your behavior like that and try and amend it. But you are giving your child the gift of problem solving rather than denying it to them. And it’s all about your need to control everything, which again,

Maria Rush (27:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

No.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (28:10)
is kind of a distress symptom, isn’t it? Because you’re feeling overwhelmed. You just take control of everything and you make it all okay in your mind. But actually, yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s so interesting, honestly, and I relate so much to this experience. And I’m really, I’m interested to understand how this kind of revolution in your thinking, this enlightenment, impacted your work life and what you decided to do.

Maria Rush (28:13)
Mm-mm. Mm.

Victoria (28:38)
in work because we have these two aspects of our, our kind of our two big roles in life. You know, we have to have something for ourselves that puts, you know, money in the money box, but we’re also mother. So how did, you know, you had all this learning, it can’t have not had an impact on your work. So what did that look like?

Maria Rush (28:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s actually really interesting because they coincided at the same time coming out of maternity leave is quite long in Sweden which is such a privilege that we have. So two maternity leaves later I was sort of looking to yeah because my sort of world and outlook on life actually changed as you can imagine quite a lot.

So this was definitely, I knew, was like an untapped strength and a new ⁓ way of living for me that I really wanted to explore. So quite naturally…

It sort of led into quite a lot of coaching, mentoring, both in sort of nine to five jobs that I’ve had over time when we’ve lived either in Sweden or in England. I’ve always sort of tried to…

cater for the family, but also for myself to be my best version in this motherhood and work as well. But what it has really developed into is that I now work as a self-leadership mentor for women, especially women and mothers, because I know that this is such a relatable topic for a lot of us.

And I can also see that it goes through different generations. So I can obviously relate. I’m 51, so can relate to my generation. But I’m also working with younger clients as well that are…

perhaps have parents that are my age and what their communication style has had an effect on them. So we can see that a younger generation has got a lot of, you know, they got a lot better perhaps awareness that we have, but they also consume a lot of information. So sometimes there’s also a gap between information input and also being able to embody what you learn. that there’s quite, there’s a quite

interesting relationship between the generations and that’s what I find really really interesting that what I help people with is finding that self-awareness whether you’re 23 or whether you’re 55 because it’s never too late to make you know a difference and a change and

And I call it almost like a missing link between, because I don’t need to help women or mothers to be successful. They are so capable and…

you know, we achieve most things that we put our minds to. So that’s not a part that I help people with, but it is discovering that missing link so they can also enjoy all their achievements on the inside. You know, they can enjoy the outer success mixed with that inner success of finding that genuine calm and joy and…

fulfillment in life that we all want. So it’s not one or the other, but it’s really being able to combine them. yeah, it is that missing link of being able to communicate through your emotions. ⁓

Victoria (32:31)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we all identify with society’s definition of success. And through our schooling, I mean, I imagine that it is similar today. My kids have only just, well, my eldest has only just started school.

but it’s, know, exams and testing and you reach this stage, then you go on to this stage and this stage and it’s very prescribed and you’re funneled in one way or another depending on your strengths and weaknesses. And then you’re expected to go out into the world and do X and Y and Z. And we can achieve all of those things and play by those rules. Yet, as you say, still feel quite

Maria Rush (33:16)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria (33:21)
empty and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts like what do you think the key reasons are for this like at what stage do you feel like we lose that connection with our internal compass and how does that play out to the point that you know somebody could reach 23 or 55?

Maria Rush (33:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (33:47)
and feel that way, even though outwardly, and like you said, with your family, you had fulfillment. Anyone looking in would see that you had everything you could ever want. And also people will tell you, well, everyone’s healthy. Everyone’s this, what’s the problem? But that there’s something, and it is that missing link. Why do you think that is happening?

Maria Rush (33:55)
Thank

Exactly.

So I only ever speak from my experience and my you know from me as an example looking back I know that I just did not have the words I did not have the vocabulary of

knowing actually how I felt about things. I was stuck with happy, sad, angry. That was about the width of yes. I mean, I did okay on those, but I have to explain it like almost like a picture for you perhaps to understand it better. Like I’ve always loved life.

Victoria (34:37)
was as complex as it got, Okay.

Maria Rush (34:52)
I’ve always enjoyed being with my partner and my friends and all the jobs I’ve had. But it’s always felt like there was something, almost like a shadow following me. And I’ve never understood what it was because I am a happy person, you know, and I find things really easy in life and I’ve never had much trouble, you know, but there’s still something heavy, you know, in me.

And I’d been to therapist and I’d tried to read up about things and I was like, you know, I could not identify it until our son came along. And I realised that it was for me, the lack of empathy. And empathy for me encompasses quite a lot of things. It is really about being able to put words onto how I feel.

but also understand my own needs. And that goes beyond if I’m tired, hungry, or need a toilet. There’s so much more to it, but that was my level. And by being able to practise and expand on my vocabulary on how I was actually feeling about things and why I needed certain things, that was what…

really brought me forward. And it still does to this day that I still have to be mindful about it. Now I can sort of recognise certain things if I do certain things. I know what this is all about and I’m more conscious about it. But I think it derives from…

As you say, when you’re a child, you have this innate ability to just connect with the world and you are a being. So you be, you are the being that you are until we start doing things. And I can see that my generation, we were…

brought up in a way that we became very independent very early on in life and we became doers. I’m a great doer and we do it at a very high quality. But it meant that we sort of, detached ourselves from the beings. So we were just doing lots of things all our lives, but we sort of forgot about what it’s like to just be because when we just being, that’s when

our bodies and minds and souls and everything will just tell us what it is that we need and how we feel about things. And I believe that that’s when we take those genuine, authentic decisions for ourselves. So, which is quite sad when you think about it. And I don’t know exactly what age that comes around, but what I do know, and as I said, it was so encouraging for me that we can find our way back to that because we still have it in us. It’s just that we have…

We need a better toolbox to help us find our way back. And it’s actually, it’s not that difficult. It does need a bit of practice and it does take a bit of time to speak in a more compassionate way and a solution-based way. But that becomes normal as well, like anything else that you do. ⁓

And the beauty of it is that the result is, as I said, more calm, more joy. It sort of almost deflects drama. As you said, I’m not inviting drama into my life because I’m not, I have no need to fix anyone else’s problems. Even though I can, I can, I’m so capable, I can do it anytime. I can solve anyone’s problems if it’s like.

Victoria (38:34)
Hmm.

Maria Rush (38:40)
But I don’t need to and I know that that is one of my sort of biggest… ⁓

Victoria (38:43)
Yeah.

Maria Rush (38:51)
It’s not a challenge, but it’s something that’s actually really challenging for me, for my body. The moment I step in to try and solve other people’s problems, that affects me so deeply and it’s so draining for me when there’s really no need. And as you say correctly, very few people want to be fixed or solved. Most of us just want to have someone to…

Victoria (39:04)
Hmm.

Maria Rush (39:16)
air something or to just talk about it. But I know myself now that that is one of my greatest drainer, is when I’m fixing other people. ⁓

Victoria (39:24)
That’s

interesting as well because I never really looked at it like that and it all ties back into empathy. And because you do it so in such a, I mean, I’m gonna say in such a rush, but you see a problem when you’re in that mindset and you rush to fix it. And actually you have to deploy some empathy very quickly to understand. And this is empathy for the people with the problem.

Maria Rush (39:37)
Mm.

Yes.

Victoria (39:53)
and you have to engage your brain very quickly to resolve and you’re involved and that exercise in itself takes something from you. And if you keep doing that, and I speak from experience that very early season of motherhood, I was doing it incessantly.

Maria Rush (40:15)
you

Victoria (40:21)
for my children and for my partner, relentlessly, every problem that manifested anywhere in this house or anywhere we were, and I was going to solve it. But actually that, you’re right. And I’d never really considered that that actually takes a lot of your energy and can be cumulatively really, really depleting. And then you have less head space and less bandwidth.

Maria Rush (40:39)
in.

Very.

Victoria (40:49)
to cope with other challenges that come along or to actually do that investigative work that is the more important thing about like, what am I doing? Where am I going? Who am I? What am I? Animal, minimal, vegetable. And it’s almost a distraction that you become addicted to. It’s like, well, I can’t think about it. I can’t sit and meditate because I have to solve everyone’s problem every day and that takes all my time. So I’m just gonna do that. And it’s so, it’s so destructive.

Maria Rush (40:51)
Yeah, yeah, thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That’ll be all right.

Victoria (41:18)
but it’s

a cycle that you can live in for years, know, such a long time.

Maria Rush (41:21)
Yeah, people do.

People do because I think most of the time we are not aware of this. It’s a subconscious thing. And it becomes like a vicious circle. And there’s no wonder why we feel overwhelmed, exhausted, but also that feeling of unfulfillment. It’s just a void. It’s a black void that we can’t identify because we know.

Victoria (41:27)
Yeah.

Maria Rush (41:50)
This is what I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of women and mothers as well. We’ve sort of been Because we are so capable we think or we believe that we can work ourselves out of something if we just work a little bit harder a Little bit quicker. This is going to be okay And it’s the opposite of what we need to do

Victoria (42:22)
Do you think as well, I mean, it is intergenerational. I think about, you know, the examples, like my parents are such capable people and my father’s always been self-employed and he would literally say, you know, you have a problem, no one’s coming to save you, you roll up your sleeves and you work through it. And that was a sentence that he could very easily literally say to me and probably did on multiple occasions. And there’s something

Maria Rush (42:48)
you

Victoria (42:52)
valuable in it in that it is self-reliance, and it is independence, and it is agency, and all of those things. And it’s boosting, you know, you can do it. It’s not I’m going to go, I’ve got a problem, I’m going to go and hide in a darkened room. And you know, their generation is brought up by the baby boomers, know, by the second World War generation. And it’s keep calm and carry on.

Maria Rush (42:55)
Yeah.

Victoria (43:15)
and it’s stoic and it’s stiff upper lip and it’s I couldn’t be less in touch with my emotions if I tried, I’m not really sure what one is. So all of these things kind of trickle down and each generation has to do a little bit of unpacking but that there’s actually a balance and a nuance in it that we’re missing. Like yes, you are capable. Yes, you could plow on through this but to just ask that question.

Maria Rush (43:38)
Yeah.

Victoria (43:44)
Is that the right thing? Is that going to serve you? And is that just a trend where another challenge will come in and you’ll plow through that and then another one and you plow through that and suddenly you’re just spending your whole life and we’re back to the Swedish snowplow? Literally. Yeah, it’s so interesting.

Maria Rush (43:48)
Mmm, I love it.

Thanks.

Yeah, Yeah, no, it’s exactly

that. You put that so well, Victoria, because it is, just because we can, just because we are able and capable, does not mean that we need to do it or should be doing it. I know we’ve talked about this before, that we can use should in a way, but it’s not the solution. We can never work ourselves out of this.

So we need to stop and we need to look the other way and that the solution is literally around the corner. You have it all. I know it sounds cliche, but you have it all within you. But you need that sort of little bit of a buffer. And I’m thinking that just saying no, we’ve talked about this here now before as well, just being able to say no, for example, to certain things, to really prioritize and seeing what’s really important. I thought I could perhaps give some other

To give this a little bit more context as well, we talk about the communication and we can talk about communication breakdowns. And sometimes when I use that word, I sort of automatically think that is always when I’m communicating with someone else, but it’s not. It’s how we communicate with ourselves. That’s where we always start.

But it’s a two-way thing, absolutely. But remember that these examples are also very much based on how I communicate with myself and then when I communicate with you. So I’ve noticed there’s like three quite clear sort of ways.

reasons why we have communication breakdowns and this goes for when I speak to myself but also others as I said. Number one is that we don’t speak long enough sentences because we tend to simplify things so

I know that my brain works really quickly in some ways and I can be very clear about what it is that I want in my head but it’s not always that I communicate it clearly enough to the other person, so to the receiver. So that’s one reason why we don’t get very far in our communication or that it actually breaks down.

Number two is that we have all got expectations on a situation. ⁓ Quite often we are not sort of consciously aware of what these expectations are and let alone how we can actually express them so that other people that are involved can also express their expectation and see if we are aligned. It could be anything from

Going on a holiday, let’s say, or going away for the weekend, or even an evening out, is really to be clear about what expectations have I got on this evening or this weekend. And if there’s like four of you in a family, it’s guaranteed that all four of you will have different expectations, especially when, well, actually, whether we have small children or teenagers like I have.

Victoria (47:17)
Yeah.

Maria Rush (47:18)
every one of you have got an idea in your head or body of what you expect from this weekend and that is a really really difficult thing to be able to communicate sometimes so that could be a really helpful thing of like before you go just sit down and say okay what do I really want after this weekend like

⁓ I need to have a really good night’s sleep. Okay, that’s my main aim. I’m happy. Yeah. Your partner might be like, I just want to have one hour of where I can go out for a walk or a run or something like that on my own. And then the kids might say, ⁓ we want to do all the things, you know, but to be able to… Yes. Yes.

Victoria (47:45)
Always.

Yeah, and it’s curiosity to actually ask that and like investigate it of each other because

if you under and I think about this, you know, things like Christmas, you know, Christmas is so loaded. And as we record, it’s coming up, it will have just gone by the time this comes out. But it’s so loaded with expectation and everyone has their favorite ritual. And actually, there is a lot of pressure on that one day. But if we just sat down,

Maria Rush (48:10)
Mmm. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I know.

Victoria (48:28)
you know, whoever you’re going to be spending the day with and just said, what are one or two things that really matter to you on this day? And just see where the overlaps are. And actually, there’s probably things that nobody cares about, that someone is going to put a lot of energy into. And you could just free up that time, you know, all mum wants to do is sit down. But instead, she’s spending ages making like a table centrepiece that no one cares anything about. And

Maria Rush (48:33)
No.

Yes.

Victoria (48:55)
Just the curiosity to ask the question. I think that’s such good advice. And it doesn’t have to be a really formal thing where you sit down and look at each other. What are everyone’s expectations? It’s not like that. It’s just in passing. Like as you get in the car, what does everyone hope we’re gonna do? What’s the one thing you’d like to do today as we go to XYZ place? It’s a really good, really good advice.

Maria Rush (48:56)
Yes, yeah. No, no.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Because it also teaches the appreciation of things and also the respect so we can also be happy and joyful for the other person. So let’s say if one child wants to go to the library and the other one wants to go down to the seafront or something like that. But to be able to perhaps do both for a little bit

Victoria (49:35)
Yeah.

Maria Rush (49:49)
and really for them to experience that, my little sister really enjoyed the library and I can see how happy my brother was down by the seafront. And then that will also become that shared experience that we can then make memories and talk about further on instead of having a communication breakdown because we haven’t sort of been curious, we hadn’t made it clear on what the expectations were.

Victoria (50:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Maria Rush (50:15)
So that

one is a really, really important one for me that I’ve learnt the hard way over the years. you know, it’s a nice way of being respectful and, as you say, curious, a really good word. The third one I tend to sort of joke a little bit about, but it is about assumption. We tend to assume that we know what’s going on with another person or that we assume that they should know

Victoria (50:21)
Hahaha! ⁓

Maria Rush (50:45)
what we’re thinking or what we need at any given time without even having to explain ourselves and this is when I wish I was a mind reader that would help a lot because things would be a lot easier but most of us are not mind readers so that’s another like the third point that I think we should or we can be a bit more mindful of like

Don’t assume things, be curious, ⁓ ask questions, but also be curious about yourself to check it with you that am I assuming things about someone else or a situation that is not helpful actually.

Victoria (51:24)
Yeah, yeah, three really, really beautiful pieces of advice. And it’s so interesting because actually we’re not taught how to communicate with each other. It’s just, and it’s at the heart of everything, isn’t it? I mean, the work that you do, you must just feel like you’re telling people things that they absolutely should have known because it’s so innate in us to communicate with each other. But it’s almost like actually the experience of growing up kind of

Maria Rush (51:43)
I know. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Victoria (51:53)
dampens that intuitive knowing that we do have as children. So it’s almost kind of molding us to be worse communicators, which is just bonkers.

Maria Rush (51:56)
Yes.

Yes,

it is bonkers and I tell you what, I’m still after like 15 plus years of doing this, I’m still surprised when I sit with clients and I tend to divide it up with like self-awareness, communication, training, because it’s mainly me. I’ve got slides, I’ve got a process, a framework.

And when we go through this, you know, I sit with again, highly qualified people, they could be companies or individuals that are communicators because we communicate every day. But they still go like, ⁓ my gosh, yeah.

I do that. I say that sometimes and I go, yeah. And people do recognise it when they get an example and when they see it black and white. So again, just to give it like more context.

I work with a five step process to make sure that we cover all the basics of good communication from experience in real life, how we have been brought up and how we actually run companies and families and society as a whole. We do perhaps step one so so possibly a bit of step two, but that’s it. That’s it. And we, you know,

Victoria (53:27)
Wow.

Maria Rush (53:30)
we wonder sometimes why life feels so challenging and why we got so much to do and that our to-do lists just keep growing and we not prioritizing ourselves, et cetera, et cetera. So I’m circling back to your question to start with actually of what is meant to me and how it works because that’s what I still stick to this day, five steps and I lead a quiet life.

Victoria (54:01)
Yeah, but it sounds so simple. Five steps, five kind of key points and methods to think about in terms of communication and that we are doing perhaps one and a half of them at best. And I wonder, mean, you are kind of post-enlightenment now and you are the epitome of calm and tranquility in my eyes.

Maria Rush (54:04)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (54:27)
And your podcast, which is gorgeous, is so peaceful to listen to and it’s full of wisdom. But I wonder what difference you think it would make in this world, you know, everybody, but I suppose in the context of this podcast for mothers who are trying to run businesses, you know, if they were to deploy the other three and a half points, you know, what do you think is on

Maria Rush (54:50)
Yeah.

Victoria (54:56)
the table for them to take advantage of if they were to learn more about this.

Maria Rush (55:01)
Such a good question. I get almost a bit overwhelmed with this thought of how I wish so deeply, out of pure love and compassion that we could all like communicate like this because it would enhance our lives no end.

We would understand ourselves so much better. We would just half all the things that we think that we need to do. And most importantly, obviously from your podcast audience as well of being moms, you create such deep and meaningful relationships with your children that are based on trust and compassion and understanding and…

as we pointed out as well, of empowering your children to come up with their own solutions in a very nurturing way. And that in itself gives back to you and yourself. yeah, it would mean so much to this world. I think it’s one of the best things we can actually invest in, to be honest,

to become more self-aware and drop all the, I don’t know, all these things that we’ve been taught or think we have been taught that we’ve picked up over so many years that are really not needed. In fact, I think so many things that we do are just stopping us from being authentic and leading that natural, calm and joyful life that we are looking for. And it saddens me, Victoria, because

Just on a sort of a more serious note perhaps, I, in my research as well over the years, joy is the one thing that comes number one on my list of people that I’ve spoken to that people want more of in life. It was outnumbered by number two and number three, which was confidence and peace and quiet, but joy, they want more joy in their life. And that tells me something.

And can have that and joy may look different to all of us, but joy for me is like being totally present and being able to feel I have choices to do what I want also in my life and how I spend it and with whom and in what way. So.

Victoria (57:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, and again,

society tells you that joy comes in a big holiday, or it comes when you buy that new thing that you’ve been eyeing up, you know, and we’re so misguided when it comes to joy, because actually it lives in the smallest moment, you know. And as a mum of young children, most of my joy is just when they do something funny, or when they say something adorable, you know, and all the other stuff.

Maria Rush (57:41)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Do it. That’s it.

Victoria (58:05)
just kind of melts away in those moments. And obviously these things, you your triggers for joy change over the years, but it’s the points of connection and actually communication is at the root of all connection. I’m so, I’ve been so fascinated by this whole conversation, Maria. It’s so interesting. It’s so interesting. And okay, on the point of communication and communicating with self, last question.

Maria Rush (58:07)
Hmm.

Yeah, yes. Thank you.

you

Yes.

Victoria (58:35)
What would you now go back and tell your eight year old self if you had a chance to have a conversation with her?

Maria Rush (58:42)
⁓ my goodness.

You are good enough as you are and you are true. That’s what I would say. Everything about you is genuine true and truths that you know everything you need to know.

I know he was lonely and…

But I would say to her to keep going, to be true to yourself and that we will meet at some point. And I’m so glad I did this work. So I am embracing her every day. I really am.

Victoria (59:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

and there is something about that kind of, that work and that personal growth that kind of brings you home to yourself, I think.

Maria Rush (59:41)
Absolutely.

I think I’ve always seen, as I said, you can look at different seasons in life and for a very long time I’ve felt quite separate from my younger self. But the more work I do, the closer I get to her. And sometimes I really do like visual work with myself. I’m literally sitting down on my knees, embracing her and like…

taking her hand and she’s coming with me and we do this work together. ⁓ So and again I really want to point out Victoria that this is nobody’s fault or like there’s no blame on parents or grandparents or society it is sort of I

I also know that we need to go through certain things. We all have our own journey and our own path in life. And of course, I am where I am because of my experiences. But I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to discover something that has been able to heal me and ⁓ heal my family. And I’m also able to help others. ⁓

Victoria (1:00:55)
It’s wonderful work and I can feel what it means to you as well, which is kind of, it’s really, really infectious and it kind of lights me up to hear you talk about it. And I so appreciate you taking the time to talk about it with me because it’s something that is so fundamental. But again, mean, ironically, we don’t talk about communication half as much as we should. And it just leads to…

Maria Rush (1:01:11)
We’ll be back.

Victoria (1:01:25)
as you were kind of eluding, done correctly, such a rich life. And I recommend everybody go and find you and listen to your podcast and follow everything you do. yeah, tell me where everybody can do that.

Maria Rush (1:01:38)
Thank

Yes, thank you. So my, where you can find me is on my website, which is www.mariarush.co.uk and also the Women Don’t Rush podcast. You can find me on Instagram, is Women Don’t Rush podcast. What else? LinkedIn, Maria Rush. And I also…

want it to offer your lovely audience, Victoria, if they’re interested in doing some work on this, a 20 % discount on some of my either mentoring or we can also put together a group program for mums. We would have a lot to discuss. So perhaps if you can put that in your show notes, 20 % with a code and yeah, we can take it from there. But yeah, come and join.

Victoria (1:02:26)
amazing.

Absolutely.

Maria Rush (1:02:39)
the good stuff that we’re doing in Victoria and I together as well. So I really appreciate being on this podcast today.

Victoria (1:02:48)
it’s been a joy. I will put all of that information in the show notes and I can’t imagine anybody listening to this conversation and not wanting to know more about your five steps and the three and a half that we’re missing. So thank you so much, Maria. I’ve loved it. It’s been a really enlightening conversation.

Maria Rush (1:02:51)
Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much Victoria for doing all the great work you’re doing and it’s been, yeah, I feel so honoured to be part here of your podcast. Thank you.

Victoria (1:03:20)
Aww, you’re so welcome!

Maria Rush (1:03:23)
Thank