Today we’d like to introduce you to Meg Ruzicka.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story really started long before Mindful Phases had a name.
I became a mother and like so many women, quickly realized how much motherhood changes every part of you. Then in January 2018, I lost my mom to suicide. That loss completely changed the direction of my life. I was grieving, raising my daughter, navigating life as a single mother at the time, and trying to figure out who I was in the middle of all of it.
During that season, I started gathering women together. We would sit in circles, talk, cry, laugh, journal, connect with nature and simply have a place where we didn’t have to pretend we were okay. I didn’t realize it then but those circles were really the beginning of everything I do now. I learned how powerful it is when women feel safe, heard and supported.
That eventually led me into birthwork, and in 2019 I started Mindful Phases as a birth and postpartum doula. Birth felt like such a natural extension of the work I was already doing. I wasn’t there to tell women how to birth or what choices to make. I wanted to be the person beside them reminding them that they had choices, that their voice mattered and that they deserved to feel safe and respected.
Over the last seven years, I’ve supported women through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, sleepless nights, huge transitions and some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. My work has grown with me because I’ve grown so much alongside the women I’ve supported.
Eventually, I realized I wanted to create something bigger than my individual doula work. I wanted a physical place where women and families could find community before pregnancy, during motherhood and long after the baby years were over. That became Mindful Phases Wellness Studio.
The studio has allowed me to bring so many pieces of my life and work under one roof—pregnancy and postpartum support, yoga, Reiki, sound baths, children’s music, women’s circles, menopause conversations, retreats, community gatherings and holistic wellness. Some events have been packed, and some I’ve poured my heart into and had only a handful of women walk through the door. I’ve learned that both matter.
I’ve built this while raising my two children, Creek and Geddie, navigating major life changes, co-parenting, relationships, financial risks and all of the very unglamorous parts of owning a small business. There have been plenty of moments when walking away would have been easier. But every time a woman tells me she finally felt heard, a new mom finds her people, a child runs into the studio excited for music class or women stay talking long after an event was supposed to end, I’m reminded why I keep going.
I don’t think I ever sat down and decided I was going to create a wellness community. I just kept following the places where women needed more support—and, in many ways, the places where I had needed it too.
Today, Mindful Phases feels less like a business I created and more like something that has grown alongside me. I am entering another new chapter now, and I’m still figuring parts of it out as I go. But the heart of it has never changed: creating spaces where women can feel safe, supported, connected and a little less alone in whatever phase of life they’re walking through.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Mindful Phases really started long before I ever had a business name for it.
After losing my mom to suicide in 2018, I found myself moving through grief while also navigating motherhood and trying to figure out who I was becoming. I started gathering women together for women’s circles sometimes simply because I needed that kind of space myself. I needed somewhere women could show up exactly as they were—without fixing, performing, or pretending everything was okay.
That season of my life eventually led me into birthwork.
Eventually, I realized I wanted to create something with the most passion anyone had ever seen. And trust me, I get discouraged and want to quit every day.
But I keep going.
At the center of all of it, though, is the same thing that was there when I first gathered a few women together after losing my mom: I believe women need places where they can feel held, heard, supported, and reminded that they don’t have to move through every season of life alone.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At the heart of my work, I’m a birth and postpartum doula and that has been the foundation of Mindful Phases. I’m probably best known for the way I support women through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and all of the transitions that happen around motherhood. And how I’m not afraid to speak up for them as well.
My approach is very holistic, but also very real. I bring education, comfort measures, Spinning Babies techniques, hypnobirthing, nourishing postpartum care, warming foods, overnight support, and emotional support into my work—but more than anything, I want women to feel like they have someone in their corner. I’m really passionate about informed consent and reminding women that they are allowed to ask questions, say no, change their minds, and be active participants in their own care.
Postpartum work is especially close to my heart. I think our culture spends so much time preparing for the baby and not nearly enough time caring for the woman who just became a mother. Sometimes my work looks like processing a birth story at the kitchen table. Sometimes it’s making a warm meal, caring for a baby overnight so a mother can sleep, helping a couple find their footing again, or simply being the person who notices how Mom is actually doing.
Over the years, that same philosophy grew beyond individual doula clients and into Mindful Phases Wellness Studio. I wanted to create a place where support didn’t disappear once someone was no longer pregnant or newly postpartum. The studio has become a gathering place for so many different seasons of womanhood and family life—from pregnancy and new-mom circles to childbirth education, yoga, Reiki, sound baths, music classes for children, menopause conversations, retreats, women’s gatherings, community events, and spaces for couples to reconnect.
I think that’s what I’m most proud of.
I’m proud of the births I’ve attended and the mothers who have trusted me during some of the most vulnerable hours of their lives. I’m proud when a client tells me she felt heard, safe, strong, or cared for. But I’m also incredibly proud that I’ve taken that same feeling and started building an actual community around it.
Success to me isn’t always a sold-out event. Sometimes it’s four women sitting in a room talking honestly about menopause and realizing they aren’t alone. Sometimes it’s a pregnant mother walking into a circle nervous and leaving with a friend. Sometimes it’s children making music together while their mothers connect. Sometimes it’s a woman walking into the studio during a difficult season and realizing there is a place for her there.
I’ve never wanted Mindful Phases to feel clinical or like another wellness business where you have to have everything together before you walk through the door. I want it to feel warm, a little unconventional, safe, welcoming, and human.
After seven years in birthwork, I’m proud that I haven’t lost the reason I started doing this in the first place. The business has grown, the studio is growing, and my ideas are always growing—but my work is still centered around something very simple: caring for women and families through the phases of life when they need community the most.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Five years from now, I hope Mindful Phases has grown into something that feels less like a traditional wellness studio and more like a true community home.
I see a space where a woman might first walk through the doors pregnant, come back with her baby for postpartum support, bring her toddler to music class, attend a women’s circle when she needs connection, bring her partner for a date night, and years later find herself sitting in a menopause circle with some of those same women. I love the idea of supporting women through all of their phases—not just pregnancy and birth.
One of my biggest dreams is continuing to expand the physical space and what we can offer there. I would love to have a salt room, aerial yoga, more holistic practitioners, retreats, family programming, seasonal gatherings, and experiences that make wellness feel accessible and actually enjoyable. I want there to always be a little magic mixed in too—full moon gatherings, fires, women sitting together, children playing, good food, music, nature, and opportunities for people to slow down and reconnect.
I also see myself continuing birthwork, but I think there will be a shift in how much of my time is spent physically attending births versus mentoring, teaching, and creating community. Birthwork will always be part of who I am, but after years of being on call and pouring so much of myself into individual families, I’m learning that longevity matters too. I want to teach what I’ve learned, support newer doulas, expand childbirth and postpartum education, and find ways to care for more women without constantly sacrificing time with my own children.
I’d love to grow Women of the Woods retreats as well. A business I started with a dear friend that is all about gathering in nature and validating yourself. There is something really powerful to me about taking women outside of their normal lives for a few days and giving them permission to rest, reconnect with themselves, be in nature, laugh, cry, eat good food, and remember who they are outside of all the roles they carry.
The biggest shift, though, may actually be personal. For a long time I’ve built things while surviving so many things at the same time. In five years, I don’t necessarily want to be doing more just for the sake of doing more.
I want what I’ve built to feel sustainable.
I want to have a team of people I trust, a thriving space that doesn’t require me to personally hold every piece of it, more freedom to be present with my children, and enough room in my own life to actually enjoy what I worked so hard to create.
If Mindful Phases becomes a place that women and families in this community genuinely feel belongs to them—and my kids grow up remembering that their mom created a place where people came together, felt safe, and took care of one another—I think I’ll feel like I built exactly what I was supposed to.
Pricing:
- Doula Support $950-$2900
- Yoga/Classes $10-$22
- Events $15-$275
- Sublet $100/day
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mindfulphaseswellness.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulphaseswellness?stkn=MXdjZGZkdnZxYXp6dw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindfulphasesdoulawork?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr
