Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives, and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health but when they listen to the rare girls podcasts where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories many women will feel, inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all insecurities they will feel. It is a safe space to find their confidence to remember their unique beauty and to feel their self-worth and they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Ludmila Osypinkova. Luda moved to Dubai last year and from April 2023 she quit her commercial career at the peak of it and is getting into a new profession in psychology which is her passion at the moment. Originally from the south of Russia but most of her adult life she lived in Moscow. Luda is a typical Sagittarius so she is crazy about learning new things, foreign languages and cultures and traveling. She studied French linguistics, financial management and getting her third educational degree now. For over 10 years, she worked in commerce, in supplies and sales with Chinese and Russian markets. Luda believes that all changes in our lives start from within, human potential is unlimited and everything is possible. It's all a matter of following our hearts with positive attitude and commitment. Luda, how are you today? Hi, Eze. Thank you very, very well. And it's very nice to meet you in person. And thank you very much for your invitation. And it's a pleasure to be with your podcast. I'm happy. I'm honored. I'm lucky and privileged to have you here. I'll begin with a nice first question that just helps you warm up a little bit, which is difficult as well. If your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you? - It's really always a difficult question because I should have asked my friends yesterday to tell you today because it's always, we have, you know, a lot of faces each of us. I think they would say I'm honest, straightforward, easygoing, open-minded, also very understanding, supportive, and fun to be around, and all that positive things. I think it always depends on the situation. You know, we have different some personalities that act on our behalf in different situations. Like if you ask my colleagues, they would say I'm very tough at work. But if you ask my nieces and nephews, they would say I'm very gentle and soft person. So it depends. And it's always a matter of situation and people you are dealing with. Thank you. I love that. I noticed that those answers are very very much related to people and to psychology and I know you love psychology very much. Tell me that story. How did you discover that you are so fascinated with psychology that you're willing to dedicate such a big chunk of your life now to it? How did it start? Were you just maybe a teenager reading about psychology or you had a poster of Freud on your wall instead of one of the celebrities or the pop singers or how did it go? Is it maybe? Like in my case, psychology was fascinating to me for two reasons. I wanted to understand myself more because it was more about self-reflection as well as at some point when I was much younger, people did not make sense to me. So I was like, people are either crazy or I am maybe the one who's crazy. Let me understand much more. So psychology was the language that allows you to see things that enable you to understand life and reality better. But what is it for you? Is it healing work? Is it intellectual curiosity? Or much, much more? Oh, such an interesting question where you answered half of it from my side also, because I think there were several reasons why I came into psychology and it happened finally last year that I realized I wanted to try to study it seriously and to make it my profession. But before that time there were several years that I had been listening to different podcasts on YouTube about relationship, about all the psychological issues, very deep issues about the soul and spirituality, all of that stuff. And it had been so interesting to me that at some point, maybe two years ago, I found myself that almost all of my free time, like when I'm going somewhere, when I'm spending my time with myself, I'm always listening to something interesting and new for me. And finally, last year when in May my mother died, I made my decision after that in summer that I wanted to try to make it more serious for myself and maybe even try to make it my career. And after this one year of first year of my studies, I realized that it's, I didn't lose my interest. It's on the contrary, has become more and more strong and wide and I see how it's changing myself and how it expands in my mind. And I also really liked how you articulate your question in terms of was it a healing process or was it just that you are so interested in people. I'm really so very much interested in people, in why they behave the way they behave, why they are like who they are and why they have these or those traits of personality. And it's been always like that, but I never thought, like you say, I thought that everyone is like that, but I think it's not like that. And I always liked to discuss to my friends, for example, their problems and to find ways out and why they have these problems and maybe to help them to see their situation from another perspective. So I think that we're different things that come together in one point that I made the decision to be to realize in my life. Thank you so much for sharing that. And often psychologically, the environment we are in, if it has triggers of past traumas or triggers of the past, the person who you used to be, it becomes difficult to change. So you moved from Moscow to Dubai, it's like a pilgrimage, and you, Paige, in your life that allows you to truly start fresh. How was that experience, not even on the outside world, but subjectively, of you feeling free from expectations of habits that could have formed within specific environments? And how was that helping you develop as a person, grow, and understand yourself more, and have a more psychological development that allows you to feel that you're growing. Yeah, thank you, Aziz, for this question. It's been different. All of that process has been different, but I can say that all along this path, and all along this last year, which had been objectively very messy because I had to go to Moscow and back and everything was so unpredictable for me. But on the other side, I had a feeling that something is guiding me on this way and something is supporting me like some higher power you can say or just life. And by my nature, I'm very rational, you know, and all my childhood and my school and teenage times, I had been always studying, studying, studying. I had been very rational and I think I miss to have this intuitive part of me, which is very valuable for us to on our new decisions and on our new stages in our life. And I think this last year had been very good for my intuitive part to be more strong, to become more strong, to become stronger and to show itself up. And now that I feel that it has become much stronger and I can base on it, it's much, much easier to live like that. It's much easier that you can just trust the life to flow as it flows and just have your final goal in your mind and let all the circumstances to be flexible about how it happens. And I think that's a very important part of any changes that we make in our life that we should be open to the new opportunities, to how the things happen to us, and just to see, to follow the flow, something like that. Thank you. And that's very important. I want to know more, because most of humanity, not just women, have been programmed, even by school, to do things in the right way. otherwise they get like the red pen and a bad score or rating on their education. A lot of people have anxiety where they think, yes, I know there is like a higher power that is protecting me, but I don't know if I have an accident, I die. And so I don't want to try risking it and flowing and just trusting, etc. How did you change psychologically? How did you think before when you were too rational and what allowed you to open up to flow with the energy of the world to trust so that you are more intuitive without closing up or being scared in the process? - Yes, I think there are several issues that are important in these terms. First of all, even how I moved to Dubai, I just kept that idea that I wanted someday to live here. and I want to move and things happened that way that everything just pushed me again and again to come to this city and for the last maybe three years I have come to Dubai maybe six or seven times so and once you per apu like little by little you get into the new unknown and unknown before and like dark stage of your life or dark space, but it becomes more lighter and lighter with the more you stay here. So it's really very difficult, I can say. And I'm also from the family where people where we are very much focused on material things and with a lot of fears and quite rigid now thinking. But I think some people, they just have that fire inside of them that just, I cannot, if I understand that I already know everything until the end of my life, I will not stay in this point. I need to see what we have more. And I'd rather risk it and try to see to go on the other side and maybe I lose it but I just try it and I just make attempt it's for sure better for me than just to know that I'm not satisfied with what I have now and it's it really has been quite difficult for me to make the decision especially when I was quitting my job, it was really tough for me. I had spent about three or three weeks to think it over and finally decided. I was like pushing myself from one state into the new one. But it's workable. It's just you need to be patient, positive thinking. positive thinking in terms of, you know, like whatever you need, it's important to think that whatever happens to you, however upsetting it looks at the moment, it is always for your better. This is, I'm sure, 100% at the moment. And I have had a lot of examples and a lot of the situations in my life where I could see the proof of that. So with that approach, like whatever happens to you, if you keep in mind the positive picture as the final goal, then you just can't help succeed. I think so. So I hope so for myself also now, because I'm now in the middle of my way. I'm not in the final point, obviously. It's like transit time for me and it's also not easy. But I see how it had been working before and I believe that it will be working further on. So it's like, you know, at one moment you understand the rules of the game and then you see how much you can play, how far you can play, and then it's very hard to stop. I love that very, very much. That sounds very ambitious and I agree with you. Often Gutt has a saying that once you commit to a course of action, the universe will conspire to help you. So I am very, very familiar. And you spoke about being in transit, actually, that is being outside of your comfort zone. That's the only zone where you grow. So I plan to be as much of my life as possible outside of my comfort zone so that I'm constantly growing. Because honestly, like if I am in my comfort zone for too long, I'm not the kind of person who can accept not growing. I feel not comfortable if I'm not growing, but I feel like I'm dying. So the opposite. Some people feel like they're comfortable. I feel like I'm suffocating or I'm not living up to my potential. And therefore, it's very, very important for me. And to ask you more about this, a few things. You said, for example, you wanted to learn psychology because you had some miscommunications in your dating life, etc. Just for women in general, can you share what are some of the things that you had trouble with maybe before? What were some of the sources of miscommunication? What did you learn about yourself and about relationships? Things, because you mentioned that as one of the primary things that got you even more interested in learning psychology, so can you share a bit more about that? Yes, sorry, Aziz, I missed the question. I'm so sorry. No worries. I just said, you said in the beginning that you wanted to learn psychology because you had communication problems with dating and men. So I'm saying in general, what did you learn about yourself, about men? What was before the issue? Was it that you were, like I said before, not with the right person and compatibility. So it's not about the communication skills is different or that you are a different person than you grew now or what can you share that other women too maybe can get some answers if they're confused a bit related to this topic. So we come to this world with our negative baggage and it's been reinforced during our childhood. And I think that throughout our life it's our purpose to see it. And I really never had a picture of a perfect family relationship and a perfect relationship between women and men. And then when I went to therapy, I couldn't even imagine my mother and my father being happily standing together in one picture. So I think that was the reason why it was so difficult for me to make relationships with men afterwards. And I did have a relationship and I don't think that men were not good enough for me. It's just a matter of how you communicate and how you connect. And this connection just didn't have the possibility of happy ending because it wasn't in my mind. The mindset was like that, that it should be like ups and downs, it should be a lot of emotions, but not a happy, stable life and balanced life together. So yes, that was also a topic for me for my therapy and for my self work. And it was also one of the reasons why I went to study psychology because it's like I thought I anyway have the interest into that. Why don't I just legitimate it and make it more part of my everyday life if I already do that? So kind of that. - I understand. So you had the imprint of your parents that you needed to let go of through therapy and understanding yourself. And it's a topic that is fascinating to you. So why not make it the way that you add value and change the world and impact life and all of it? I understand fully and completely. And you spoke about going to therapy. There are some women who need to go to therapy, but maybe they don't think it's effective or they think it means bad things about them or any other thing in that way, especially from some cultures. I don't know how common it is, but I don't imagine in the Russian culture that people think it's a fun experience and a proud point to go to therapy. Maybe they hide it and don't say that I'm going to therapy. But to you, what is your recommendation for women so that they are willing to go to therapy, to work on themselves directly, to invest even in that so that they don't have to try to fix everything themselves without help from the outside world because we live in a society where many people pretend to be super strong, super healthy in every way and then other people compare themselves and think that they're weak and imperfect. I think that people who are happy with their life and with the way they are, it's perfectly fine. that if they believe that they are strong and they like their life they live, they don't obviously need the therapy. But if somebody is unhappy and going the cycles again and again, I really would recommend to ask for some help in this case because it really can make it much, much easier and smoother and quicker the way towards yourself and to become more in concept with your real self because that is what therapy is doing, just healing their traumas and make you become whole again. And I think nowadays it's becoming much more and more popular and also in Russia, it's been, it has become very popular, I think. But maybe I think so because I'm so much interested in it and I can see that. But it's been always also a women's topic. Women like psychology and it's a part of our life to talk about all of that and it's very interesting and share all of that stuff together. So I think that it's really important to understand that if you want to change your life, it's always or should be starting within from yourself, with yourself. And if you want to change yourself, you need to do some self-work. If you know how to do it, it's fine. But if you don't know, maybe you ask the people who are professional. 100%. And I'm curious about you, have you always felt that you are different to everyone around you, maybe even Russia, or it was opposite, you're such an empath, you felt connected with everybody, and then you needed to work on your own separation and becoming an individual. What was it for you? Were you growing up and thinking, I'm in this culture, I am in Russia, yes, the people are nice and everything, but I'm from another planet, maybe starseed. Or you are thinking the opposite that you feel, I'm a super empath, so I can feel everything, even the cats and the dogs and the trees, all the everything around me. So you felt it so much that you need the self-work and separation to become your own individual. No, I think I have been very individual as a teenager and a child. And as I told you before, my original side is much, much stronger than intuitive. And that's also one of the reasons why I maybe got interested in psychology because I realized that I have missed a big part of myself and I wanted to get it back. Thank you, Luda. I appreciate it very, very much. And I want to know another thing. You come from Russia, and in Russia, there is also in other parts of the world where people use Instagram a lot. A lot of women compare themselves to models, to women who are living the jet-set lifestyle, or they are photoshopped, or anything like that. Did you struggle with comparing yourself to other women? Or you were lucky that you were rational and therefore it wasn't part of what you did? Or in general, what is your advice to even newer generation of girls who are struggling, don't see their unique beauty because they compare themselves to standards that they don't feel that they fit? Yes, it's a really important question because I think it's a big obstacle for many women and people for their growth. Because when we follow somebody else's dreams, and when we see these other Instagram perfect pictures and all of that stuff, it's very hard to be connected to our true desires and our true wishes. And then we follow somebody else's dream, follow somebody else's desires, but not ours, because we get out of the contact with ourselves. And real happiness, it always lies within us, in our soul, and not in some perfect picture, obviously. But you see with all the trends, and like you said, with Barbie pink color, for example, yes, something appears in trend and people follow it to reach some mythical ideal or some perfectness. But reality and life, it shows that people can reach all of of that but not be happy still because it's always all our desires and wishes should be aligned with our heart, first of all. Then it can guarantee you success. But if it's somebody else's dream, no matter how great it is, it cannot make you happy. And also important thing I think it's not to compare yourself, compare your beginning with somebody else's middle way or somebody else's final success or ending because we are all different, we are all individuals and we should be comparing ourselves only with us yesterday. So that Just make sure that we make some improvements every week or every month, and just to trace it and to mark for ourselves that today I'm better than one month ago in peace, this and this, but not compare with others because everybody has his own pathway and everyone is individually in his success and his wishes. Thank you so much for that answer. And Luda, I'm very curious. You said you came multiple times over three years to Dubai before moving. What do you love about the city or what attracted you to it? Did you arrive there and you felt the energy was perfect or you felt almost like you were born in there or is it the dynamic energy of the people that there are so many ambitious people from all over the world or you have your best friends and then you feel at home there? Or what about the city that made you choose to start this new page in your life there? Yeah, I really loved very much the energy and I think it's a lot about the climate, about the weather, because I'm a fire sign and I like the heat. So in Russia, obviously you have a lot of the time you have cold and it's been always a disaster for me because I had been waiting for the winter to be over so that I could go out in the street. But here it's just always a pleasure to be outside. And also by the sea, I love the sea very much and I obviously don't have it in Russia and here you have the sea all the time and it's always available stress relief. Also, I like Dubai because of its safety or security. So you can walk here in the night and it's fine. And you can leave your stuff somewhere on the beach and come the next day and pick it up. And it's unbelievable for us. Unbelievable because the sense of stability and security. It's really amazing and it's very precious to me. And also, like you said, about ambitious people, interesting people, because people who come here, they are obviously more dynamic than people who stay in their countries. They are more ambitious, they like to change their life to see, to know new things and so on, and interact with people. And you will feel here like you are equal with all the other people because the people, most of the people are experts and you feel very equal. Thank you so much, Luda. And to finish this, is there any advice that you have for women who maybe are staying back in their countries and homes like you said, because they worry about the expectations of their parents or they think, "What if I go take a risk and fail?" And people say, "Oh, you are a disappointment," or any of the worries that come to their mind so that more women dare to take risks, to go to the places in the world that they wish to build their future in, and to not limit themselves because of the expectations of anybody else. I think I would suggest them to see life as a more playful way, as a game. Even if you go to another country, what is the worst that can happen, especially here in Dubai? The worst thing is you come back. That's it. You'll be on the same spot where you start. But you will have a lot of new experience and you will expand your personality obviously with new experiences. And this is why we live here. This is what the game about. It's about new experiences. And I think that's actually the purpose of our life, to transform ourselves, to have new experiences, to enjoy life. And if you, it's always, I think, a matter of balance. If somebody is feeling okay at home and just think that maybe it's not so perfect, maybe it's fine. You just need to find something more positive in your current situation. But if you really feel so much stuck and everything is so bad and you really want to go somewhere, just take that risk, face that fear and go for it. Thank you so much, Luda. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here, to share your voice, to share this experience with you. I wish you all the success that you'll become the best and most famous psychologist in Dubai and make all your dreams come true and help so many people and just keep going. Never ever give up. Thank you so much Aziz. It was a real pleasure and thank you for your supportive manner of making this podcast and I wish you two to grow this community to the most possible scale and all the best with your career. You are welcome.
