We recently connected with Zaure Vuk and have shared our conversation below.

Zaure, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I was starting my postpartum doula business a couple of years ago, I wanted to bring into my work something I, as a licensed cosmetologist, loved doing most: making people feel and look beautiful while enjoying and relaxing during the service. I envisioned that when I care for newborn moms they will be healing while being being lavishly pampered as queens. I wanted to create an experience that would allow my clients feel highly valued and nurtured. So Pampering Doula was born. As I have learned from the best in the industry of skin care and beauty in the United States and overseas for over 15 years now (and continue learning), I truly believe that moms who just birthed a human being, absolutely deserve a luxurious and indulgent experience through some healing modalities and bodywork, face massage, haircare and blowdry sessions. I believe that pampering is healing. And through my Pampering Doula services moms learn that they created, grew, and birthed a life, and they need tome to heal and recover. while being cared for during a major life transition to motherhood. I love to guide expecting parents on their journey and planning for the 4th trimester. And what has become clear to me: preparation for the 4th trimester is a huge act of justice and advocacy for women’s health in our society today.

And as a Montessori Mama, I truly believe that empowering parents with Montessori skills and knowledge, we can make this amazing approach to young children more accessible. Many know that Montessori schools has become a commodity that not everyone can afford. While it is a systemic problem and one cannot solve it by just opening free Montessori schools (unless they are Jeff Bezos, an owner of Amazon company), I believe I can bring my angle of experiencing and implementing Montessori as a parent to my own four young children. I have written a few books that support parents both in parenting and preparing for the transition in the postpartum. Therefore, Montessori Mama explains my philosophy and how I apply Montessori principles in parenting.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I currently work on two large projects. My primary business is Pampering Doula, a postpartum care and education-focused services to expecting and newborn parents. I offer Well-being After Birth workshop and a Guide I wrote to help integrate and apply newfound knowledge about the 4th trimester. Some of my values are:
– Approaching pregnancy, birth and postpartum as expansion and deepening of inner-work and growth

– Helping newborn moms re-discovering THEIR new selves.

– Provide new moms with holistic, integrative, and intelligent guidance for their body, mind, spirit, and soul through their transition through matrescense  

I offer prenatal sessions that help prepare for the 4th trimester and parenting, as well as postpartum care and education to promote self-care, confidence in parenting, and workshops to help create respectful and trusting relationships with thei baby

Additionally, I offer postpartum care packages that include education and home visits, bodywork sessions, Therapeutic Facials, cooking nutritious meals for the mother to resource and support her body’s natural ability to restore and heal after such depleting events as pregnancy and childbirth.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I previously co-founded a large, multi-million childcare business with my husband. We started back in 2012 and the first daycare center we opened was for our first born daughter. We came from a music background and it allowed us to create a very specific and high in demand brand of daycare, where music was the core of young children’s learning. Through running a daycare I have learned about Montessori, I also learned a lot about building a high-end, exclusive business that served a community who valued education, being entrepreneurial and creative. And through serving new parents from all over the world, as well as through my own experience of becoming a mother. I got interested in offering postpartum support and education. With time, I adopted a very masculine approach to business, to relationships, to people. I have become transactional in my interaction with people, and constantly felt stressed, and very assertive. Running a childcare business in the northeast for 12 years has left its mark on who I have become. And I believe, to unlearn some of the traits that have become too toxic to myself and my family, and to also help heal adrenal fatigue, a few years ago I intentionally moved into the postpartum doula field.
As a postpartum doula, there was a huge shift in energy and intention. The focus was now to care for a newborn mom, one person at a time, instead of a few hundreds of parents and a few dozens of employees. That allowed me to slow down, re-evaluate my relationships with stress and re-think what being productive and successful meant to me. At first I had a very hard time re-adjusting to my new lifestyle, where I didn’t have to be stressed. That felt very unnerving as I believe in our culture being stressful and busy are the indications of success and do become a part of our identity. I did feel viscerally how this lifestyle shift was causing some deep feelings of losing my previous identity and what had become the indicators of “being alive” in a highly driven and demanding community.
I have not healed completely, I am a recovering type A person. I am learning to be slow in person, to enjoy a slower pace of life, and to choose having peace over profit.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I have a very interesting relationships with social media. I love sharing and educating my audience about the things that are very important to me. On social media it is important to me to stay real, vulnerable, and open. I love sharing about my life, values, the story behind the life and business decisions I make often. And also it can be discouraging when you see people who you personally know and have had coffee with, just watch your stories and reels, without any signs of support. If you see someone who is doing something that is resonating with you in the slightest, and you know that they are solopreneurs, please please please support them: like, comment and share their posts, reels, mention them in your stories. Social media is a community we build. And like in any live, in-person community, it means a world to us, solopreneurs, when we are seen, supported and acknowledged for our efforts to do the work we are called to do. This support sometimes is what very often keeps us going. We become solopreneurs because we believe in our cause and mission. Being seen and cheered on on social media as we do this work, makes it all worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https:/pamperingdoula.com
• Instagram: https:/instagram.com/zaurevuk