How do you even say thank you for such a life transforming way? What its opened up for- the business success is fantastic and I love it. Even more than that, for my family...
So we're nearly three years into your journey. What a three years it's been for you.
Well, so I'm 49. I've had a life. And then these three years and these three years have like packed in a lot. The growth and the change and the thinking and the experiences. It goes to show that age is just a number because growing older does not necessarily mean growth. And we see that a lot, a lot of people are growing older but they're not growing inner.
Now before you joined us, you were very different to the way you are right now. What would you like to share?
There's outside differences as well as inside differences. So when I showed up I would've been dressed in black or dark brown or dark blue. I would've been in professional suits that were suitable to be in corporate.
I was a really angry person. I was so totally in masculine energy. I yelled a lot. I did so many activities, busied myself. I was so busy doing, doing, doing that I wasn't being, and in doing that, I needed to be efficient because I had so many things lined up. My kids had so many things that they had to do because I was ticking all the boxes of society to get everything right and it was so, so not right.
"So I'm 49. I've had a life. And then these three years... have packed in a lot. The growth and the change and the thinking and the experiences. It goes to show that age is just a number because growing older does not necessarily mean growth..."
This will be validating for so many people that've experienced the same, because of the energy that would've gone into holding that up.
It's even more than on guard all the time. It was always fighting against myself. I didn't have any awareness of the internal fight that was going on. I was being so totally masculine, and I'm actually a feminine person.
What a gift to have realized in a way, to be able to tap into that. And to show my family, so to show my son, to show my daughters. To remove the masculine control I had over my husband, and allow him to step into his masculinity and actually start to look after you and play his role.
He didn't have that ability to do that before because he came from a controlling mum, to a controlling wife. It's not like I molded him that way, he showed up that way. Nobody ever gave him the space to grow into that and he's magnificent. He takes control of stuff now. I mean, the kids laugh and say, "Mum, why'd you give dad back his balls?" But I didn't give them back. I moved... and we can never change anybody. It's always up to them.
You're just in a wonderful situation where he saw your change and said, "I'm in."
Yeah, well if you move the water. So if I'm the water and I move my half of the water, his half has to move too, doesn't it?
It's a growth.
And how much weight did you lose?
All up, 13 kilos. It's still a focus. It's not even really so much a focus anymore. I have rituals and the rituals will continue that process.
I know recently your daughter got married, which was beautiful. I saw some photos on Facebook.
The day. It was magnificent. It was like a fairy tale. From quarter to six in the morning till three AM the next morning. It was so beautiful. I never had any awareness that life could possibly be how it was. The day was full of love, full of fun, full of laughter, full of joy. It was really an absolute magnificent day. We should go back a little bit to before the day.
How would have it been if you didn't do all your work?
Oh, I know how it would've been because actually Stephanie had a terse conversation with me about two weeks out. She said, "Mum, I need the old you." I'm like 'what?'. She said, "I need the old you here to do the wedding. I need the organization. I need the yelling. I want the control." She wanted the old me back because the old me got shit done, like well. Properly... and so then I said to her, "Wow." I said, "Where are you gathering the evidence from that I can't do that now?"
And she said, "What?" I said, "What have I missed? Where's the evidence? What am I not doing? Where's the evidence that I'm not going to be able to still tick all the boxes and do it this way?" And she couldn't, she couldn't argue, she couldn't- she couldn't find anywhere that I'd dropped the ball and not- missed something that was on the important list being the new- and they talk about the new me and the old me. My family, my extended family, my peer friends, everybody talks about the new me and the old me. At the wedding, people said, "Oh, if you met the old Mary..." like it's, the contrast is massive.
"It was so beautiful. I never had any awareness that life could possibly be how it was. The day was full of love, full of fun, full of laughter, full of joy. It was really an absolute magnificent day..."
I think it's wonderful that you're getting that because it's the ultimate evidence because if you hadn't changed, and before you came here I know you didn't even know you had to change.
No, I was making a career change. Most people love it. Unfortunately, in life there's still some people that don't. We need to know who we are, learn who we are and be, and celebrate being who you are because we're our superpower.
What's the story? It was before the wedding.
So the night before- well, there's two stories I can bring here. So we had a bit of a bridezilla moment a week out from the wedding and that's okay. I mean, it's a stressful time, you know, getting married, and Stephanie yelled at me, "It took you 45 years to change!"
And, you know, to be fair that was true. In her world, it did take me 45 years to be changed, but from a coaching perspective, what I heard in that was the gold. I heard that change is possible. I heard that it took me 45 years to change and it wasn't gonna take her that long. I heard that she intended to make a change. There were so many presuppositions, and I didn't even know what a presupposition was before.
Yes, that's fantastic. So and you said there was another story?
Yeah, the second story is the gold, is the cake. Literally the cake. So we're driving to the reception scene, to the night before the wedding and I was in charge in the back of the car of the cake. Taking the cake there and we're probably two hundred meters away from the reception center, round one corner, and Stephanie hit a pothole, and the top of the cake fell off.
In that moment, I knew with such certainty that it happened for a good reason. I knew. I knew that in the chaos comes the resources to make everything great, and I didn't- Like I'd never had- previously we would've had a disaster. We'd probably would've had a big fight about whose fault it was, we wouldn't have been thinking about any solution based option. It would've ruined the day, ruined her wedding life.
So what happened instead?
I said to her, "I'll go in the morning and grab some ribbon." The cake had some denting in the top already from the heat and I got an opaque ribbon and popped the ribbon around the top, but the best thing about it was I took a photo of a porcelain figurine - it was a joke, I took it and sent it to her as a joke.
It was a bride dragging the groom, and she rang me and she said, "Mum, mum, can you get that? It's much better for the top of the cake." So it happened for a good reason and you can make a disaster out of it or you can embrace it.
"I can be now in moments that I never would've taken the time to be in because I would've been so busy organizing everything. Cooking, getting good, doing something, and not actually participating or being present with somebody. Thank you to The Coaching Institute from absolutely the bottom of my heart."
That's wonderful. So you also have a very successful full time coaching business? I just wanna say congratulations.
Thank you. I wanna say thank you because I wouldn't have it if it wasn't for here. I wouldn't. I would still be in anger mode, living in finance world.
How do you even say thank you for such a life transforming way? What its opened up for - the business success is fantastic and I love it. Even more than that, for my family. My children are on a personal development path. They might not study personal development but they're definitely embraced the thinking.
My husband hasn't studied any sort of personal development or coaching at all. He's often saying to me, you know, gotta look at it from this way or you gotta look at it from that way. You know, I'll come down, I'll study like a mofo, and I'll come down with a particular model that we use, and I'll test it and he will know it and do it. The models are fantastic, learnable, and repeatable. And anyone can use them.
Coaching's not just a set of tools. It's an attitude, isn't it?
Yeah. I can be now in moments that I never would've taken the time to be in because I would've been so busy organizing everything. Cooking, getting good, doing something, and not actually participating or being present with somebody. Thank you to The Coaching Institute from absolutely the bottom of my heart.
ABOUT MARY
Mary's journey with The Coaching Institute as a life coach has been transformational. She was able to connect with her inner self, change the relationship with her family for the better as well as to run a successful coaching business.
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