About Mary

BUSINESS & INNER MASTERY TRAINER/COACH/FACILITATOR
Specialties:

• Mental/Emotional/Spiritual Development for Success

• High-Touch Marketing & Client Enrollment Strategies

• Marketing & Sales Copy (For Websites, Brochures)   

The bedroom wall of our house was a light blue colour. My eyes opened, unwillingly, after a night of
restless sleep and fixed themselves, rigidly, on a spot on that wall. Dread and anxiety gripped my stomach.
It felt like an iron weight had been placed there. I didn’t want to go into work. I was absolutely miserable,
and I didn’t know what to do.

I had started my career with so much optimism and idealism, although I wasn’t sure that career reflected what I truly was meant to be doing. And now, it just felt so wrong … so misaligned for me for so many reasons.

After I graduated with an Honors B.A. in English Language and Literature, my intention was to do a degree in clinical social work. I felt called to work in a “helping” profession. Yet, Infinite Intelligence had other plans for me.

Instead, I stumbled into a career as a professional fund raising executive, predominantly working on multi-million dollar campaigns with very wealthy volunteers and donors.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized this was no accident – that money and generating funds (essentially, marketing and selling) – were part of my karmic path.

I had developed solid communication, strategy and management skills and combined them with my more subtle talents of intuition, non-judgmental curiosity and active listening.

The thing was that, although I had played a senior staff/consulting leadership role in helping to raise over $30 million, I couldn’t see my own contribution and value. I felt empty, unfulfilled and inadequate.
I knew I had wounds that were deeply affecting me and keeping me in a cycle of compulsive perfectionism and feeling like I never quite measured up. 

My chronic imposter syndrome was further exacerbated by being around very financially wealthy people who intimidated me. I didn’t come from a wealthy family myself.

The façade I wore alienated me completely from any sense of authenticity. I over-performed, over-worked and was constantly trying to be perfect, so I could look and feel deserving and adequate. Sadly, it didn’t work.

Not only was I physically exhausted and completely stressed out from playing this “game” of the successful career woman, I was mentally, emotionally and spiritually, as well.
 

The Call is Made Again; This Time I Say Yes
 

I knew something had to change. The first thing that I knew had to change was how I perceived and treated myself. I craved deeper self-acceptance and self-love. I just didn’t know how to do it.

Then I was guided to enroll in a course about mind-body-spirit healing called The Total Self. It was a game changer for me. I committed to therapy with a spiritual psychotherapist and went to yoga classes and meditation retreats. I started going to a naturopath and enrolled in more wellness courses. I surrendered myself completely to my own healing journey. Things were changing … I was changing.

I started to live a life that felt more authentic to me. I quit my job and started my first business – a fund raising consulting business. In the midst of this new adventure, I still felt a gnawing sense that I wasn’t totally aligned with what I was doing. My heart was calling me to even deeper authenticity and a higher expression of my work. I just didn’t know exactly what that higher expression looked like yet.
 

So, I brought this yearning to a spiritual teacher/intuitive I greatly respected. He confirmed that I was meant to be own boss and use my intuition and right brain capabilities more in my work. Then, he paused for a moment. “You have a classic psychiatrist’s or psychotherapist’s energy system. You have a natural healing ability. What are you going to do with it?”

I was taken aback. Yikes! A psychiatrist?! That’s not a profession I had ever considered.
 
Then, a lightbulb went off in my heart and mind. I had had that call once before in my life, and I refused it (or, at least, I got side-tracked from it).

This time I knew I had to answer it … and I would.

The call wasn’t to become a psychiatrist … or, even, I realized after much contemplation and discernment, a psychotherapist. It was to integrate my experience, skills and natural abilities into the relatively new profession known as coaching.

I was being called to formally do what I had been doing informally for so many years at work, with friends and with family members. I was to be a coach. Specifically, I was to be an inner mastery and business coach for conscious business owners -- change makers such as therapists, coaches and wellness professionals, who are dedicated to the well-being of others.




 

Navigating Challenges and Facing My Deepest Fears

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” – Howard Thurman

Excitedly, I completed certifications in individual and group coaching. Both came naturally to me, and I felt like I was in my element.

I hired a web developer and designer and got my branding together and website up.

While I already had some solid, foundational marketing and selling skills from my fund raising background and first business, it felt like so much had changed. There were all sorts of new marketing methods, including social media, and I took courses in all of them.

My mind convinced me that things were more complicated now, but if I could just find the right training, mentor, advisor or coach, everything would just fall into place.

I enrolled and participated in programs with renowned business coaches for thousands of dollars.

And, then, I crashed. I became totally overwhelmed, confused, exhausted and frustrated.

The experts were telling me that I had to do all these things in order for my coaching business to succeed. One expert would contradict another. So, I tried doing all of “the things” and ended up exhausted and discouraged.

This was still all about the “hustle”, yet deep down, I knew that was antithetical to my innate wisdom and natural energy.

I didn’t have a clue which approaches were the ones to prioritize. There were so many new, bright, shiny objects.  And, even if I did know which strategies were the ones to prioritize, I didn’t know how to tap into my own creativity, so I could make them my own.

I didn’t know how to use them in ways that were authentic for me and aligned with my strengths and what brings me joy.
 

Some of these approaches seemed to require a lot of effort and provide minimal return, and I didn’t feel aligned with them. I couldn’t understand why this was the case.

I was doing everything the experts were telling me to do, exactly the way they told me to do them. However, I couldn’t seem to get consistent traction; when I got traction, I couldn’t sustain it.

I honestly thought there was something seriously wrong with me (which triggered suppressed feelings of shame).

Letting Go of the Hustle Within and Without and Hearing the Sound of the Genuine

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