Meet My Client: Mary Bogus

Mary is a sparkly badass. We worked together for about a year and a half. See what she says about her coaching experience…

Mary! Tell us what’s up!

My name is Mary Bogus — Yes, that’s my real last name, it’s Polish in origin, just fyi. I’m 32, I live in Denver, but I grew up in a very small town in rural central Wyoming. I live with my amazing partner Laurel, we have a horde of furry babies. I work on politics, which is pretty much what I’ve done since college. I have a super cool and fulfilling job now, I help reproductive rights and reproductive justice organizations do their work in a smarter way. What else? I identify as a queer person, although I came out later in my life, when I was 23 or 24.

Think back to when you reached out to me, what made you consider coaching?

A month or so before reaching out to you, I had been laid off from my job after the 2016 election was over. I was pretty devastated. I’d never been laid off or fired. I was feeling a little lost and like, OMG what am I going to do now, no-one is going to hire me. Part of this was because I felt so incompetent the entire time I worked at that job. I was good at the stuff I was normally good at, but I never felt I was great there. As a perfectionist and an over achiever, that was hard on me. I was a support person. It was hard on me not to be leading things. During this time, two of my really good friends (who you know) suggested coaching. I didn’t really know what coaching was, but I knew I needed somebody to help me figure things out and I trust my friends, so when they said talk to Pam!, I reached out to you.

What did coaching do for you?

Oh my gosh. A lot. There are things I come back to and still think about. Two of the early things we did, identifying my values and inner critic, I always come back to those to center myself. When I’m feeling anxious or when imposter syndrome comes up — especially when I started my new job a couple months into our coaching, and then again the new job I started recently — it was like imposter syndrome on steroids… I work with people who have Ph.Ds and who are super smart. I used a lot of coaching techniques to remind myself that I am smart too and the work I do is valued. And that the stuff in my head is sometimes… all in my head! I remind myself you are the only one who is thinking these things… I remind myself that the reality of the interactions I’m having with my co-workers is the story (they seem to think I am smart and capable).

Also, being more mindful. I think it’s a skill you have to practice. Some people meditate, some do therapy, some do coaching. Instead of quickly having a reaction to something, now I have the ability to slow down and assess the situation. I ask myself, Okay, what’s really going on here? I still have a sticky note that I wrote from one of ours sessions… I have this recurring thing where I’m always asking myself what the hell is wrong with me? and you said, what if, in those moments, instead of asking what’s wrong with me, just ask what’s wrong? What feels off? What’s going on outside of you? That’s been a super helpful reminder to me, and has helped to normalize my feelings… there’s nothing actually wrong with me, I am a resourceful, capable person, but to ask, what else is going on that might be contributing to how I’m feeling? I come back to those all the time.

What was surprising to you about coaching?

I was surprised at how vulnerable I had to be in order to really do this work. I didn’t totally know what it was going to look like when I went into coaching … I remember telling my friends that I didn’t want to work with some high-powered business woman from the 80s who was going to tell me to lean in! It’s much more than surface level work. Also, I feel like in some sense I already knew all of this. In some ways I already knew about my inner critic, I knew those stories I made up about myself, I knew all of that wasn’t true, I knew how to do a lot of this stuff. I just needed a validator. But also somebody who was willing to bring important questions to the surface. When you do this work yourself, it’s really, really easy to skip over the hard stuff or the feelings that come up. When you’re working with somebody in a relationship like this, they can be the ones to say, hey, let’s stop and look at this thing you just skipped over. I do think someone else raising the question that you already have bubbling up inside you — that’s really telling for where you are, what you want, what you don’t want.

What’s different now, after going through coaching?

I wanted to feel how I used to feel — confident and full of life and loud and fierce and capable. After working a job where I didn’t feel like that, and then after getting laid off, I didn’t feel like my old self. I think, again, talking about values and focussing on your metaphor of a volume knob and what it would take to crank my values up, I was able to recognize which values I needed to honor more. One of the things that came up was my love of performing and being the center of attention. I’d always thought of that as a negative thing, that I shouldn’t be proud of that… but working with you, I realized okay, this is really about entertaining people and making them feel good. And that is a really cool thing. Being able to be more honest with myself about those things and what they really mean for me and trying to get away from the negative stories about being the center of attention was really important. I feel like my brain is rewired a little bit to be able to pause and say wait, wait, wait, that’s not what’s going on here. I feel like I have this skillset now that so many people don’t have on their own, naturally.

The other big thing, I am definitely more gentle with myself. That is something you had to invite me to do probably like, 100 times. But just being gentle with myself around health stuff and exercising enough and eating the right food … I think that’s something that I’m really much better at approaching now. I just started working out with this woman who is a fat positive coach. Her frame of mind reminds me of a lot of the stuff that you and I talked about … being okay with joyful movement. She was asking me what kind of movement do you like to do — I said dancing.

Dance party! What you said about knowing all this stuff before, yes! None of this stuff is rocket science or magic — it’s so often stuff we already know even if it’s hidden from us or we choose not to see it. So much of this work is common sense, but there’s something so powerful about having a partner in it — to point out ways you might be sabotaging yourself, or to hold you accountable, or to help you soften how you see yourself, that really makes a difference.

What do you think of value of coaching is?

What you just said, it’s having a partner in this. I think just having a person to — as cliche as it sounds — to go on this journey with you and to be that person who is curious about you and not judgmental and who will ask you a ton of questions, it really is a partnership. It’s one of the key ways it’s different from therapy in my experience. Yes, it’s still one-sided, it’s still focussed on me and whatever I want to work on but, it feels like a partnership, like you have this person to be there to help you. I almost think of it like, you know how in cartoons when a character is about to make a decision and the angel and devil are on their shoulders egging them on? It’s sort of like that. Your coach is with you all the time asking hey, have you thought about this? or looked at it like that? It’s like a little guide on your shoulder.

Anything else you’d like people to know about your experience?

I would say to folks on the edge about working with a coach, just f**** do it.

There are so few times that we invest in ourselves in a really big way. It’s one thing to have the occasional treat yourself day and go get a pedicure or whatever, but I think we’re all so nervous to really invest in ourselves. We’re told it’s selfish. It’s really hard to invest money in something where there’s no product at the end of it…like I don’t complete coaching and I get a degree. It is an investment in yourself. And it’s something I will always cherish and always be so grateful for. My perspective and my calmness about the world is so different from working with you.

You have a Ph.D. in being you! What do you think you’d be up to if you’d never made that investment in yourself?

I would probably be less likely to take risks. I’d probably be at the job I got not long after I started working with you. It was a good job, but I would have probably overthought leaving it for the job I have now. I would have made the safe decision because I was really concerned with those around me and what they thought. I was able to be honest with myself about what I wanted for myself and the future. That was a really big moment of seeing my coaching stuff in practice. I would get so panicky…. you’d think I was making a decision about who in my family I’d have to sacrifice!

And it's been helpful in my relationships — I’m more brave with people. I had a hard talk with one of my best friends. She had done something hurtful, not intentionally, but it was still hurtful. In the past I would have let it slide and tried to get over it. But instead, I really saw the value of being honest with my friend and having that moment of closeness with her. Before coaching, I would have been like, oh, it’s fine. I am a boundaries queen now! The boundaries stuff we worked on was really big. When you’re really clear on what your boundaries are, most people who care about you will be respectful of them.

That makes me think about another cool thing about coaching — it has a ripple effect. You work with a coach and you shift how you approach things, how you see things — you know what’s important to you in a new way, from being asked powerful questions that shake things up. Yes, it’s an inside job, and it’s very personal, but it changes how you show up in the world, which keeps living long after the coaching relationship ends.

One of the last exercises we did — having a conversation with your future self — I did not expect that to be so… ahhhhh ahhhhahah (that’s angels singing from the heaven).

This originally appeared in my January 2019 email newsletter. To get on the list and receive this and other goodies in your inbox, sign up at pamdaghlian.com/newsletter

pamela daghlianFebruary 13, 2019meet my client, interview, newsletter