After the Training: Alumni Reflections - Mary Baker-Boudissa
The Beginning: What led to your participation? Give us some of the "life context" that set the stage for your participation. What were you hoping to gain from the experience?
Regarding my participation in SHE, it was the right time in my life. At work, I was feeling very stuck. The work that I wanted to do didn’t fit with the work that I was doing. I was feeling a lot of frustration and didn’t know what the next best steps were.
SHE came along at just the right time. It was a space that invited dialogue with people outside of my everyday work environment. It created a different kind of peer group for me. New people to talk with and share ideas with.
The facilitation was the perfect blend of coaching and creating a space for me to mindfully process and think more intentionally about what I needed to do to move forward.
The Process: What are some of the standout moments/lessons/learnings that came to you in the journey?
Failure Archetypes
So there were a lot of different pieces that were helpful, but the Failure Archetype was that real catalyst.The Failure Archetype framework was eye-opening for me, and it was a huge part of shifting my mindset. It really helped me think about how I could change the way I approach situations and was instrumental in my ability to shift that feeling of being stuck into a feeling of being empowered to move.
In full transparency, I found it challenging to accept my archetype (Deflector), but as I sat with it, dug in, and reflected….I was able to move past the initial aversion to the “label.” I know that they really tried to hammer home that the archetypes were not “labels meant to box you in” and that we should look at them as “a tool of reflection.” But let’s be honest. It took me a minute to move past my own “label.” Once I could really look at situations where that archetype was showing up, the knowledge and perspective gave me a feeling of turning struggle and stuckness into “fuel.” Spinach to Popeye vs. Kryptonite to Superman.
Harmony & Conflict
When we talked about tendency harmony and conflict - it was very helpful to know what characteristics and traits in others are easy for me and which are more challenging. Even without knowing everyone’s Failure Archetype in every interaction, the exercise of thinking about the different traits and how I respond to them has been really helpful in my interactions, both professionally and personally.
The conversations in the company of other women who were experiencing their own journeys, feelings of being stuck, friction in the workplace, questions about life, etc., allowed me to hear and empathize with other personality types. SHE gave me a safe place to inquire as to how I might be perceived by others - in my workplace and just in general. I was also able to offer my perspective and insight into how my mind works, to help equip others that might be interacting with people that are similar to me.
Example: I realized that when I hear from people, “Just do this…XYZ. I am confident that you’ve got this.” Those types of directives are tough for me as a deflector with some obsessor tendencies - the directness and the lack of detail. But recognizing that those types of directions are likely coming from a warrior or survivalist - people with a more succinct direct communication style, helped me to both frame the request (not take it personally) and communicate what else I need from them. It allowed me to respond by sparking a conversation rather than my historical MO, which would have been not to communicate my reaction, withdraw, and create a lot of stress for myself.
Camaraderie & Shared Empowerment
A moment that stood out to me and that I still can take myself back to was a specific share when a woman in the group had a big “A-HA” moment. The feeling of celebrating that with her in community was really amazing. The very real emotion, the vulnerability, the very real safety and lack of judgement from the group - all amazing, but the spontaneous CELEBRATING from the collective. Just awesome.
There is some really magical camaraderie and connection that forms in a cohort over six weeks. We all have different personalities and are all leaders in our respective lives. Just being called a leader throughout the session and talking about leadership consistently throughout the session was empowering. Even if all of our titles don’t reflect “upper-level leadership” or maybe aren’t the title that we want or are striving for…. we are leading in our spaces and lives. Leadership is a way to connect with others and a way to have impact. It is not about the title that you hold.
The Reflection: And today? What do you still carry with you from your experience?
Everyday Mindfulness
I use the mindfulness pieces that we learned in SHE every single day. Learning about the connection between our reaction to failure/stress and what happens in our bodies and brains - transformational. That science is my GO-TO now when I am struggling to process something - when my logic is failing me in the moment. I now know to look at what is triggered in my body in terms of stress. Knowing more about stress, the stress cycle, and how my body works… naming it and being able to pull away from the “feeling of stuckness” to reframe and reassess has really changed how I move about the world.
Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t always prevent me from reacting vs. responding, but now I have the tools of self-reflection to be able to really dig into the “cause” of the reaction so I can move through it and find my way back to logical problem-solving that is more effective. I can have a different conversation with myself and with others.
Big Changes
After SHE, I found that I couldn’t allow myself to remain stuck. Thinking about and asking for what I wanted to see in my own career and personal life was fundamentally different because I had more language and tools to name and push for myself. The self-reflection also helped me to really think about where to push - where to prioritize and focus.
Example: As a person with deflective tendencies, a lot of the perspective that I had over my position and work was externally focused. I was giving power to a lot of external forces. Whenever I didn’t see myself where I wanted to be, it was very easy for me to give that over to some external force, situation, or circumstance. While it doesn’t mean that those weren’t contributing factors, SHE gave me the internal resources to reframe the interaction - name the contributing external factors and then ask the question, “What do I control?” This was such a useful tool to push me to advocate for myself both internally to myself and externally to the world around me.
Cut to a year and a half later. I am in a completely new chapter in my career. New job. New position. New company. I am doing work that I am very passionate about. Work that is connected to my purpose. Work that benefits from and reflects upon the breadth of experience that I have.
Having a leadership experience that spoke to my needs as a leader and as a contributor was really instrumental in being able to make the decision to make a significant career move. It opened an internal door in myself that allowed me to take a leap to my next phase.
The Soundbite: One last short little nugget of wisdom?
I loved that SHE gave so many resource recommendations. My favorite resource from SHE is the book Burnout. I read it and listened to the audio version at the same time so that I made sure I absorbed as much as I could. Back to the mindfulness and the stress management that has really impacted my day-to-day, this book helped me dig deeper and really internalize some of the mindsets and practices.
XO,