Clark Kent Can Kiss My Ass

A lot of wonderful things have started to happen since I left my false identity and ripped off my disguise (mild-mannered secretary). To begin with, I write every single day. I feel like that song, “If I had a hammer.” I write in the morning, I write on line at the grocery store, I write on my blackberry and email it to myself so I can write some more at home.

I have thrown away my purple fringed business suit (no kidding) and 2-inch pumps, and one-word-at-a-time, I am making a super-hero outfit with a thousand pockets for stories and an endless supply of bullet-proof ink.

This is not the only dream to come true for me since leaving behind a few nightmares and villains; if everything goes okay, I will begin the process of finishing my degree in September. (I have a 4.0 and never finished.) I’m not bragging here, if you know me at all, that’s just not my nature – but I am reminding myself that I was good at school and I loved it. Two great reasons to go back and finish.

A few other dreams? Well, probably the biggest dream is that I am fully participatory in my own life. To be honest, working in the city was killing me long before someone stuck a knife in my back. I was gone at 6am and got back at 8pm if I was lucky. I would call my eight-year-old to say, “Have a good day,” and pray to get home in time to tuck her into bed. I missed every single cupcake birthday she ever had at school. Other things suffered as well. Since I was only home on weekends, they became my religion. It was me and my daughter time, which left nothing for friends or anything else. So there was a lot of lemonade in the lemons life handed me when I left my career.

And over the course of a few months, I have definitely landed on the other side of ”there.” Now I still don’t have words to explain what “there” is, but I do know that the childlike pitch to my voice is gone. Maybe you know women like me – forty-year-olds with the ingénue of a little girl. It’s charming, but underneath, without a doubt, that woman is terrified. I know because I lived it. Most of all, I was afraid that you might not like me. I know that sounds crazy at my age, but it is the truth. I had learned to charm and cajole and be kind and smart and do anything I could to be absolutely sure you would like me. Even … if I did NOT like you.

There is no explaining the process of letting that particular disguise go. But week after week, assignment after assignment, it is definitely gone. Sometimes it takes a minute; I still make every effort to be warm and gracious. But after a while, I remember to stop and listen; to use my late-blooming discernment and stand back and decide if I want to use my energy on this particular situation. And if not, I charmingly fade into the crowd and take the nicest, funniest, sexiest, most charming woman in the room with me.


If you have any questions, you can definitely reach out to me, but you may have to come to Monroe and find my sweet gorgeous ass sliding across Mombasha Lake in that magical canoe.

Love always,
Mary Agnes Antonopoulos (Mary Vetell)
Freelance Writer and Spectacular, Uncommon Woman

Get your fat (gorgeous) ass in that canoe.

What will you do with your stimulus check? Will you use it to stimulate your business? Your life? Your body? A few weeks ago, in a desire to stimulate all these things, I hired a life coach. Now I need to tell you that I don’t make a six-figure income, or drive a new car. I don’t get my nails done professionally, and I don’t own a $200 purse. My point is, as I discovered after my first appointment: Life coaching is not for the rich and famous. It is for women like you and me -- everyday moms and business owners who are, quite simply, stuck.

What did stuck look like for me? Well, when I began working with my Coach, Laura Fenamore, I was at least fifty pounds overweight. Although I love a good walk, I had not taken one in weeks (maybe months). I own a beautiful canoe that I haven’t gotten into in two years. My business was good, but if I can’t get it “from here to there” by July, I’ll have to go back to a desk job. My hair needs to be dyed, my home is disorganized and I see my husband so little that I forget what he looks like some days.

A few weeks later, the picture is definitely changing. I would love to tell you that I lost fifty pounds in five weeks, like some “Biggest Loser” miracle, and that I am turning clients away at the gate – hah. What I can share is that for the first time in a long time, I am eating better and feeling better about myself. That voice that used to say terrible things to me when I caught my own reflection in the mirror (fat, lazy, old), seems to have quieted down or gone out for a walk. Other words, like voluptuous, beautiful and fun fall off of my tongue like old friends. And oddly enough, I did just take on two wonderful clients. I also, quite by accident, seem to have lost seven pounds.

I’m not sure what it is that changed. You might say that I was already “ready” when I called Laura for her free consultation and fifteen-minutes of encouragement, but I know that isn’t true. A week after our first real appointment, I had to admit that I hadn’t done any of the assignments she gave me. Not one. (I didn’t even get into the canoe.) But somewhere between the second appointment and the day after the second appointment, I got mad. I got mad that I wasn’t ready and that I didn’t know how to get ready. I got mad at all the things and all the excuses that trapped me day after day after day. I got mad at my childhood and my shitty high school and my old house and my fat ass. I got mad at Laura Fenamore for stating the obvious, that no matter how valid my reasons for not getting to the assignments might be, I had still missed the opportunity to do something right for ME. I had done everything for everyone and nothing for Mary Agnes Antonopoulos. (Sound familiar?)

Life Coaching is not therapy, although it does seem to address many core issues. What it feels like, really, is a bridge. Sometimes it is a wooden bridge over a stream. (Picture chaos on one side and a Japanese Garden on the other.) Sometimes it’s one of those rope bridges over a mile-high ravine. Whatever it is, I can clearly see Laura Fenamore standing there on the other side, sharing techniques and a custom-built plan to put the next plank into place. She doesn’t lead me across, or invite me to use her bridge (solidly built decades ago as she lost 100 pounds forever). She patiently helps me and guides me to build my own, to spot where it might be flawed or unstable, and to move forward. She invites me to get from here to there.

If my life before coaching sounds eerily familiar, well, welcome home. The simple truth is that you are not stuck. The universe keeps moving forward, and every day is a new opportunity. You don’t have to know the way or have any answers. You just have to do the next right thing.

I don’t know about other Life Coaches, but Laura gives consultations and encouragement freely to all. Don’t wait standing by that ravine for one more day. To learn more about Laura Fenamore or Body Image Mastery, call her for a free consultation at (415) 464-1234 or visit her website at http://www.laurafenamore.com/.