The Real Annie Sanchez
Stories, lessons & hope from your favorite life coach & business strategist
In April 2023 I went to the Vipassana Center in southern California for a 10-day silent meditation course.
On my 12-hour drive home, very much in a dreamy, psychedelic-like meditative state, I started crying while thinking about my sister and my mom, my grandma and myself as a kid.
My crying turned into deep sobbing.
Growing up, in my grandma's house there was an old black and white photo of my great grandpa leaning against a wine barrel, behind him a shelf filled with bottles of wine he’d made from vines his parents brought over from Spain and sold in his little grocery store.
When I lived in New York City, I worked in restaurants — celebrity chefs and guests, Michelin stars, extraordinary dining service and all that — but it was the wine world that really called me.
Dear Words,
Why are you so hard to find when we need you most?
You're amazing at helping to express love, fear, frustration, excitement, concern, grief and so much more. You have a very important job which is why I'm here.
Basically everyone I know, work with, coach and observe lately is having the same challenge — conveying our complex, layered feelings and ideas. Literally finding words is the issue.
Some recent examples:
And my honest to goodness truth — I’m anxious A LOT of the time.
I heard someone who runs a multimillion dollar company say, "Entrepreneurship is the fastest and most challenging self-development journey anyone will ever go on."
Truth.
It's 2022 and I'm living in a dreamland, doing dream work with dream people while toggling between sobbing in a heap on the floor and busting out strategies all over the wall.
It's one of those Sundays. Slept in. 3 maybe 4 cups of coffee. Tons of time on Instagram already. And, it's all good. I know what I'm doing the rest of the day.
I'm feeling good, focused and grounded because I have a couple goals I'm working towards this summer and after hitting send on this email, I'm gonna give them my attention.
Here's what I'm working towards.
Like, if someone else was watching you move through your day like a movie — what would they say about you? What would they think? What would they feel? How would they describe you to a friend?
I’m in the middle of an ongoing conversation with someone about the words we choose to describe things.
Are the words you’re choosing conveying what you mean?
Are the sentences you string together telling the story you want to tell in the way you want to tell it?
Anxiety on the other hand, for me, is scary and spiky. Pointy and sharp in most areas and really high and steep in others. Like a rollercoaster (which I do not like) with very uncomfortable seat backs that dig into my spine and backs of my legs.
And like old friends can do, anxiety and I are going on 15 years together, it reminds me what is and isn’t for me. Even when the way they say it can be annoying and predictable, they mean well.
Anxiety and grief know me and I know them. Sometimes they walk hand in hand. Sometimes they jump out of the bushes alone.
You know the saying "doctors need doctors."
"We are so good at facilitating community organizers and volunteers, but it's clear we are not equipped to facilitate each other."
A couple organizations I'm talking to right now about have said this to me. I say it all the time too. This is completely normal!
Coaches need coaches. Healers need healers. Facilitators need facilitators. Hair dressers need hair dressers. Doctors need doctors.
Because having a facilitator guide difficult conversations, as well as strategic conversations, team building, board and strategic planning retreats is, in my expert opinion, the best investment of your team's time and organization's resources, invest the time to find a facilitator.
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