"Keep Dreaming And Never Stop." She said. And I listened.

Once upon a time, I sat down and wrote my slightly older self a letter.

Within that letter were the words:

Keep dreaming — and never stop.

I still have that letter, 17 years later, because those words continue to drive me forward.

Looking back, I can see that moment with vivid clarity.  I chose dreaming as my North Star without realizing the importance it would represent in everything I’d do thereafter.

My dreams were relatively small back then.

I wanted freedom. Autonomy. Knowledge. Growth.

I was highly sensitive, sharply perceptive, with gifts simmering somewhere beneath the surface that I hadn't yet learned how to understand or use.

And as my capacity for life expanded, so did my dreams.

I found independence, freedom, exploration and adventure.  Life began to marinate me -  sculpting my mind, carving my path in unexpected ways, revealing parts of me I hadn't met yet.

Through all of it, dreaming - and giving myself permission to change in all the ways I desired - remained a priority.

I gave myself radical permission to find out what I was truly made of and what was below the surface waiting to be discovered.

But I didn't always have the relationship with myself that I do now.

I didn't yet know how to offer myself the kind of unconditional love and support that would allow me to fully trust what I knew, act on what I felt, or consistently go after what I wanted.

I knew there was more life available to me.

I just didn't always know how to reach it.

I spent years changing that - and eventually learning how to bring others along that journey of opening to the mystery, discovering themselves, and meeting the true one inside who longs to LIVE.

Not by becoming fearless, being perfect, or having everything figured out.

I learned how to become someone I could trust.

I learned how to listen to myself without immediately overriding what I heard.  How to work with my emotions rather than be run by them.  How to recognize when my nervous system was making a decision instead of me.  How to work with my beliefs, my energy, my body, my intuition, and the practical reality of the life in front of me.

Somewhere along the way, I became my own ally.

And it changed everything.

In many ways, I was my own first coach.

And coaching has remained one of the experiences that lights me up most.

I vividly remember my first coach trainer telling us it was the best job in the world.

I believed her then.

Now I know that truth as my lived experience.

There is truly nothing that inspires me more than supporting, facilitating, and witnessing transformation take place within another person.

This life of dreaming has taken me into nearly every corner of the healing and transformational world - studying and experiencing the many layers of what it means to know ourselves deeply and become fully alive.

And some of my favorite work happens when I get to invite someone into that exploration for an extended period of deep, enveloping support.

To explore every aspect of herself and her life.

How she wants to feel.

Who she wants to become.

What she wants to create.

What she is ready to change.

And what might become possible if she finally gives herself permission to go all in.

Not one session.

Not one problem.

Not one aspect.

Her whole life.

And I keep thinking about that 13-year-old girl who wrote herself a letter and somehow knew that one of the most important things she could do was keep dreaming.

Maybe there's a version of you who knows that too.

Maybe she's been knocking for a while.

With love,
Annaliese