Anna: Hi Anna. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Stephanie. I'm so glad to be here.

Stephanie: I am so thrilled to have you here. We had our introductory chat a couple of weeks ago and, it's just safe to say that I fell in love with you and you're my new best friend. So let's just start there.

Anna: The feeling is mutual, FYI.

Stephanie: And as we'll see through the story there, we have so much in common and so many like commonalities in our story. It's actually quite silly. So that is so much fun. This is one of the reasons I love doing this podcast so much. It's 'cause I get to meet people that I don't necessarily come across on a day-to-day basis or in my normal life. And it's, and I get to just, I feel like I have friends all over the world now.

Anna: I love that.

Stephanie: Although there is a very good chance that I could have run across you, up in southern Maine during the summer because you do some shows up there. And we drive through Ogunquit, on our way to Kennebunk, so, it's possible that we could have met in real life.

Let's start by, going back to the beginning and tell me a little bit about who you were, when our story begins, and how you became that person. What were the forces that shaped you?

Anna: That's such a good question. So, in my thirties, that is kind of where the story begins. My whole life I have struggled with doing what I wanna do versus doing what other people tell me to do.

Or I wanna go work on my own, but actually, no. You need the security of a day job. Or, yeah, sure, the arts are great, but you need a real job.

And it was this constant duality that I had a very hard time finding, a happy medium in between. And so I went to graduate school.

Stephanie: Can I ask you be before you go there? That was something you consciously felt as a young person.

Anna: I couldn't put words to it, but I

Stephanie: Okay. Oh, you did feel it.

Anna: Feel it. My body, like I, my heart would feel heavier, my gut would feel heavier. I'd sometimes literally feel like my body was trying to move in two directions at once.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: my shoulders and my chest, and like even my hips, like sort of like simultaneous, like freezing up and wanting to like run for the hills. And I didn't have the language back then

Stephanie: Yep.

Anna: The headspace to understand, really the education, I guess, to understand what was happening. I just knew when I felt uncomfortable that, I mean, that was unfortunately a, a very common reality for me. I just, I felt uncomfortable a lot

Stephanie: Do you know how, when's the first time you can remember that? Like, was it teens, was it twenties? Do you know how far back? or

Anna: Way back. I

Stephanie: Oh.

Anna: Early childhood,

Stephanie: Oh, okay.

Anna: Always, I, I always had an edge of anxiousness to me.

Stephanie: And I think it was rooted in having been shown that I was enough as I was.

It's not that like my parents did a beautiful job. I love my parents. We have a great relationship. I'm very grateful to them. It was also the eighties.

Yes.

Anna: It was a different time.

And I've always been extraordinarily sensitive to my environment, to others. And there was just a sense of like who I wa I needed to be focusing all of my energy and attention on being something that I wasn't, because who I was was not enough.

Stephanie: Right, because in the eighties we all had to do everything. We all had to achieve. We all had to be the best we could be. We had to, we had these obligations to achieve and just keep going and pushing and more, and more, more, right. The eighties were the greed decade, and so. It went beyond money to achievement and things like that.

So I understand what you're saying. And it's interesting 'cause I might not have given it that same language, but you're right, we were always pushed to achieve more, to do more, to get better grades to, go play a sport, to do your extracurriculars. All of those things.

Anna: And, and you know, even from like the early on, I remember being like, oh, I have to go to college someday. What can I do now

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: make it look as good as possible? It's like, why was I thinking about that at age 12? Like, no.

Stephanie: Right, All right. So that's really, really fundamental to you for your whole, first half of your life. So now you were about to say you went to grad school for art.

Anna: I went to graduate school and fell in love with the work. I was living in England at the time. I was able to get a job through my student visa and I was so happy to be out of America too, to be perfectly honest. Like I left the country 'cause I didn't wanna take the GRE. I do not enjoy standardized testing and it was cheaper to go to school abroad. So I went and I started a life there, but I couldn't stay for a variety of reasons. The home office would not grant me a work visa because again, working for the arts, even across the Atlantic, they said they denied my work visa because I would be working for slave wages. I would be too dependent on the system. And I was also, it's like, welcome to working in the arts.

Stephanie: Right, right.

Anna: But throughout all of this, I knew something was really wrong. I mean, just personally where I, I was working for this brilliant nonprofit, very small run by a whole lot of heart, not a lot of money. And I bent over backwards for them for a variety of reasons.

One, it was a survival. I wanted to stay in the country. I also loved the work. It was event based, working with artists and galleries, and I was in my happy place a hundred percent. Like, sure I was eating like rolls for dinner, but it didn't matter..

After I was. Basically told to leave the country, I moved back to America. I'm originally from New York City. I had to move in with my dad

Stephanie: and my two, much younger half brothers. And it was like, I was, how old was I? I was 30. Hmm? I was 30 something. Early thirties. And it was just so clear that like I had messed up. Like that was the story that I was taking. I had established a life. I was living in London. I was living my dream life, it was ultimately unsustainable on a variety of levels.

Anna: And so me, the one thing that has been constant with me, you asked about like, how long has that anxiety been with me? The other thing that's always been with me is a very loud heart. And I'm not talking like thump, thump, thump.

I am somebody who follows my heart. When the alignment is there, it's like, oh, I'll be spontaneous and go do that thing because it lights up every cell of my body, which like shocks and horrifies my parents on a regular basis. Because they're both very pragmatic and very like, what are you talking about? What's your plan? And I was like, I don't have a plan. Whoopee, I'm going. And yeah, I definitely specialize occasionally in leaps of faith, shall we say.

Stephanie: Oh

Anna: I had come home, this was rewinding slightly.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: come home prior to receiving the final rejection from my work visa and I knew that something was off. I had no sense of who I was. I was really depressed. I was broke. And my mom lives in western Massachusetts next to a beautiful wellbeing center, a yoga center, and I was like, I, I need to just go and like get clear for a weekend. I had enough money to like go to be a commuter for the weekend and I found a workshop called Trust Your Vibes. And it was all about trusting your sixth sense. I was like, all right, I don't know about, I mean, like, sure, sixth sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. That sounds great. I, it's, it's, I can't do like advanced Iyengar. I can't do this. Fine, I'll do that. And that weekend changed my life.

It was all about quieting the mind to be able to tune in and pay attention to that essential voice, our intuition. On the very last day of that weekend workshop, the leader had us do a guided meditation that she was leading. It was rooted in, ask yourself, what is your greatest joy? And it was in different sectors of our lives.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Anna: She said, just listen. Just listen to your intuition. And one of the last rounds of questions she got to was about career. And she said, ask your higher self, or your intuition, or your sixth sense, what would bring you the greatest joy as a career? And never before and never since, have I had what happened, happen again, which was I heard a voice.I recognize, I sound, I might sound a little crazy when I say that, but it was legit, like full body goosebump.

What on earth did I just hear? And there was a voice in my ear that said burlesque dancer. And I did not know what that was. And I remember opening my eyes and turning to the side. 'cause I was convinced somebody was whispering in my ear. It was such a real feeling.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I was just in shock. I was like, but it also felt like I had just been hit by lightning,

I couldn't make sense. I was like, I was super scattered. I'm like, what on earth is a burlesque dancer? Now, mind you, I have been a dancer in one way or another my whole life.

Stephanie: Okay.

Anna: Walgreens and the grocery store, they are my favorite catwalks because a good song comes on. I will sashay down that cereal aisle like you have never seen.

Stephanie: I swear to God, Patrick and I, and again, this is just, you and I connecting here. Patrick and I dance in the aisles of the grocery store. And we swear to God we are on the Christmas reel that they put up at the Christmas party, of like the people doing crazy things in the grocery store, 'cause Pat and I will, good song comes on and like, you know, we literally will stop and dance.

Anna: Yes, thank you. And thank you for doing that. Like anytime anybody says yes to their heart and their joy and basically allows their spirit to be present, which happens through dancing. I just think the world gets better, even if just by a tiny click. Like when anybody says yes, it affects the whole grid.

Like

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: affects the field. Like I can guarantee you. If somebody's having a bad day walking through that supermarket and see your husband like grooving down in front of the soup, you know, they'll be like, wow, that's kind of, and it will take them outta their moment and be like, oh,

Stephanie: Yes. I. Right.

Anna: Who knows what else is going on for them. But it's like, just even in that moment, it's it's little moment of levity.

Stephanie: Certainly now more than ever, like those moments, those pockets of joy are essential to, not just our health, but also our longevity.

Anna: And so rewinding to the story, I ended up going home. After that to my mom's house and I immediately googled what is a burlesque dancer. And the sound my jaw made when it hit the desk was very loud because I could not believe my eyes. It was basically the art of the strip tease. And I was somebody who had really bad relationship with my body, for my whole life. Rewinding back to, oh, I have to be different from who I am. That was projected absolutely onto my body. The dieting. I unfortunately had an eating disorder, you know, like never drinking water, 'cause I didn't wanna gain weight. It's like, I wish I could go back in time and be like, honey bunny,

Stephanie: Right, right.

Anna: Just stretch your body. Go for a walk. Eat the burger. It's ok.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: But I just, I wasn't there at that time.

Stephanie: When we were kids, it was the era of the diet pill. High school. Everybody was popping diet pills in high school, in the cafeteria. You know they're freaking popping uppers.

Anna: Absolutely. I went to eight years of all girls school,

Stephanie: Oh,

Anna: I can't even tell you

Stephanie: Nope. Yeah,

Anna: how many dysfunctional disordered ways of being

Stephanie: yeah,

Anna: were so common and

Stephanie: commonplace, which

yeah,

Anna: looking back on I was like, holy moly, like. Hoooo. I just, I have a lot of compassion for myself and everyone else, 'cause man, we were in it.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: And, again, the eighties and the nineties were all it, they were kinda like power decades.

I don't wanna make light of anything, but it was just a different time. And it's weird now to, to have, have so much of change in such a short period of time.

So basically, long story short, I became a burlesque dancer.

Stephanie: And this is one of my favorite parts of the story. And thus was born, the Reverend Legs Malone.

Anna: C'est moi! The minister with the 34

Stephanie: Oh.

Anna: and a half inch inseam.

Stephanie: Oh my God.

to marry a friend I through the Universal Life church.

Yeah.

Give it up for ULC and, it opened up a next chapter for me. And so then I actually, that's when I started incorporating Reverend into my stage name.

So I, I was the girl with a 34 and a half inch inseam. I'm now the minister with a 34 and a half inch inseam. Hashtag evolution.

Stephanie: Oh, I love that so much. Oh my God. Just, I don't know why it strikes me. The name is spectacular. Tell me how she was different than you.

Anna: She was confident. She had everything to share and nothing to lose.

Stephanie: Wow.

Anna: She was unapologetically, outrageous and as beautiful as she wanted to be.And she belonged to herself. The thing I loved about getting on stage, and I, again, like I've always been very comfortable on stage. I, in some ways it was like a very natural step for me, even though it was like, this isn't nonprofit work. Like what's going on? Like, does not compute.

Stephanie: But it was, it's like, it's like I woke up for the first time in my life. I

Wow.

Anna: even remember my father, who I love, who's a tough old nut. And he even said when I came home after I'd been dancing for a while, he said, you just, you're calmer. He's like, you're calmer, you're less anxious. You just seem happier.

Stephanie: Check and check. Yes. All yes. All, all of that. And I hadn't even realized it, but yeah, I mean Legs and still gives me a sort of beautiful veneer in a way. Like, and that, that's the thing I love about getting on stage. Like what's happening outside the theater doors does not apply.

Like, are we all in it? Absolutely. But especially now as I am, I'm still performing, but I'm, I'm doing more hosting that I am performing now. Even then, like the host gets to set the container of the show.

This brilliant woman named Kate Valentine. whose, was a very famous, is a very famous emcee named Miss Astrid, and she gave a brilliant keynote many years ago at a big burlesque conference and said, the host is the egg that keeps the cake together. It's not the flour, it's not the milk, it's not the sugar, it's not the icing. It's not the rosettes, but it is what keeps everything together. And so I, I don't take that lightly.

Anna: And joy is on such, I, I don't. It doesn't make sense to me, but also I live in the woods and like hang out with like my wife and three animals all the time. So my, my perspective's a little skewed, I think. Like I just, I don't see the normalization of joy anywhere.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: I just don't. It's like I can see performative joy.

Stephanie: Yes.

Anna: I can see people who are taking delight in what they're doing, but like, I just, I, I wanna see more.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I wanna see crazy colors. I wanna see people dressing however they wanna dress, even if it's like wearing like bobblehead, you know, whatever, those little like alien antenna things, again, to the grocery store - you can tell where I spend most of my time. But like, just to give, to give way to our, to express ourselves.

Because I think self-expression is deeply connected to joy. And when we say yes to our heart, to what brings us delight and joy, everything changes. You might be living in the same house with the same job, with the same, you know, da, da da dah, but it's like a different filter gets dropped in.

Stephanie: Just that lightness that comes in and like that was, and I think that's another big reason why so much of my work has been working with people, with their relationships with their bodies, and also giving way to their own self-expression.

Yeah.

Anna: Ultimately that was my journey. Like that's what I had to learn in order to be like a healthy, sane, now late forties individual. But,

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: you know, it was both like a very uncomfortable time because I had some real steep learning curves, but there was always a net to catch me.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: That

was in the community that I had been so fortunate to be accepted in. I'm talking about specifically the neo burlesque community in New York City.

And you know, it's full of humans. No one's perfect. You know, there's drama, there's, it's, hello, welcome to humans.

Stephanie: Right?

Anna: We were all coming together by force of what was in our hearts, and I've never known a community to be like that before.

Stephanie: And I feel exceptionally fortunate, not just to have been a part of it, but to have been welcomed in so quickly

Anna: as kind of a, a relative newcomer. But I just went in like wide open eyes, wide open heart, just being like, I will do whatever you want me to do. I just wanna be on stage with you guys.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: Bit by bit it suddenly happened.

Stephanie: Yeah. So you spent the better part of your thirties where your main endeavor was burlesque.

Anna: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: But you're in New York City and I'm guessing that doesn't pay a six figure income. So tell me about kind of the rest of your world. You had to probably do, side hustle after side hustle, right?

Anna: Yes. Hustle was the word.

Stephanie: I was working seven days a week in different jobs. My focus was burlesque and working at night. So I did everything I could around it. So I was a bartender, I a daytime bartender, which was a trip. I was an art model for many years. I temped. I, did one-off gigs, like I, whatever I could do to make rent. I was living dollar to dollar. I mean,hats off to anybody who says yes to a full-time career in the arts.

Yeah.

Anna: Please protect your adrenal glands.

Because it's like, that was another tough thing, 'cause I just kept going, kept going, kept going. I was like, I'm gonna be a world famous burlesque dancer. I'm gonna do this. And I started booking tours. And I got flown to Stockholm. And I went to Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, two years in a row. Like I was living my dream,

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: But my body was also like, what are you doing to me?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: It was. Just I, and again, it was like hustle culture and it was just like, okay, I gotta keep going. I gotta keep going. And like everybody around me in the community was in the exact same boat.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: We were all stressing about money. We were all like trying to find the cheapest place to buy really good food after the show 'cause we were starving.

It's amazing looking back on it now. It was so real and so in our faces and, there was also a kind of like, I don't know, it's, it's a weird thing to say, but there was almost like a kind of pride that came from some people being like, oh, yeah, I, I can do this. Like, I'm only eating rice and beans, but you know what? I'm making it. And it's like, are you?

Stephanie: Right, right,

Anna: I mean, I, and no judgment, but like honestly, like human to human. Are you doing what you love?

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: Or are you burning the candle at both ends to move towards a dream that may not be financially sustainable or really something that you can do in the long term?

Stephanie: Right,

Anna: And I, I literally bent over backwards. And so it's no surprise, spoiler alert that I hurt my back.

Stephanie: Right. That was a very nice segue. Wow. Bent over backwards. Right? You were 39.

Anna: I was 39.

Stephanie: How'd you hurt your back?

Anna: It was repetitive stress, ultimately. And high heels for 10 years, does not do a body good.

Stephanie: Right. It's not like you were just walking down the street in high heels.

Anna: No, definitely not. I was go-go dancing. I was doing wild things on stage. I was, you know, running up flights of stairs. Sometimes I was wearing heels, although after a while I was like, oh, this is the worst.

No. Like, yay flats. But I needed, and I wanted to look as good as possible all the time. And certainly when you're on stage, you can't wear flats unless you have like a really bad back injury and people do it all the time.

Stephanie: But it was just like, no, this is what I do. Okay. My body hurts.

Anna: So what? But also I wasn't stretching, I wasn't eating well, I wasn't building strength in my body. I was just showing up with the bare minimum of what I had to get through whatever I could do to make money and to further my career.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: So I noticed one day, I was sitting on my floor, and I was going through, I'm a little bit of a pack rat.

I used to be, I'm much better now, but I had all these old magazines. And I had sat down on the floor, my legs straight out in front of me. The pile of magazines was on my left side, left of my hip, and I was picking them up and moving them over to the right side of my hip, over and over and over again.

And I was sort of like leaning over and pulling them over and like after I got up I was like, Ooh, something feels really weird. And I hadn't felt that before. And I was like, okay, wellI'll take care of myself. I remember like lying down on the floor and like rolling my knees around and like trying to, like, something was wrong with my sacrum, my low back. About five days later I was in a show.It was January 24th. it had just snowed about two feet in New York City.

Stephanie: And I had my gig bag. It was a little bit of a stressful situation. It was a scripted show. I was one of the co-stars of it. We had not been able to rehearse it. And so I was showing up to the theater. I think the show was at like, I don't know, eight o'clock and I rolled up at like two so that we could do a dress rehearsal. And I was playing the role of Cat Lawyer. This was Dog Cop Three, The Return of Cat Lawyer. Very serious work. And I had glued on like I had these lovely white gloves and I'd glued on little black pointy nails.

Anna: I remember sitting on the edge of the stage just making sure, like I had pulled them out. I had just finished gluing them. So I was like, okay, they can dry before the show. And I went to stand up and I couldn't stand up. And I didn't, I, I started to panic and I was just like, okay, not only I co-starring in a show that I need to be moving and dancing and everything, I don't, I don't understand what's happening with my body right now.

And I sort of of whimpered my way through dress rehearsal. I remember lying on the stage with my legs straight up the wall and just like asking my back to cooperate with me. And finally like it wasn't going away. And I, remember sitting in the backstage just saying a prayer and taking four Advil and a shot of whiskey.

And I was just like, please get me through this show. And I barely made it through the show.and, thank God my wife, she was, we weren't married yet at the time, but she was there and she helped me into a cab afterwards and I, everything changed that night.

Stephanie: It took me about three weeks after that to be able to walk normally. What had happened was it wasn't a fully slipped disc, but I had several bulging discs and I'm very prone to inflammation, which I also did not. I was like, everybody's inflamed, whatever. Yeah, news flash girl. Like,

right,

Anna: you can calm it down by like being healthy.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: And it triggered a back spasm, which in turn triggered a few more discs to get inflamed my neck. And so it was just like, it was like a domino game of worst case scenario for somebody who was working in high heels. And that was like my primary job. That was my primary source of income. It was everything and I had to cancel three weeks of shows.

I thank God was able to like find a chiropractor. I was on Medicaid, so it's like he couldn't cover the fee, but I was able to find one in Brooklyn Heights for like 40 bucks a visit. I was like, yeah, I can afford that.

Slowly but surely, like I started to be able to like move around and I wasn't in like excruciating pain, but it became very clear that the way I had been living my life was no longer tenable.

Stephanie: I got depressed.

Yeah.

Anna: I got really, really sad and I did not have any experience with dealing with grief at that level, kind of body grief.

Stephanie: I was so used to just being able to do whatever I wanted to do. It's like one of the gifts of having a healthy able body, it's

Right.

Anna: I'm gonna go run up that hill. Hey look, I ran up the hill. You know? I'm gonna go go do this, I'm gonna do that. And it was suddenly like, Hmm, I don't think I can do that.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: It made me, it really forced a reckoning. And so I had to shift how I was making my money. And I was already working in the healing arts. I had been working in the Healing Arts for a while. And basically put out a call like, Hey guys, I need to shift gears a little bit if people want sessions, whatever it was.

And so like people, people were coming. It definitely, again, was not sustainable. And I honestly don't remember like a lot of that. Like there was such a sort of like self-imposed blackout moment, 'cause it's just like everything got real dark.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: And also it's like I had never, I had heard about people who had like chronic illness or like major injuries and how pain can change a person's personality.

Stephanie: And I watched that happen to me and it terrified me. I remember being on the couch and my now wife trying to help me. And I, I, it was like I had blinders on that sort of went into like pinhole camera style. Like all I was focusing on was how to avoid pain.

Yep.

Anna: And it blew open a, a side of my perspective and my mind that, yeah, it, it, it was, it was a terrible, terrible time, but I also knew, at the time, just as I know now, and I say my clients all the time, like the only way out is through.

Stephanie: It's true.

Anna: So I had to slow down, I had to heal. And honestly, that's the thing, like slowing down.

Stephanie: Yep.

Anna: What it was because I was so accustomed to like hyper revving and doing this and doing that. Oh, I gotta, yeah.

And then, oh, and I'm showing up to this gig and I look fabulous, and I gotta wake up the next morning because I have to be on an art model stand at 9:00 AM for a bunch of fashion people who don't even wanna be in class, you know

Stephanie: Yep.

Anna: holidng the exact same pose and then this and then that. I gotta go bartend, I gotta do blah, blah. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. This does not fly any longer.

Stephanie: Yeah, it's unsustainable.

Anna: And that was the beginning of the transition.

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, there's some elements to that I can really relate to because in April, it will be eight years ago, I came down with what I thought was a cold a couple of days after Easter, and six weeks later it was like, okay, wait a minute. This isn't a cold. And then, the next two years, it was, at the time my office was the upstairs loft of my condo, so I would crawl upstairs, work for a couple hours, crawl downstairs, sit on the couch, and my husband would deliver dinner to my lap, and then I would go to bed and the fatigue was incomprehensible really. And that went on for about two years. I already knew I had an autoimmune thyroid issue, but I, two years later got the diagnosis of Lyme disease. And then went in, you know, full on treatment for Lyme disease. and honestly, eight years later, I would say I am, 25% better, you know?

But I have had to completely reshape my life. And it's so funny 'cause when the, pandemic hit. Pat and I were like, okay, now everybody's gonna live like we do, which is like at home, on the couch, watching Netflix, eating at home, making our own food. Like we, the pandemic for us was a bit of a breeze because we had been living that way for a couple of years already.

But yeah. There were eras definitely in my twenties, I was running at the same level as you were. I always used to say, burning the candle at both ends and then setting a firecracker off in the middle. like, yeah, I can do everything.

But still, I was pushing pretty hard and like, nope, that doesn't work anymore. You have to completely refashion your life.

Anna: Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. So I can respect that. It's, it's hard work and it's more hard work mentally because you have to detach from

Anna: Yes! That's the word. That's literally the word that's in my head right now is like the biggest lesson is detachment.

Stephanie: Yeah. You have to detach from who you thought you were and what you thought you could do. And it is, it's a very hard lesson to learn. And you're exactly right. The only way out is through, 'cause if you go around it, it will never let you go.

Anna: Nope.

Stephanie: You will never get out of it.

Anna: One of the best pieces of, advice along the lines of the only way out is through was, you know, problems or issues that you're ignoring will just keep getting bigger until they can no longer be ignored. I.

Stephanie: Oh, here's the way I say it. The Universe will keep sending you the same challenge over and over again until you decide to address it.

Anna: Yep. That's it. That's it.

Stephanie: So tell me what it looks likea couple of weeks, a couple of months later.You're shifting your work, you're shifting away from dancing and into some of the healing arts work. You know, you have to make a change in your life. What does that phase look like? I,

Anna: Oh man, I, it was, I was in so much grief that I couldn't, I was operating at partial capacity.

Stephanie: There was definitely, again, like that, that sort of like adrenal stress of like, I gotta make a living. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. At that point I, I was very fortunate to own my apartment and it was just like, okay, I need to make this mortgage payment come hell or high water. Like, Chase does not care,

right.

Anna: like, what's going on. Like, Chase does not care that I just hurt my back. Like, that money is gonna be coming outta my account

Stephanie: Yep.

Anna: whether it's there or not not, you know? And, I think it was, it, it just kind of felt like a moment of survival.

Stephanie: Doubling down and just really applying that same sort of like, almost like acid like stress of the hustle into like, I have to find a job, I have to find a living. And I just started scrounging what I could that did not require me to be on stage.

Anna: And, but also like my identity was so firmly on stage that I also, I didn't wanna be looking anywhere else. And talking about detachment also comes with like acceptance. Like, I refused to accept that what was happening was gonna be a forever thing.

Stephanie: It was just like, well, no, this is unacceptable. I'm gonna keep on keeping on and before I know it'll be back on stage just the way I was. And it was like, no. And so, you know, I was still producing. I would hire hosts so I wouldn't have to be on stage, it was like they were my people, you know?

Anna: And everybody was like, where are you Legs? Like, we haven't seen you around. And yeah. I've been on the couch. And I didn't make a big stink of it. I didn't share with the world: I am convalescing on my couch! I was like, Nope. I don't want anyone to know about this.

Stephanie: right.

Anna: This is not cool. But honestly looking back on it, it was just a dark time.

Right.

Anna: Like, that's okay. Cool. It was really touch and go for a long time. But I think I'm also somebody who, always been an optimist.

As depressed as I've been and as terrible as I've been to my body, out of feelings of depression and frustration and loss of direction or just aimlessness, there's always been a little glimmer on the edge. It was also like that the, the back injury triggered a whole bunch of things happening.

Yeah.

Anna: I can't remember what it was,

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: It was, yeah, it was, it was definitely a time that sort of both tested my faith, but also forced me to really dig down deep. In some ways like strip everything back to the brass tacks and be like, what am I doing? What I was able to uncover was like, I mean, I ended up stepping into entrepreneurship because it was like, it was easy. It felt easier to make money on my own terms than to get a job. What no one told me is that entrepreneurship is, unbelievably hard, but it's also intense self-development.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: So I was going to these like online business classes, and I had tears rolling down my cheeks. I'm like, well, I don't believe in myself. Like, okay, well you're gonna reach out to 500 people. Like I'm not reaching out to my broke ass friends to like

buy this product or support me in this new venture.

And I was like, absolutely not. And I tried some things and like it just, none of it Looking back, I still feel like little tinges of shame because I did end up, like, I got pulled into a multi-level marketing company and I was like, oh, well it's great. I got, I totally got hook line and sinkered and did bring some friends in only to realize like, this is a con. This is terrible. And you know, was able to see my way out. But even then, just constant self doubt and I was like, no, where I wanna be is on stage. And I was like, Hmm, your body's not letting that happen.

And let's be honest, a barefoot burlesque dancer, unless you're like, the most phenomenal barefoot burlesque dancer in the world, it's gonna look like you're phoning it in.

Stephanie: Right,

Anna: Nobody's gonna wanna book you.

No audience, nobody's gonna pay 20 bucks to see a show, to see someone wandering around barefoot complaining about back pain. I mean, like that's, that is, that is the antithesis of sexy unless you've got like a pain fetish.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: So.

Stephanie: So there's a couple of things I wanna dig into. You were talking about at the beginning, you were saying how you had this feeling of your body being sort of pulled in multiple directions. Doing what you wanted to do versus the doing the things you should do. And then you found burlesque and you created this persona on stage that absolutely lit you up.

Mm-hmm. So in that sense, you were really just doing everything that you wanted. You were, because there's nobody who's gonna tell you should go and find a career as a burlesque dancer in New York City. So afterwards, talk to me a little bit about, and I can already see some of it, 'cause you're gonna, you're gonna go out on your own, and start your own business, but you took those classes.

I had a sales coach for a little while as, as well, and, the way that he wanted me to do it was very icky and very, not aligned with how I thought it would work for me. But he was an old white man and exceptionally successful and very rich. So of course he had the key right. So tell me about, at this point in time, at this juncture, you're moving forward from burlesque. Tell me about trusting yourself versus doing what you should.

Anna: Hmm, man, that was, it was, if those are two poles, like I was dancing right in between them. And it took me a really long time to find my footing, for lack of a better term. I mean, so many stops and starts and so many failed opportunities, missed opportunities, failed endeavors. But again, I was like, that little glimmer on the edge was like, there's something more. There's something bigger and better waiting. You just have to find it.

Stephanie: And so. It's funny looking back on it. I mean, I remember saying my life got better overnight when I turned 30. And I remember saying, and people were always like, oh, the twenties. Oh my God, your twenties. And I remember saying to myself, when I was in my twenties, I was like, anybody who gets through their twenties is rewarded by being in their thirties.

That's a great, yeah.

Anna: I was super into it, but then I was like, oh, 40. Hmm. I wonder. I wonder. And there's so many burlesque dancers who are so much older than they look. I'll never forget, there was this one performer she had turned 50, and she was a stone cold fox. I mean, this woman like, like breaking necks and hearts left, right and center. I remember being like, you're 50 years old. And she's like, I do what I love. That's what keeps me young. Her being like, oh wow. Oh, I wanna do that when I'm 50. And so I feel like, being in my forties has been a real dance with truth, and I think it comes down to detachment. It comes down to acceptance. It also comes down to the fact of like, I've really come into deeper connection, I'm 47 now,

Stephanie: come into such deeper connection with the fact that like we are truly here for a good time, not a long time. I'm very fortunate to have an amazing chiropractor now, you know? So it's like I can move. I'm building strength in my body.

Anna: I'm finding more and more as watching all my friends go through menopause, be like, oh,

Stephanie: actually,

Anna: strength training is essential to prevent osteoporosis. I'm like, what? Huh? What? What are you talking about? And it's like, oh, oh, right. Actually, I do need to take care of this. Like, I, I'm not gonna forget the lessons that I learned in my thirties, certainly,

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: Watching everybody, like, number one, what a privilege it is to get older.

Stephanie: What a privilege it is to be able to celebrate one birthday after the other, after the other. And the responsibilities that come with that, true. You know, I, one of my favorite sort of alternate definitions of the word responsibility is the ability to respond.

I feel like, again, slowing down, which was one of like my huge lessons that I learned, like literally coming into my 40th year to slow down and just focus what, what is right in front of me.

Yeah.

Anna: Forget the hustle, forget the, like spinning my attention out in a 40 million different directions, know? And it was again, thanks to one of the many business trainings that I went to online and like books I read. One of the biggest takeaways from the book, it was two books in particular. One was Essentialism and the other was The One Thing.

Stephanie: Okay.

Anna: The One Thing said, it's better to grow 12 inches in one direction, as opposed to one inch in 12 different directions . I remember being like, damn, like number one, like I could just feel the realness of that statement, but also being like, how on earth am I only gonna do one thing?

Stephanie: Right,

Anna: Like, spoiler alert, I still can't do just one thing.

Stephanie: Right, right.

Anna: Like, you know, and, but, but at the same time, walking with that, the narrowing down and the slowing down helped me realize how much I do have to work with, how many opportunities there are, how many conversations I get to have with brilliant people.

I just feel like it's sort of shifted my perspective a little bit. And also the fact like it's real as hell watching your parents get old.

Stephanie: Like, you know, and being like, oh wow. Like I'm very fortunate to still have both my parents. My dad's 79, my mom's 82, and it's like, wow, like if I wanna live, as long as that

Anna: there are changes I get to make now

to promote my health, not just physically, but emotionally,

Stephanie: like all senses of the term. Again, even though that can sometimes be like, oh my God, how am I gonna do that? Like big breath, relax. Like, okay, we're all in this together by ourselves.

Right.

Anna: And what's the next step I can do? What's the next one thing I can do?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I recognize that might not be the most satisfying answers, but it's like I'm still figuring it out in a lot of ways, but I think I now have such a much clearer sense of who I am and what I want and what I am wanting to create or achieve or experience that that in itself, I, I could not have gotten to that had it not been for every event that led me to where I am right now.

Stephanie: Absolutely. And that is, it's unsexy, but it's sort of the key because it took you a long time to get there. But if we think about the last seven years between your 40th birthday and where you are now, it sounds to me if I were to extrapolate from your story, I would say thatthe journey, the process, has been one of fine tuning.

So you took the sales classes, you learned all the things you should be doing, you're supposed to be doing to grow a business. And then you read a book that one piece really struck you. And sure, maybe there was one or two things from those classes that resonated. And so you were, the more you become confident in who you are and your own core, the more you can take only what you need and leave the shoulds to the side. Right?

Sure. You do it that way. I'm gonna take this one thing you taught me and put it into my program, and now I'm creating my own way of living, of doing it, of running my business, of, all of those things, of being.

Anna: Yeah. One of the best pieces of advice I got, I'm pretty sure I was in my thirties when I got it, was replace the word should with could, and it changes everything, because then everything becomes a possibility, a potential.

Stephanie: Oh

Anna: I could go to grad school. Sure, I could climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Sure, I could fill in the blank. But then, should I? No. Should is judgment.

Stephanie: Yes.

Anna: And judgement is inherently, I don't wanna say necessarily flawed. It is misaligned with the heart. Judgment and justification go hand in hand.

Stephanie: And when we step outta that paradigm and just begin to trust, Hey, you know what? I am worthy of everything I'm going after. I have support, I have guidance, I have encouragement that I am giving to myself.

Actually those shoulds, they get to just fall away, you know? And trust me, I know lots of people who I love dearly, who use the word should constantly

Yep.

Anna: You know, like laughing with 'em and be like, please don't should all over me.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: I'm not interested. I'm not, I love you to the ends of the earth and back again, but like zip it with that should business. It doesn't apply to me. It

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: just doesnt. You do you, I'll do me.

Stephanie: Yeah. The thing about shoulds, I think, for the most part, the people who love us and who are telling us what we should be doing. And I always think of this like, say you're a teen or in your twenties and your parents are telling you all the things you should be doing. It's because they want you to be happy, healthy, safe, secure. And based on their own experience, whether it's something they did or a choice they didn't make and saw the outcomes of both of those things. They're trying to share their expertise, their experience with you so that you can be maybe in a better position than they were. But your point is so important is that it's not necessarily aligned with, who I am, what I want, what my temperament is, what's gonna work for me, all of these things.

And so, so the shoulding for the, I think a large part of it. The people who love us and are telling us what we should be doing, they're trying to help. And the problem is that when we're younger, we don't have that sense of self, that sense of confidence, that really strong core in who we are to say, no, I'm gonna do it my way.

And so we follow because, well, they must know better. They must know better than me. They're older, they're smarter, they're successful, they're right. They must know better than me.

And it's at this period and you've come into it through your forties where you start to realize. Oh, no, I know better for me, I know better.

And so I'm going to take the steps that make sense to me. And I'm not saying you would do it in a vacuum or in isolation. Of course, you're gonna get information from all kinds of places. But having that confidence to make your own decisions and take your own steps and to discard all the advice. Just walk away from it. that's really what this part of life is about.

Anna: I Amen to that. Yeah. My favorite antidote to judgment is discernment.

We have the reflex to be like, what's meant to be close to me? What's not meant to be close to me? I think that's an evolutionary reality for all of us. You know, we're the product of 4 billion years of evolution.

Like, you know, these reflexes have been honed over millennia by creatures. We don't even know what they look like that are our distant ancestors.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: Or beings as well. And I think there's something to be said about, judgment is so misaligned, that to sink down into discernment, which is simply the practice of figuring out what stays, what goes.

Physiologically speaking, it's the job of the small intestine. Fact.

Stephanie: And closet speaking, it's the job of Marie Kondo.

Anna: Exactly, exactly. Does does this spark joy? No bye.

Stephanie: right? Right.

Anna: But it, it again, 'cause I still have a reflex to judge.

it's, It's the environment I was raised in.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: Say, somebody walks into the coffee shop with a clown suit on. People are be like, hmmm, who's that old Bozo?

Stephanie: Right. Yeah.

Anna: And it's like, you know, some people be like, oh my God, as a clown. And other people will be like, goodbye. Like, I hate clowns. And some people will be like, Ooh, what's their problem? But blah, blah, blah.

Stephanie: Maybe that person's just like owning their love of clowns.

Anna: But again, to the to the point being discernment is a, is an inherently neutral feeling.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Anna: Instead of judgment, which is attacking value or assigning value. Discernment is just like, what's right for me? What isn't right for me?

Stephanie: I will let go of what doesn't need to be here, and I will receive what is meant to be here. And then I'll ask myself that same question tomorrow or a week from now or a month from now.

Yeah.

Anna: Sort of just like lowering the noise,

Stephanie: yes.

Anna: coming into the deeper question of like, what do I want to be doing, being, experiencing, achieving all of that.

Stephanie: Yeah. So my last question for you is, when you were a kid and a young woman, you had that feeling of being pulled in multiple directions. You physically had it in your body, that feeling. Does that still exist today?

Anna: In flashes. Now I, when I experience that, I know something's outta whack. So if it's like, I need to take a breath or I need to drink a glass of water, or maybe I need to go for a walk, or maybe I need to just lean into having an uncomfortable conversation. It's like just feeling, feeling the edges that, of, of the sort of body shimmers, 'cause it does sometimes feel like shimmering up my body. Not in like fun, beautiful way, but like, what am I feeling right now?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I take it as my body as being a barometer, and it's telling me the truth and I need to listen to it. My mind can spin a trillion different stories, but at the end of the day, my body is always gonna tell the truth.

My mind might take some narrative liberties, shall we say. But my body, all of our bodies, they always tell the truth.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: So I actually, one of my favorite things to do, sort of bring myself back into alignment is just like have a like sit down and take a few breaths and ask my body like, what do you need right now? If it's like you need to stretch your legs, you need to like literally uncurl your toes, like just to even bring a little bit of lightness into the body.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: It will immediately bring lightness to the mind. I am so grateful to have walked the sort of rocky, nasty parts of my path because I was able to find these tools and I can use them now.

And that's really what I do in my work. I help people do this as well.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: Like we don't have to be held up by our own anxiety or that the sort of split mindedness like, oh, I wanna be an astronaut, but my dad says I should be an accountant. It's like, well, so what are you gonna do with that?

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: And there's this beautiful term, called sonder. And sonder is the word that refers to the fact that everybody has their own full, rich internal lives that is no different from anybody else. True. It'll be a completely different galaxy compared to somebody else. But at the end of the day, like, and I think that was another big thing that I learned was just like, actually what works for me doesn't necessarily work for another person.

And

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: I'm a firstborn daughter, like I'm real good at being bossy.

Stephanie: Same. Same.

Anna: All that stuff. My brother would like push back on me and my, my friends would be like, Anna, you need to stop talking, like you're being rude right now. Or whatever it was.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I, I don't think I was ever rude, but I definitely would not shut the F up sometimes. You know, it was all like, oh, wait, I, I can actually trust myself.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: I trust my body. I can trust that my body's telling me the truth. I can trust my heart. I can trust my mind. And where do we go from here? I think all of life is a constant becoming. And what's real and true for us now may not have been that 10 years ago, may not be 10 years from now.

Stephanie: Right.

Anna: But it's just that sort of radical practice of being present.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: And again, acceptance and detachment.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Anna: At the end of the day, it's also just to allow in gratitude, to allow in the acknowledgement of like, damn, I'm lucky. Even if stuff is hard, even if there's, you know, a huge pile of credit card debt, even if, know, you don't know how you're gonna pay your electric bill next month, like just to breathe in and be like, and I am enough. It's just money.

Stephanie: Right,

Anna: It can feel very real, but it's, but it doesn't affect your value as a human being.

Stephanie: Right. Your inherent value. Yeah.

Oh, Anna, I love this so much and, I love you so much and, you and I are gonna see each other this summer at,at your shows in Maine. I'm very much looking forward to that, but I think this is probably a good place to end this conversation and then you and I will continue on in the real world.

Anna: That. Amen to that. Stephanie, this was brilliant. Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Oh,

Anna: You're such a delight and this is so, so rich. It's such a beautiful,moment of time you're focusing, this, the, the energy of this podcast on. I'm just, I really wanna acknowledge you for that, so

Stephanie: oh, thank you so much. It means a lot to me.