Making Meditation Your Second Career w/ Anne Sussman
Anne Sussman started teaching meditation after turning 50. She is a glowing example of how synchronicity and purpose flow from alignment with our Soul's calling. Anne learned meditation from Sarah Mclean, a leading teacher in the field who spent years running the Chopra Center. Anne is the real deal. You will love this episode!
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Podcast Transcript
Lou: Welcome to the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond. Today we have a very special guest, a friend, an experienced teacher and guide, Ann Sussman. She is the founder of Mindfulness Meeting Place, a virtual studio that meets you wherever you are and takes you wherever you're meant to go. With a calm mind, focused attention and greater well being, she offers instruction to individuals, small groups and organizations. And since becoming a meditation instructor, Ann has taught over a thousand people the simple tools to transform their lives. She is the author of the Bliss Buddy Project, How Sharing Gratitude Increases Joy. Anne received her certification in 2015 as a McLean Meditation Institute Meditation and mindfulness instructor, as well as a second certification as an MMI Mindfulness at Work trainer for businesses. 2020, she was certified as a 200 hour yoga teacher. Anne, welcome to the show.
Anne: Hi Lou, thanks so much for having me.
Lou: And I'd love for us to just explore a little bit of your journey into mindfulness and meditation. And when did that come about in your life? Yeah, us there and what you were doing, who you were at that time.
Anne: Okay, so about 14 years ago. I was 50 years old and my stress had become unmanageable. My life had become unmanageable. Many things were happening all at once. I became an empty nester, we had to sell our house, my mother in law died, I was working for an insane boss. I was having a flood of childhood abuse memories that I needed to deal with. And all of that was contributing to this anxiety, which I always had. Maybe because I had a difficult childhood, I don't know, maybe it was just my genetic makeup. But anxiety was prevalent in my life always. But it was coming to a crescendo and I was having panic attacks and I was really miserable. I went to therapy, did some EMDR work which helped with the panic attacks. And I was kind of left with this free floating anxiety that I thought I just had to live with. And a friend took me to a meditation class and I left there and I was like one hour. I just couldn't believe the difference in how I felt. And so I was working for this crazy boss and I said to her, Wednesdays at 11 o'clock are non negotiable. That's going to be my lunch hour. I go to this class and it was religious for me. I was like, I've never committed to something so deeply. I would hear my teacher say at the end of every hour of the week, she would say, it's great that you're here for an hour. It'd be better if you were meditating just 10 minutes every day at home. And I'd say, great, Bye. Thanks. See ya. Then I didn't do anything about it. Then literally about a year in, it kind of dawned on me that Wednesdays were my favorite day of the week. And the only thing I was doing differently on Wednesdays was meditating. So I really decided to commit to myself and to a practice on a daily basis. And once I did that, the trajectory of my life really took off. I was also at the same time going to working at, as a part time, this retreat company, camp power mint. And there were all these experts there teaching all the things in their wheelhouse. And I was like a counselor. And I would hear them say, you know, why are you working for this crazy boss? Like, you should be, you know, teaching people how to meditate. No, no, no, I can't quit my job. I can't do that. And I would sit in meditation, I would hear, quit your job. Your boss is crazy. Be a meditation teacher. And I was like, I can't quit my job. And I kept thinking, I couldn't quit. You know, you get to a point in your life in your 50s, it's like very hard to quit your job. But finally my dad died, which I was actually happy about because we had a very challenging relationship. And I got a check in the mail for $25,000. So I took that as a sign. There was like, a lot of things were all converging at once. And when that check came, I thought, that's it. That's my sign. I went in, I started looking online, I found a class. I called my boss, I went in and I said, I'm giving you my two weeks notice. I'm going to be a meditation teacher. And I took that money and I said to my husband, I know it's not what I was making, but it's enough that I can pay for school and pay for some of the things in the house that I had been paying for for my job. And I'm going to be a meditation teacher. And I threw myself into the training and I finished it in four months. And that was february. And by july, I had incorporated in 2015.
Lou: Amazing. And I love that we know each other. And I haven't heard this aspect of the story. So take just to get a little clearer on the camp powerment. When you were with campowerment before you were going full time into meditation, you were a counselor. Were you already starting to share meditation just based on, like, what you knew.
Anne: Yeah, I was leading circles. It's part of Camp Powerment's core, you know, structure. They have all kinds of fun and play and learning and. And then you meet in circles and they're sharing circles. And I had always had facilitator training in my jobs. I had worked in the school district and teaching conflict resolution skills to parents and teachers in the school district in the 90s. So I had facilitator training. And so I was leading these circles and meditating myself and sort of sharing what I knew and what was transforming my life. But I felt like I really wanted to be a teacher and wanted to have the skills to teach. It's one thing to meditate. For me, it felt like it was another thing to know how to teach someone to meditate. They feel different to me. And I also. I don't think I trusted myself enough without being credentialed to say that I'm a meditation teacher. I wanted to know that I really knew what I was doing. And I looked around for a lot of different courses, and I came upon Sarah McLean's course from the McLean Meditation Institute. And I just picked up the phone. I thought, all right, let me call and see if she could give me someone who graduated from the program. Maybe I'll get a recommendation. And I called, and she says, answers the phone, hi, this is Sarah. I said, sarah of the Sarah Maclean meditation. She's like, yes, this is Sarah McLean. And she talked to me for an hour and a half. And I was, like, blown away by this woman, her energy, her knowledge, her kindness, her compassion. I could tell just through our phone call that she was who I wanted to learn from. And I had explored MBSR and the UCLA program and a Penn program, and like a lot of programs, but when I spoke to her, I was like, this is it. There was from the moment I decided that I was going to do this, and you'll probably understand this, like, I never had what I would consider signs in my life where I didn't pay attention to signs. I wasn't all about synchronicities showing up. I wasn't. That started to open up for me when I started to meditate, but. So I was already starting to notice things like that because I had been meditating. But the moment I decided to shift my life and be a meditation teacher, all of those things just kept happening. And it was like I was just following this intuitive guidance and the guidance of something divine that led me to Sarah, that led me to teach a camp Power meant that just kept leading me down this path and was like, oh, like the money came and then this came. You know, it's like you start to say, yes, and then everything opens up. And that was not how my life went until that time. And then after I started meditating, it was like this line in the sand. And then all these things just like, went. Went along. And it was like, okay, yes, yes, yes, yes. It just. I don't know. That's how it happened.
Lou: I love the timing of this, too. It's so funny because you did Sarah Maclean in 2015. You finished.
Anne: Yes.
Lou: And that was the time. It was in that year. I remember beginning to look at meditation teacher certifications, and I had just quit a job with a very impaired bank account. Not really safe, I would say. And at the time, I remember seeing that program, and I think it was like maybe 2200 or 2,500. It was in like a 2000 or $3000 range, which is really looking back, like, actually not that expensive for a training like that. And I didn't have the funds to do that training at that time. And I wish I had a $25,000 check show up at my door. I was waiting. In some ways, I was waiting for it. But I love that it was. I think we all have our own journey, our own timing, right? So as someone I talk about on this podcast, the question of do we need certifications or. There's certain people that sometimes go to certification certification as a way to hide from actually sharing and. And feeling like they don't feel a sense of self worth just on their own. And I'm all about certifications and learning and growing. And so I'm curious from you, starting with just knowing what you were doing just intuitively, or what you did into then going into Sarah's program, can you explain what really shifted for you? Because I think it might be helpful for someone who might be considering a training.
Anne: Yeah, I think a great way to learn about Sarah is to read her book, the Power of Attention. She talks about her journey. She has worked with the Dalai Lama, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. She ran the Chopra Center. She ran the center for the work for Byron Katie. She's traveled all over the world. I mean, she is the consummate professional when it comes to meditation. And yet from her, what I learned was to be authentic in my own style. So I learned a lot about the history of meditation, how meditation works, how the brain works, different styles of meditation. Because I believe. And she believes, right. Meditation is not one style fits all so when I teach, I teach her method, which is trademarked. It's called Seed Simple, Easy, every day. And I offer breath, awareness, practice, mantra practice, loving kindness practice, gratitude practice. So that there's this potpourri. It's not just one thing. Okay? Like tm. Although I love mantra practice and I use mantras and I teach mantras, I can't obviously call it tm Cause they trademark that. Whatever. I'm not going to go into that. But that's it. That's all they offer you. So if mantra practice isn't working for you, you're left without something that's an anchor. But if you can learn different styles and different techniques, something's going to connect, something's going to. You're going to be like, oh, yeah, that's. That's a practice I can do on an everyday basis. Right. Saren Salzberg is all about loving, kindness, practice. And, you know, there are teachers all about mindfulness, and there are teachers all about mantra. But I love being able to offer people the different styles. And I didn't know I learned how to meditate. I think, you know, my teacher, Beth Sandweis, she was also a teacher at the studio that we taught at in Montclair, Quell. And I learned the class I went to was Beth's class. And I learned to meditate in a Hebrew devotional chanting and meditation class. And I love chanting. I love kirtan chanting, I love Buddhist chanting, I love Hebrew chanting. I really love chanting. But I just felt like learning for me, and partly it was, I think, the idea of not being worthy enough. I do think that plays into, you know, a lot of my stuff and how I approach the world. So I'm always deepening and learning and getting certifications and going to school, partly because I love to learn and I love school. So I'm currently in school still. Like, I'm always taking classes, but I felt like if I really wanted to give people the best that I could offer them, I needed to have a solid background of knowledge in what goes into meditation, what's happening in the brain. And when I graduated, not only did I feel like I had a great foundation, that I was able to just literally turn key and walk out and start teaching, but I also felt like I learned and I was kind of a natural born teacher because I've always been a teacher. That was part of what I was doing my whole life. But I felt like I had great skills that I was taught through Sarah's program in how to teach this. And so that's why I love it. It was really helpful.
Lou: I love the part you said about how it allowed you to find your own authentic voice and you learning all these different styles and having the structure and the confidence. And I'm curious because the. The name of this podcast is Art and Business. And the art piece, I, for me, and not everyone has to see it like this, but I see meditation as an art and as a creative process and as an. As a. As an expression. Expression of. Of my soul, my emotional state, my whatever to the world or to a group or to a class. And so I'm curious if I were to ask you what your art was or your gift or just the energy that is Ann in her authentic self that you're transmitting. And I think that's another positive piece about getting a training. Is that transmission from her, from Sarah and Deepak, or the transmission from the Dalai Lama, the fact that she's been in that state, been in that energy, there's something that she's transmitting in her teaching and in her embodiment of it. So backtracking, I believe we are all doing that to some way we're all transmitting something. And that I think is our art if we're connected to it. So what is your art?
Anne: Yeah, I love that question. Laurel Geiss, one of the teachers at McLean, she and Sarah developed the mindfulness at work program, MMI, mindful for businesses. She says, your soul's calling is the answer to someone else's prayers. So beautiful. I mean, I couldn't say it better myself. And I didn't understand until I became a meditation teacher and started to do this work such as A Tender Place. I get a little teary that. That what I had was going to help other people. Right. In the sense of that authentic piece. Right. I am raw and honest when I teach, and I often talk about things that are very personal. I think a lot of teachers feel like they shouldn't share who they are or personal things. I think that's what. Why people come to me. I think they. Look, I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I know that for sure. Right. But when you meet me, if you get me and you connect to me, then there's this beautiful flow of who I am into who you are. And so often I don't share a lot about my childhood, but sometimes I do. And inevitably, if I'm in a group of people, often women will come up to me and said, thank you for sharing your story. I was also abused. And somehow there is this and I never know. Like, I don't say a lot about it. I, you know, but inevitably there is someone in that audience that needed to hear it at that moment, and they connect to me because I'm willing to take a risk to talk about it. And I often talk about it in the context. And this is, let me sort of say, why do I say it? Like, what. How does that relate to meditation? If I'm teaching loving kindness practice, I believe that loving kindness practice is a sister. Compassion is a sister to forgiveness. Right? And I often tell the story. Before I was meditating, I went to a conference through Omega Institute on being fearless. I was living in so much anxiety. I was like, okay, how do I work with this? I'm going to go to this Omega Institute. I'm going to go to this three day conference. I'm going to sign up for all these great speakers, and I'm going to learn how to be fearless. And every workshop I went to, I mean, major people, you know, James von Prague was there. Brian Weiss was there, like, heady people, Byron, Katie was there, like major, major teachers of our time. And every workshop I went to, all weekend long, everyone was talking about forgiveness. And I was getting more and more and more and more agitated. I'm really pissed off. And Sunday morning came, and it was the last session, and it was Iyanla Van Zanth. I don't know if you know her. She's a spiritual teacher. She's on the Oprah network. She has her show, Iyanla Fix My Life, the Life Coach. And she too was talking about forgiveness. And I'm in this giant lecture hall. There's 750 people. And at the end, she says, and if there's any questions, just raise your hand. So I'm way in the back of Mike, send the mic back here, right? So she says, stand up, honey. So I stand up and I say, the guy, little guy holding the mic in front of me, this poor guy. I was like, with fists in my hands. I said to her, don't I need to hold someone accountable for what they've done? Because I was really filled with so much anger and so much rage. And she said to me, and this happened. It was like the whole room disappeared. And she was standing right in front of me. And she said, you don't need to hold them accountable. They are accountable. The holding is just hurting you. And in that instant, I was thrown back into my seat and I dissolved into a puddle of tears. But I knew, like, in the way that, you know, something deep in your soul. I knew what she was saying, that all that rage and all the anger that I was holding and carrying was only hurting me, was only affecting me. Anyone else that I was angry at, they went on their merry way that, you know. And so it took me a year. I had been estranged from my dad for 10 years at that point, and it took me a year to work on it. But then I went and I saw him and I just wished him well on his next journey, whatever that was. And so, in the context of teaching loving kindness, when we work with a difficult person, I often tell that story because loving kindness is not about whether that other person deserves it or not. The same way the forgiveness wasn't about whether my father deserved to be forgiven or not. It was for me. And loving kindness practice is to open our hearts so that we become more compassionate. And over time, when I started to work with my dad in the space of that difficult person, I recognized that I could have compassion for the wounded soul that he was. Because if he wasn't so wounded, he couldn't have done the things that he did. Doesn't mean I love him or I absolve him of his responsibility. It just means I can have compassion for him, and I do now, which I didn't then. And so in that context, I share that. And I think it's so powerful to recognize that this practice, you know, as great as it makes us as human beings for the rest of the world, it's really selfish. It's like, I love teaching. I love transforming people's lives. I love giving them all that I can give them. But I do it for me. You know, this is like how I evolve my soul, right? I believe that our souls are here to learn something. Life is the school for our soul. And if you want to learn forgiveness, if that's your life lesson, you better believe you're going to have something really, really hard to forgive. And so now, at this point in my life, 14 years, my meditation journey at 64, I can say all the things that happened to me, the horrific and the amazing, make me who I am. And I can't just choose to have the good. So I can be grateful not necessarily for the abuse, but I can be grateful for all that has happened to me and recognize that my parents, both my parents were my best spiritual teachers. And I certainly didn't believe that before I meditated. And that's the arc of the growth that happens. I think, when you're on this journey, when you get quiet enough to meet that deeper Part of who you are, which is what I hope that I am helping people to do in their lives, to meet that part of you. Because I believe that deepest part of who you are is the part that's connected to something greater, whatever you want to call that, something divine in however way you understand that and to each other.
Lou: Some people might answer that question and talk about what they think their art is. And what you did here, Ann, is embody your art and how you shared that and how deeply moving and beautiful it was for me. And I'm sure anyone who's listening to this right now to hear that. And so I'm so blessed we're having this conversation and grateful that you're out there doing this work, because I think anyone listening could feel. Could feel that art from you coming through.
Anne: Yeah. I think the art is to connect to that soul place. Right. Creativity, art, all of that is our soul traits. We all have that ability. And so mine now is just moving through the connections that I find to people. You know, that I think that's the art of this dance, of this practice.
Lou: Yeah. So you decide to be a meditation teacher. You have $25,000. What is your husband saying?
Anne: You know, God bless him. We've been together for 43 years. That's a long time. And he has always been my greatest cheerleader. And I've had many careers. Many. I graduated from college, dropped out of high school, went back, went to college, finished college, went to beauty school, worked in salons and in the beauty industry for years. Left that after I had my second son, worked in a preschool, teaching, then went and did facilitator training, as I mentioned before, for conflict resolution. Did that, worked for an interior designer. I'm a ceramic artist. I have done many, many different things. And I think he was like, here we go again. Ann's gonna try something new. And he literally said, look, as long as I don't have to pay for it, you know, that was kind of like his response. I'm like, no, no, no. I got this money. Like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do this. And I don't think he really thought that it was gonna stick. But here I am all this many years later, and this is what I'm going to do till I'm 90, and I can't do it anymore. Or Mandre, he's retiring next year. I'm not retiring. I'm never retiring. I'm going to do this forever. But my teaching is morphing a little and changing a little, because as I Mentioned before, I am in school again. So I'm in school to be a spiritual director because my meditation practice and my teaching has kind of been moving in that direction anyway. And of course, personally, I feel like I need some training and some credentials and someone's expertise to show me and guide me how to be the best spiritual director that I can be. Because I've had my own spiritual director for over two years. And through that work, I've realized that that's what I want to do next and incorporate it into my meditation teaching. So I'm now studying to be a spiritual director, which is kind of like. I see it as a spiritual. A non denominational spiritual midwife to help people birth their own journey to the divine.
Lou: It's beautiful, people. I'm so excited for you on this. On this new opening and a continuation. Right. An evolution. It's not even that it's new, it's just an evolution and brings. Incorporates everything that you've done before and it all works together. So you get certification. Take us to the nitty gritty of how are you starting to get classes? How are you starting to get students? How are you starting to make money? Like that initial piece. And I know it could seem so daunting from the outside. It's like, oh, Ann's crushing it. She, you know, she got. Everything's been going good for her. She got the money, she did the training, she's doing that. So take us back into. Yeah, the nitty gritty of like, how did you start? Maybe what was that first opportunity where you shared meditation and then you had income coming in and then taking us from there and how that's evolved and morphed and whatever it might be.
Anne: Yeah, well, Camp Powerment, really, once I got certified, they were like, okay, yes, you're leading circles, but now you're teaching meditation. Like, okay.
Lou: And they say they're gonna pay you for it.
Anne: Well, yeah. You know, Campowerment is really like a value exchange. Not really paying me for it. You know, the payment is the exposure I get to the. To the people who come. And then the opportunity to parlay that into having them be my students. Outside of our retreat from camp powerment, which I was happy to do, and often what I will say about getting paid for things is sometimes I do. I do a lot of stuff for free. And I do things on different scales. You know, if I do something for a corporate retreat for a six week, six part program, let's say over six months, they do it or six weeks. However, let's say, they do that. I can command $15,000. If I'm doing a small group, maybe someone's paying me, you know, $500. If they come and they do six weeks with me privately, they're paying me $800. I also offer that for free for certain people, right? I don't give the people who are paying nothing less than I give the people who are paying me $15,000. Right? What I give is what I give. There's different situations that warrant the different prices that I charge. When I started, I was charging, like, $10 for a group class, a drop in, you know, I mean, now it's much more than that because I think the more confidence I got, the more classes I taught you just sort of put it out there and say, okay, well, Maybe I'll charge $18, or maybe I'll charge $22, or maybe I'll. And you just see, it's kind of like it's a game in a way, like. And. But I do believe that there is a value exchange and an energetic exchange. Right? I have spent a lot of money and time to learn to be the best teacher I can be, and that is worth something. And so I want people to have skin in the game. But I also. There are certain people that I know, you know, can't afford it. And for me, it's my gift. So. And I can't tell you how do I decide that. It's kind of like person to person or circumstance to circumstance. Sometimes someone will say, can you come in and lead us in a workshop? And I'll ask them, is there a stipend? Is maybe it's a nonprofit? Is there a stipend? Is there? And they'll say, well, no, but you can share your information. You can. You know, it's an offering, and if it's a worthwhile organization, then I'm. I'm happy to do it, because sometimes that brings me more business, and then it's worth it to do it for free. And sometimes it's like, you know, this is my number. You know, can you meet it? And if they say, well, I can come close, sometimes that's okay, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I say, what's your budget? And they'll give me a number that's way more than what I would have said. Like, yeah, that's perfect. I'd be happy to do it for that, you know, so it's still. The money thing is hard. I. Look, I don't believe that I will ever be rich from teaching meditation. I Mean, maybe some people do and maybe some people are. I also have a kind of not a great relationship with money. And I know that, you know, there's a lot of spiritual stuff around that too. But I'm very grateful that my husband makes a living enough to take care of us. And I contribute in the way that I can from what I earn. And what I earn now is significantly more than what I earned in 2015. So it's kind of been growing over time as. As I have more offerings as I spread my wings and teach retreats on my own. Not campowerment retreats. I still go there and do that, value exchange with them. When I lead a retreat and money from doing that. I have a subscription community that I earn money monthly from, and I do private, private clients. And I think, however you can figure out, you know, how to do this, it's great and I want to keep doing this and. But it is challenging sometimes to. Because there are people that feel like, well, why should I pay you? I can go on an app for free, or I can, you know, sit by myself and follow my breath. And that is all true. Apps are great, but you can't interact with an app. There's no teaching going on there. You can listen to something guided. But I think if you really want to learn, and I would say I have a terrible business model. It's planned obsolescence. Right? I'll teach you for six weeks or nine weeks, and then you don't really need me anymore. You can have your own practice. And that's okay too. Like, go do that. Like, I'm okay with that. I don't want people to feel like they have to be beholden to me. I can teach them skills. I have a few packages, and if they want to continue with me, some people come back, we work on different things, we. And then some people go out on their own and they don't need me anymore. And that's okay, too. I'm happy to do it that way.
Lou: I love the lesson of doing things for free, especially in the beginning. And also knowing intuitively, like, what. We do this work because we love doing this work. And so intuitively, the money is an exchange. And sometimes, depending on situations, letting your intuition guide what is the right decision here. And it doesn't mean it's hard to put, like, a clear bracket of, like, what that is. So for anyone that's listening, I think just the idea of even there's so many companies and so many people doing those type of retreats in a way, like That's a huge aspect. And finding an inn in some ways or reaching out to be the mindfulness teacher on the retreat, probably getting paid for it or finding something where there is an exchange and you just have opportunities to practice or exposure to people coming into your space. I think it's, it's a cool just opportunity for people. So what just can you list off? Because I think it's helpful. Just list off the spaces that you've taught in. And you kind of mentioned it already just because I think it might give other people ideas on like where they could look for, where they could reach out for.
Anne: So there was a wellness collective in Maplewood where I live that I worked at. When I first started. I would rent some space and I would have some weekly drop in classes and then I also did some courses where it was like a six week class and you sign up and I would rent a space and do it there. So I did that. So there are, there are different places around that you can just rent a room, rent a space. So I did that for a while. Then I worked at Quell where we both worked, which was a meditation studio. So they brought me in, they paid me for the class. It didn't matter If I had 10 people or two people. They set the price. They paid me for the class. I showed up. I actually liked that. And I went every week and I had certain classes that I did and that was great. And then Covid was sort of the undoing for that beautiful space. I teach at a yoga studio. Same thing. It doesn't matter how many people I have in my class, they pay me for the class. I show up. It's now hybrid. Some people come online, some people come in the studio. So I teach there. I was just invited to teach in Montclair. At Montclair Life Learners in Edgemont park tends to be more retirees. I'm going to be doing two workshops this summer to teach the sort of how to, why to. And then in the fall semester I'll be doing a recurring guided class once a week on like a Thursday afternoon and they'll be paying me to do that. I've. I teach at retreats, campowerment like I said, the value exchange. But I've started to lead my own retreats, silent retreats. I did some silent days which I've taught and now I teach four day silent retreats which I really, really, really love. And I do those at the Dharmakaya center for well being in the Catskills. Just sort of found a home there. It's a beautiful. It's a Buddhist space. But as long as you're teaching mindfulness, you're entitled to come up with a program and teach there. They take a 15% of what each person pays to come for the retreat, plus their accommodations fee. So I determine what my cost will be, what my fee will be, based on sort of a general guideline of what other teachers are charging for their retreats there. And then they take 15%. I've taught at. There's a new space called the Rockbox Annex, which is in Morristown. And the Rockbox is a beautiful crystal store. And they opened a learning space. So I've offered some classes there. I'm going to be offering classes there. Honestly, I will teach anywhere anybody wants me to teach. I've done some corporate stuff where people have reached out to me. I did this company in Seattle. I work for an online studio out of Seattle called Be Meditation. I offer two classes a week through them. That's all virtual. I teach Thursday nights, Monday mornings, and then I have my own subscription community. So people pay $45 a month, or if they're grandfathered in, if they had been coming for a while. I think it was 35 when I started two years ago. It's $45 a month. I offer three live virtual meditations a week, plus a recorded one on Sunday. The other ones are recorded, and if you join, there's like over 150 or more meditations recorded stacked up that they can access anytime. And I do some classes through that platform as well. And then people reach out to me to teach them privately. And I do that either in person, if they live in Essex county or on Zoom. And I have people all over the world. I've taught people in London. I've taught people all over the country and in Canada, and that's through the McLean Meditation Institute. I'm on their directory of teachers. So if someone goes to McLean, they can find a teacher or through campowerment, because I've reached a lot of people of the thousands of members of campowerment that are from all over the country as well. Campowerment does custom corporate retreats as well. So they've hired me, and that's when I do get paid. If they're doing a corporate retreat, I get paid for that because the corporation is paying them to organize the retreat. The ones that I don't get paid for are their classic women's camp retreat, which happens once a year. And that's more the value exchange. So they do pay me if a Corporate client hires me to teach meditation there. Yeah, I think that's all the different. But I've done things, like in the school districts, I've done things at the public library for free. I've done things. I offer Maplewood Meditates. It's going to be the seventh annual Maplewood Meditates in the park this year, and that's a free offering that I do. So am I happy to do it really and connect anywhere. But it's hard to find the corporate gigs which really give you the most money, because these businesses have the money to spend. They have wellness dollars to spend. They're looking for programming, but it's. Unless you're a corporate person, which I've never been in the corporate world. I've always been sort of in the education world. It's hard to break in. I know many people who I trained with through McLean. They were already working in corporate, so they get their certification and then they're already in the. In the, in the flow of corporate, which, which I have never been. So my corporate things have come through connections to other people who have said, oh, I work in this company. We would love to have you. And that's sort of how that. But I don't go and, like, do a lot of cold calling, you know, I really, you know, I always have my cards. I share my cards with people. Sometimes someone will call me and say, I took your card a year ago. I'm like, oh, wow. And you kept it. That's amazing. I'm ready now, you know, And I think that that's what happens sometimes. Sarah calls her program Seed. It's like spreading the seeds of peace. But I think you plant a seed in someone's consciousness. Sometimes they meet you, they see you, they feel your energy. They're like, oh, you know, I want what she's having kind of thing. But they're not ready. Something then will trigger them. And they say, oh, I saw your name on Maplewood Moms. I saw your name on Instagram, I saw someone recommended you, blah, blah, blah. And then they'll call you. So you never know how the work will come to you. I don't. Anyway, I don't know if that's like that for you too, but so much.
Lou: Value in just expressing all the journey that you've been on. And it's amazing how you're piecing it all together. And obviously things start and end, but it's really inspiring to what you've been able to create. And the flow, it sounds like you're able to do it in for me. I know with school wise, I almost do too much outreach and cold emailing and cold calling. And there's a lesson in that because with, you know, my one on one work I do that's more specifically life coaching, which is not necessarily meditation teaching, although there might be elements of obviously all this within it and mindfulness and that kind of work. But that, that, that's kind of flowed for me. And so I tend to try and see in there's like a mix of meeting God halfway or meeting the universe halfway. Like, you know, taking those steps where that, you know, intuitive call is asking you to take, leaning in there and then letting the universe do the rest. And sometimes if that door is not open, it might not be the door for you. So, Anne, for someone who's in their 40s, 50s, maybe either thinking about retirement, maybe they're hating their job, love, meditation, what guidance or words might you have for them? And if it helps to just speak to your younger self, then by all means, speak to your younger self.
Anne: But yeah, you know, it's funny, I taught, like I said, preschool for many years. And while I was teaching preschool, my kids were young. And as I became a meditation teacher, certain offerings were coming to me. Oh, can you teach my kids? Can you teach in the school? Can you do this? And I recognized that as I was getting older, my interest and my focus was moving away from children and moving more toward adults and helping adults. And now at 64, I've created a curriculum based on a facilitator training that I went to with a mentor of mine who has sadly since passed away. Her name was Rabbi Rachel Cowan. She was one of the founders of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She wrote a book called Wise Aging and did a facilitator training. And I took that training and I now teach one of my retreats. And some of the classes I teach is called Ageless Living. How Living with, you know, as we age, particularly for women, 50 plus, how do we live with joy and grace and resilience, even in the face of loss and change that inevitably come. And we live in a declinist paradigm. We are youth obsessed in our culture. We're bombarded with it. And particularly as women, it's really challenging because when you tell yourself ideas when you're young, oh, old people are this, old people are that. And then you get to be an old person, very hard to not think those thoughts that you thought about your whole life growing up. So what I try to do with this curriculum, because it's something that I'm living is how do I live in my authentic place of being? My age of being 64, I'm thrilled to be in this career at this time of my life. And what I teach and what I know is if you look at the statistics of when do people make the greatest impact? How old are they? What decade are they of the people that make the greatest impact? Many people, if I asked that question, they would say, oh, in their 30s or in their 40s. And the truth is, the research shows no, the greatest impact comes in your 50s, in your 60s, and your 70s. If you look at CEOs, if you look at presidents, if you look at popes, if you look at inventors. And they're all older, because what age means is wisdom. If we can understand that, then we can see that there is so much opening. We can take the wisdom that we've learned and we can share that. We can mentor, we can teach, we can try something totally new. I mean, that's why I stay in school. And one of the great things about Camp Powerman, I know I talk about it a lot. It's such an incredibly rich environment that it's an intergenerational program. So I have very, very close friends who are in their 30s. I mean, they're equally my close friends as my friends who are in their 60s, late 60s and 70s. And I think surrounding yourself with people who are of many ages, you can see that you can do anything at any time. And I have really embraced that. I have seen. Stop thinking that, you know, I'm too old to do something. Although I had a conversation with your friend on the plane and said, I really want to do one of Lou's retreats where he's hiking in Yosemite. But I don't know, I might be too old for that. But, you know, I'm going to India next year. It's been on my bucket list. I'm like, for my 65th birthday, I'm going to India. You know, I think we can do anything at any age. I looked now to who are my inspirations. I look at women like Iris Apfel, who's over a. I don't know if you know who she is, but she's that iconic older woman with the big round glasses and the gray hair and all the beads, you know, and I. Tina Turner, who just passed away. I highly recommend the book Happiness Becomes yous. Tina Turner was a Buddhist, and she chanted for 50 years, and she credits her chanting and her Buddhism for getting her through her horrible life, her abusive marriage, her many illnesses, her totally being broke and coming back from that. It's a fascinating book and it's all about. She didn't write it till she was 80. So these are the role models that I think we have to start to look toward when we feel like, oh, I'm too old to do X, Y or Z. You're not. You're only, you know, age is a number, and we have to trust that. What we have to offer as people who are more mature is wisdom and strength and the history that we come with. There's so much value in that. I would say to anyone who's my age, 64, older, coming into their late 40s and 50s, you are never too old to change your life, to change your career, to, you know, see things. It's got it. You've got to change first the thought paradigm in your head that you are obsolete, useless, unworthy, old, used up. Like all those kinds of things that we think about older people. It's just not true. It's just not true.
Lou: Mic drop on you. And like, how do I go? How do I continue now? Like, there's two more things that I wanted to talk about, but I'm like, there's a part of me that just wants to, like, move into wrapping up on that because I think it's so powerful and such a wonderful message because I know you have this experience. And it's two places that I know a lot of people think about creating or doing. I'll just ask them in one question and see whatever comes. Like, what. What have you learned from or through or. Or have learned through experience by failing or making mistakes in either building an online community platform where you're doing like a virtual studio and or leading retreats. Like, what have you learned from either of those that you'd maybe like to wish your former self that information or that might be helpful for someone to think about.
Anne: Well, the retreats, I have to say, and this was one of the things that sort of led me to this Spiritual Direction piece. What I started to notice as I was teaching, just in general. This is going to sound weird, but it's almost like I'm not teaching. I'm channeling. Like, so many times. I will come on through. It's my subscription community. The way I teach is I run a half an hour class. I start with a mindful moment. I do about five or seven minutes of a teaching or a tip. I guide with some silence and then I close with a reading. Inevitably, inevitably, almost every Time we sit, it doesn't matter who shows up. Someone will message me or someone will say at the end, how did you know that's exactly what I needed to hear? How did you know that? And I always say, I don't know that. I just. What comes to me as I sit and prepare for a class. I can't tell you why I pick which reading, what draws me to that book on that day and that passage, why I come up with that mantra. It's like I just open up and I sit before I teach and I just say, show me your path. And I'm led. And some days it feels really wonky. And a lot of it's just what's going on with me. Like, if I'm really struggling with something, I'll talk about that and someone else will say, that's just what I needed to hear. And in retreats when I'm teaching, my teaching is elevated. I soar. When I'm at a retreat, I am immersed in the work. I am immersed with these people, and there is something magical that happens. So I would say, if you're going to do retreats, do something that is real, authentic, and meaningful for you. Because if you're trying to do something that you're not connecting with because you think it's the right thing to teach or the thing that is going to. I'll give you an example. At one point, Tammy, who runs Camp Powerman, said to me, I want you to teach a class on manifesting. Manifesting is in. Everyone's talking about manifesting. I'm like, I'm not teaching a class on manifesting. I never talk about manifesting. That's so not authentic for me. She's like, well, we'll just call it that and you can teach what you want. I'm like, no, we're not calling it that. That's not what I do, right? Like, I can only teach what. What resonates deep in my soul for me to teach. And that would be my. My best piece of advice that I could share is if you are speaking authentically, if you are teaching from your heart, from your core, whatever that interest is, which is why I'm not teaching kids so much anymore, because it wasn't resonating for me. I was getting some work doing it, but I wasn't happy doing it. And that's also similar to how I feel about the corporate stuff. You know, it's like, I do it and then I'm kind of like, I feel, like, not so comfortable in my skin and I don't want to feel like that. I don't ever want to teach like that. I want it to be where I'm connected to who I'm teaching. And I'm doing it because I know that it's the right thing to teach. Because it's a lot. I never would have said these words before I meditated. I never did. To say I'm aligned with my purpose. I wouldn't even know I had a purpose and I wouldn't even know what alignment felt like. But I can tell you now that I am aligned with my purpose when I'm teaching. And that is why I think my teaching connects with people. So that's. I would say that the online stuff, starting a community, I would say my wish would be that my community was much more robust than it is. I have a core of about 30 people in my online community, which I think is great. I would love to be having 100 people on my online community for one reason. You're doing the same amount of work. You're just reaching more people and making more money. So if I'm sitting with an audience of five people, right? Or 35 people, I'm just sitting and teaching the same half an hour class. If, if I had enrollment of 100 people, wow. I'd be bringing in a lot more money. So I, you know, I don't know necessarily how to grow it so much bigger. Although I often invite people to join for free for a month and that sort of brings people in. I hired someone to help me with the back end and some marketing and that was helpful for a while, but now she's doing some other things and she has a full time job. So I'm kind of having to rethink how that's gonna play out. So I can't, I don't know, really know how to say how to grow it. Like that part I struggle with. That's a piece that I struggle with. I don't have a lot of marketing skills. And the other thing with that is people who I've talked to who are good at marketing will say things like find people's pain points and speak to that. And I always find that really objectionable. That's not how I like to approach people. But you'll hear that often in marketing strategies because I've talked to a lot of marketing people about it and I was like, they're not my person. That's not how I want to deal with people. So I think you have to find the people who are going to help you Right in. You have to hire people who are going to help you to do the things that you're not good at. And you do what you are good at, but they have to align with you also. They have to be like your person, you know, your people. You gotta. And my friend Andrea Quinn, who's a life coach, always says, try not to make, you know, stop trying to make other people, you know, not your people. Your people. Like, if they're not your people, they're not your people. Find the people who are your people and get them to help you. And that's how it's going to flow more easily, I think.
Lou: Yes. So much there. So much there. Let other people who are good at that thing do that thing, and you focus on doing that thing. But make sure you're aligned and make sure those your values are aligned. So much good stuff in this interview. And like, so, so, so much. So excited that we had this conversation. I do want to give you an opportunity and let the audience know because something that's important that we haven't talked about that you do is you donate 10% of your profits to a local food pantry, the interfaith food pantry of the oranges. And you also are donor of the nonprofit buy from black women supporting black women entrepreneurs and kanbody a foundation that helps formerly incarcerated by training them and finding viable work housing options. So honor you for the ways that you give back in a very clear way. And I'm sure with a lot of your energy and time. So, yeah, you're welcome to shout out or say anything about that work that you like.
Anne: Yeah. So the way that I got to that idea of donating 10% of what I do, when I first incorporated, it felt weird that people are going to pay me to teach them meditation. I had a lot of weird messages about money and getting paid for this kind of work. And I think that's not unusual. I think in this sort of spiritual realm, if you want to call it that, people feel funny about charging. And so I thought, if I'm giving my money away, then the more people I teach, then the more money I can give away. And it felt like then if I'm asking for more money for what I'm teaching, I knew that there was a part of it that I was giving away. And that felt really good. And the more that I could give away, then I felt like I can raise my prices because I know that I'm supporting these organizations. And I started with the food pantry because I did a workshop with Andrew Harvey. I don't know if you know who he is. He has an institute called the Sacred Activism, Institute of Sacred Activism. And I did a workshop with him. He wrote a book called the Direct Path, which was how to connect directly to the divine. He had been following a guru for many years. He was totally disillusioned. And he's a Rumi scholar. He grew up in India. He's Christian. He's amazing. I highly recommend him. Check him out. So he wrote this book, the Direct Path, which I read, and then I did a workshop with him. And he said, there's the three prong approach to the direct path. Because I was really longing for this knowingness of God in my life. And he said, you have to do three things. Number one, start to meditate. Number two, meditation, sacred activism, which is volunteering. And I just forgot. The third thing just went out of my head. Meditate, sacred activism. Oh, and sacred study. And whatever that sacred study is to you. So for me, I went back to Torah and started taking some Jewish. Jewish classes in Musar and Kabbalah and whatever, because that's what spoke to me. But any kind of wisdom tradition, whether it's Buddhism, Christianity, wherever you find that. So sacred study, sacred activism, volunteering, and meditation, he felt like that was the three prong approach to connecting to the divine. So I started working at my local food pantry. And then it was just an easy way to connect and say, okay, now I'm going to start to support them. And then over time, over the last few years, I met the woman, Nikki Porche, who is the founder of Buy From a Black Woman. And considering what was going on with when George Floyd was murdered and what was happening through Covid, as this racial reckoning came into the forefront, I started diving deeper into my diversity and equity work and taking more courses that way. And so I decided to support Buy From a Black Woman. It's an online directory. There's over hundreds of choices to support entrepreneurship, women, black women. And you know, you can shop at Amazon, but you could go first to their directory and see what things you could buy from a black woman to put your money into the community. And then I was introduced to Kas Marte. He was one of the experts who came to teach at a campowerment retreat, a corporate retreat, with me. And he was a formerly incarcerated drug dealer. He was in jail for seven years and he created a fitness program while he was in jail, helping other inmates to lose weight. And when he came out, he created this fitness business and now he hires formerly incarcerated people and he Trains them and he teaches them how to be trainers and he gives them housing. And his recidivism rate is 0, which is the rate of return when someone comes out of prison within one year. The national rate of going back is 44% and his rate is zero. So the people he takes under his wing and trains, they don't go back to jail, which is remarkable. He's an incredible young guy. So I started supporting him. And I'm very passionate about,
Anne: I believe that meditation is the way to reduce unconscious bias. I'm really all about trying to be the best ally that I can be. I think that racism will never end in this country unless it's up to white people to end it. I am passionate about cross cultural conversations and doing this work. And so I will also do a shout out for my teacher, Toby Scruggs Hussain. I did the course Racial Healing Allies with her. She's amazing. She does everything with mindfulness as well. And so that's where I choose to put my money and my energy. And yeah, it's causes that are clearly important to me and I hope that by spreading the word about them they become important to other people. But whatever is your passion, whatever is something that you care deeply about, I think if you can put your money where your mouth is, and I do think you get busier and you get more money when you are giving it away. I just think that's the energetic flow of money too. So I would recommend that people find a cause and you know, either volunteer or give some of their resources back to the community. We are interconnected and meditation teaches us that. And look, when we say Namaste at the end of a class, the meaning of Namaste is the light, the soul, the essence in me sees, recognizes and acknowledges the same in you. You can't stay say that if you don't believe it. And so I really believe that everyone I see I am connected to in a very deep way. And I, and I live that way. It's not just for some people who look like me, but it's for everyone.
Lou: So yeah, I haven't said this publicly but in the last year or two years, I don't know when it started or when I've actually been having a percentage where I can see how much money that is. But I've set aside a 5% donation fund and so I am really looking forward to checking out these causes because for me I use it, I would like to. It's something that I creating something that I really feel when I decide who to donate to when I feel like the work of God is like being happening in this and I can channel how I've been blessed to that. Getting emotional thinking about it.
Anne: Yeah, I know.
Lou: And it's something. Yeah, it's something that I want to create in some way. But sometimes the money actually just starts to build up and I'm not giving because I don't know who. It's a thing that I don't know where to sometimes give or look for. So I'm always appreciative of new things to look into that I know are trusted by someone as you.
Anne: There's one more that I'll tell you to look into because I know you're involved with students and kids. I've done retreats for them through Camp Powerman. I just actually came back. It's called the Herbit Forward Foundation. H I F F it's Herbie.com and it is a foundation that sends kids to college. There are scholars and it's a leadership camp that campowerment runs for them. And these kids are inner city kids. Many of them are the first in their families to ever go to college. Some of them, they're the first in their family to graduate from high school. And these kids are going finishing college, starting graduate programs. Finishing graduate programs. And this organization not only gives them scholarship money, but creates this leadership camp for them. And the older ones start to mentor the younger ones and they do programs for them throughout the year. So that's another place that I support as well. So Herbert Forward foundation is amazing. And check that out.
Lou: I'm excited too. And this was beyond amazing to connect with you. It's been a little while since we chatted and to just have your wisdom, that was such a beautiful line of like, yes, when you age, there's wisdom. And your wisdom was felt by me and I know by those that are listening to this. So thank you, thank you for you for being on and any last words like where people can find you, what you got going on? I mean, yeah, you can find me.
Anne: Yeah, yeah, you can find me@mindfulness meetingplace.com it's my website. You can join, sit in place. And if any of your listeners want to join for free for a month, they can put in the promo code all caps free month. They will have to cancel it on their own if they decide not to stay. I don't have the ability to do that. And it will start to charge them $45 a month. But they can join, sit in place and come on and meditate with me Mondays mornings, 9:15am Eastern Time, Wednesdays, Fridays, 7:30am Eastern Time. And again, those are all recorded so they could just watch recordings if they want. I'm on Instagram at Mindfulness meeting place if they want to reach out to me. My email is ann a n n e mindfulnessmeetingplace.com and I am, you know, really open and happy to teach anywhere anybody wants to learn. And also I wrote a book if someone wants to get my book. I'll give a short plug for my book, which is the Bliss Buddy Project. How Sharing Gratitude Increases Joy. I created an acronym to follow you get a buddy and you share your gratitude moments. I call them Bliss moments for try it for at least 30 days and it will. You know, gratitude is a practice that really changed my life in a big way. I grew up in a lot of lack and I spent a lot of time in comparison. And when you spend your time in comparison, you live in lack. And when you move to gratitude, you live in abundance. And you know, it really was a big, powerful shift that I learned while, you know, after starting to meditate. It was something that I chose to do and it changed my life so profoundly. I've had my same Bliss Buddy for almost 10 years now, and I've been following pairs of people that I've put together over the years. And so if anyone's looking for a Bliss Buddy, they can reach out to me if they can't find one on their own. But yeah, check out the Bliss Buddy Project. It's on Amazon.
Lou: Amazing. And thank you so much for your wisdom. Such a gift. Thank you. And to everyone listening, we'll see you next time.