Wake Your Dream

99 - ENCORE Episode 8: Radical Acceptance and Self-Compassion

In This Episode:Annaliese and Alan talk about why real change in your life starts with how you think about and treat yourself. Instead of staying stuck in self-judgment, hustling, and striving for perfection, Annaliese shares how Radical Acceptance and Self-Compassion have been game-changers for moving toward a life that feels authentic, meaningful, and satisfying.
You’ll Hear About:
Why feeling new and different about yourself means you need to think and act in new and different ways.
Simple questions to ask yourself: “What am I doing to treat myself like a friend?” and “What would actually help me right now?”
How kindness and self-love help you take charge of your life in more effective, life-giving ways.
Learning to trust what you already know about yourself so you can handle life without punishment or striving.
What it looks like to treat yourself like your whole self belongs in the room—struggles and all.
Radical Self-Acceptance & Thought Compassion Practices:
Name What’s Not Working: Write down thoughts, habits, or expectations you have or are (actually) living by that feel too heavy or perfectionistic. See them as a map for change you want, not as failure!
Ask the Friend Questions: “What would I say to my best friend right now?” “What would actually help me, not just my tasks?” Let these answers guide your next choices in your day.
Choose One Kinder Thought: Replace one unhelpful pressurey thought you've put on yourself with a gentler, life-giving thought. Treat it like an experiment—progress over perfection! Little, better thoughts add up to confidence and self-trust.
Practice Wholeness in the Room: Remind yourself daily: “All of me belongs here—strengths, struggles, and everything in between.” When self-punishment shows up, swap it for a loving, constructive thought.
Resources:www.linktree.com/coachannaliese-Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind To Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neffhttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=self+compassion+neff&crid=3FAPHU5ZDDF17&sprefix=self+compassion+nef%2Caps%2C104&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
-Self-Compassion: The 3 Elements of Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neffhttps://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/
Your Free Coaching Call:Have a coaching session with Annaliese for yourself! Visit www.linktree.com/coachannaliese to schedule your FREE, 1-hour Discovery Chat. Share what you're going through and Annaliese will help you gain helpful tips to make real change in your life.

98 - ENCORE Episode 3: Do You Agree With Your Thought?

In this Encore Episode, Annaliese and Alan talk about what “Thought Work” is, breaking it down into simple, practical ways to start noticing your thoughts and feelings every day. They cover ways to learn Thought Work for yourself so you can experience accepting yourself more, feeling like the person you want to be, and live in better alignment with your values.
You’ll Hear About:
You can choose whether to agree or disagree with your thoughts. When you notice yourself thinking an unhelpful thought, it can help clear your mind to then ask yourself, "Do I agree with this thought?"
Thinking better thoughts takes practice—when you practice repeating thoughts intentionally to yourself, they become more natural!
Responding instead of reacting to your thoughts and feelings helps you feel more decisive and confident, and helps you feel more like the mature, grounded adult you want to be.
Feelings are signposts—they're meant to be felt, noticed, and understood. That's why avoiding doesn't work for long! Learn to identify sensations in your body and name what you’re feeling so you can learn what your body needs to tell you and bring yourself more peace and clarity in the moment.
Helpful Intentional Practice for Thinking and Feeling:
Slow yourself down and be physically still for 2-5 minutes.
Feel your feeling and name it, including the sensations in your body.
If you experience resistance to feeling your feelings, it helps to notice your thoughts and how they might be helping you or blocking you. Try to think a supportive thought toward yourself. Ex: “I’m allowed to pick to feel this feeling, and face my thoughts more. I give myself permission to choose to spend 2-5 minutes doing this.” 
Remind yourself that rushing stops you from getting a clear mind. Take a moment again to breathe and stay slow so you can help yourself feel more calm in your body before going back to your day!
Listen for more info on how to Feel Your Feelings:Wake Your Dream: Feelings Tour (Episodes 72-78)https://wakeyourdream.podbean.com/page/3/
Free Coaching Call:Have your own coaching session with Annaliese! Visit www.linktree.com/coachannaliese to schedule your FREE, 1-hour Discovery Chat. Share your story and Annaliese will help you gain helpful tips to make the real changes you want in your life.

97 - Your Inner Compass

In this episode, Annaliese and Alan show you how to lead yourself and your life from the inside out so you can make wise decisions that actually reflect your real values, thoughts, and desires. Annaliese explains how your inner compass — your sense of discernment — helps you live authentically and choose the standard you want to live by. You already have inner cues to guide you toward what’s right for you.
You’ll Hear About:
You already have an inner compass, even if you’ve never noticed it before. It’s that sense you feel when something feels “right” or “off.” Noticing it helps you trust your own wisdom instead of constantly second-guessing. Use it to respond in the moment rather than react on autopilot.
Notice your nudges! They’re clues showing you what you really value. If you keep picking the wrong relationships, friendships, or jobs, you may not be tuning in. Discernment means you take inner action before making an outer choice, so you stop living only by what others want.
You carry deep wisdom about why certain patterns don’t work for you. Listening to your inner compass helps you make choices you feel proud of — not ones you regret later.
Your Free Coaching Call:Experience coaching for yourself with Annaliese! Book a free 1-hour Discovery Chat at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese and learn practical ways to create real change you've been wantign to see for yourself.
Tuning Into Your Inner Compass:Take inner action before you take outer action. Ask: What would tell me I'm judging well? Decide the standard you’ll use to measure a good choice. Notice the character traits you want to show, how you want to express yourself, and whether your beliefs align with your values.
3 Steps of Discernment:
Feelings & Energy: How do you want to feel about this choice? Does it feel peaceful, wise, true?
Thoughts & Beliefs: What are you thinking or believing? Is it helpful or limiting? What thought would feel more freeing?
Considerations: What makes this a good, healthy choice for you? Factor in your responsibilities, goals, and core values so you can act from the inside out.
Listen in today to build these inner skills and better choices from your own wisdom!

96 - Dealing with Stress

Annaliese and Alan talk about how stress impacts your mind, body, and emotions — and how stressful events are different from being stressed. Annaliese shares ways to handle stress better in the moment so you don’t carry it with you long after the situation is over.
You’ll Hear About:
What stress really is: It's a challenging event you experience that creates tension in your body, mind, or emotions in response to fear, frustration, or difficulty. When you fixate on what happened instead of calming and processing it, you pull stress along with you.
How your thoughts and reactions matter: How do you handle stress in the moment? Do you rush, shut down, fixate, or feel guilty before you even understand what’s happening? Noticing these choices helps you stop staying stuck in discomfort.
Why your body needs safety to process stress: If you rush, dismiss, or dwell instead, it takes longer to get back to calm. Your body needs to feel safe to truly process stress. Slow down, breathe, reflect — so you can get to clarity and growth.
ARE YOU CARRYING STRESS?
What do you feel in your body? (buzzing, overwhelm, stuck)
What thoughts tell you you’re not okay? (“I’m responsible”, “I have to fix it”)
DEALING WITH STRESS BETTER IN THE MOMENT:
Picture your posture — are you reacting or leading yourself?
Are you uncomfortable? What’s telling you that?
Slow yourself down. Plant your feet, breathe in and out.
Decide a helpful next action to lead yourself forward.
PROACTIVELY PLAN TO HANDLE STRESS DIFFERENTLY:
List your own stress patterns and triggers.
Notice why they trigger you — beliefs about roles and responsibilities.
Show yourself your choices — picture and list new thoughts and actions that you know could help. Give yourself permission to experiment.
STRESSFUL THOUGHT TOOL: Put The Thought In Your Hand:Hold the thought in your palm — seeing how it’s smaller than it felt in your head helps you see choices of what to do with it.Your Free Coaching Call:Schedule your own FREE, 1-hour Discovery Chat with Annaliese to experience how coaching with her gives you understanding and real tips that work for you to make the change you want to see in your own life. No strings, this session will give you some gold! www.linktree.com/coachannaliese

95 - Healing Stronger

Annaliese and Alan open up an honest conversation about how past pain and wounds grow your courage as healing make you stronger than before. Alan shares how freeing it is to remind yourself you’re not perfect—and that’s part of your story. Those hard-won lessons stick with you and shape you. Annaliese encourages you to stop hiding from your pain and choose instead to face, process, and reflect on what you’ve really been through, so you can heal in ways that matter.
You’ll Hear About:
You don’t have to pretend you’ve never been broken. That break—and your healing afterward—makes you significantly who you are. It’s deeply valuable to remember your hurts and honor them as part of your journey.
Healing stronger happens when you stay connected with yourself. It takes choosing to own your story, face and name your pain, see what caused it, and practice real self-acceptance. That’s what helps you sense your strength.
Your healing places can root you deeper. They show you what you contributed, what others did, and how intentional reflecting on what you went through grows your wisdom.
Your Free Coaching Call:Experience coaching with Annaliese for yourself. Book your FREE 1-hour Discovery Chat at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese. No strings, just valuable encouragement for your journey.
When Life Has Hurt You, Here’s Your Strength:Resilience, newness, authenticity, and bridge-building for others. You get to take the pieces of you, practice willingness to sit with them and glue them back together, and gain growth to share your strength and perspective.
Practice slowing down and prioritizing moments to see your own healing experiences and how they’ve changed you. Notice and own the ways you can tell you’re stronger.
Notice and accept with compassion the hurtful experiences you can tell you need more healing in. What could help you take the time and space you need to face, process, and begin to heal these parts of you?

94 - How To Plot Your Course

Annaliese and Alan talk about how to begin looking at the path you're on in life and asking honestly: Is this taking me where I want to go? Annaliese shares how noticing what your current way looks and feels like—and planning for a more intentional, life-giving experience—is what helps you get the meaningful results you’re craving.
You’ll Hear About:
How plotting your own course doesn’t have to mean a total life overhaul. Small tweaks to what’s become routine can lead to big shifts.
How to catch the mental roadblocks—like all-or-nothing thinking or avoidance—and remind your brain that experimenting is allowed. You can try small steps, adjust as you go, and choose what works.
How to let your wise self lead. Even if part of you feels scared, another part is ready for the change that will support you emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically.
Plotting Your Course 101
Notice where you are: What’s not working? How do you feel in it?
Define where you want to be (or who you want to be).
Identify what’s in your way right now: thoughts, emotions, habits, avoidance, physical blocks.
Take simple, new steps: Pick and create rhythms that support where you’re headed—gently and steadily.
Tune in and discover how presence, patience, and self-awareness can help you chart a more purposeful, fulfilling direction—starting today.
Your Own Free Coaching Session: Discovery Chat with AnnalieseFree List To Catch Negative Thoughts: Cognitive Distortions List (PDF)

93 - How Do You Motivate Yourself?

Annaliese and Alan dive into the everyday ways we try to motivate ourselves—and how that directly affects both our follow-through and how we feel about ourselves. Annaliese brings up why the way you treat yourself to “get motivated” might actually be what’s making it harder to take action and feel good about it. Are you connecting with why you want to act or behave a certain way? Or are you just trying to force or blindly hope your way into showing up? You don’t have to harm, ignore, or fight yourself to become who you want to be in your life.
You’ll Hear About:
Why your motivation style may be part of what’s keeping you stuck or frustrated.
The way you’ve been used to motivating yourself might make sense—but is it actually working for you, or working against you in the long run?
How to tell what “well, it does work” is really costing you, and how to reflect on what could work better.
Why motivation is found in how you approach showing up—not in pressure or panic.
How building self-trust and reminding yourself who you want to be (resilient, willing, trustworthy) can energize you to act instead of avoiding or forcing.
Ways to Change Your Motivation Style:
You know what you need. Start practicing thinking this about yourself more often. What motivation “rules” actually work for you?
What do you like about your current style? Reflect on moments that felt effective. What would you want to keep doing?
What makes this style not work (even when it seems like it does)? Tune into what’s hard, draining, or quietly self-defeating.
You have permission to change the rules. Be your own guide. Slow down. Trust that you can shift into a style that supports you better.
What would effective, energizing, and supportive motivation look like for you? Motivation should help you handle life, not make it harder. You get to decide what works for both outcome and experience.
Your Free Coaching Call:Try a free, 1-hour Discovery Chat with Annaliese at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese to experience her coaching and get your own real, encouraging tools for the changes you most want to make in your life.

92 - How To Let Things Go

In this episode, Annaliese and Alan talk through the real-life challenge and inevitability of letting go. Annaliese brings up why it’s hard, how we make it harder, and what it takes to finally loosen our grip on what’s no longer serving us.
You’ll Hear About:
Knowing you need to let go is not the same as being able to do it. Letting go takes awareness, honesty, and compassion for why it’s hard in the first place.
Holding on is often connected to our identity or what we care about most. To let go, you need to first name what you’re carrying and why.
Our brains think letting go has to be all-or-nothing—but it doesn’t. Letting go isn’t giving up. It’s choosing peace over pressure when what used to work… doesn’t anymore.
Your Free Coaching Call:Curious about what coaching can do for you? Schedule your FREE 1-hour Discovery Chat at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese and experience what it’s like to gain clarity and make real change.
Questions to Help You Let Go:What are you holding onto? Why? What’s it promising you? Is it working?
Ways to Practice Letting Go:
Give yourself permission back.When you’ve carried something for a long time, it starts to feel like a rule—like you have to keep carrying it. But you don’t. You can give yourself permission to make new choices. Letting go doesn’t mean you stop caring—it means you care in a way that’s sustainable and honest.
Decide how you want to care.Sometimes we hold on just to prove we care. But you get to choose what caring looks like now. Ask yourself: What will it look like for me to care differently? What will I do or say? What beliefs do I need to shift to trust that letting go is still caring?
Decide how you want to let go.Letting go means releasing something—so give yourself what you need to feel safe in that process. Slow down. Breathe. Be present with yourself. Ask: What am I releasing? What kind of support do I need as I show up differently? Letting go becomes possible when you feel safe, seen, and in charge of your choice.

91 - How Your Thoughts, Feelings, And Actions Create Your Life

Annaliese and Alan break down why we can feel stuck in the same patterns, no matter what we do. Annaliese shows how our beliefs shape our thoughts, which trigger feelings, which drive our actions, and ultimately create our results. If you want to shift what’s happening in your life, the best place to start is by looking at what’s going on inside you.
You’ll Hear About:
How belief is the deepest level in you, setting off a domino effect that influences your thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.
Are you aware of both your feelings and your thoughts? Some people are more aware of their thoughts, while others are more in tune with their feelings—and how noticing which one you lean toward, and which one might be your blind spot, can help you gain the clarity you've been missing.
The power of repeating intentional thoughts, instead of just letting your automatic thoughts be ni your driver's seat—because a belief is just a thought you’ve told yourself enough times to make it stick.
Your Free Coaching Call:Get new results for yourself too by scheduling your real-time coaching with Annaliese! Schedule your FREE 1-hour Discovery Chat at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese to gain personalized insights and start making real changes.
Ways to Start Changing a Thought, Feeling, or Action:
Ladder Thoughts – Choose a thought just 1% more helpful than your current one to shift your mindset gradually.
Redefine Your Goals & Identity – Notice where your current definitions keep you stuck, and try ones that create more openness.
Focus on Just One Shift – In tough moments, pick one thing to adjust: your thought, feeling, or action. Then, ask: What am I believing that’s leading to this outcome?
Small shifts add up. Try one today!

90 - Finding What You Love

Annaliese and Alan dive into the power of rediscovering what you love and creating more moments in your days where you truly feel like yourself. Annaliese shares why revisiting childhood joys or exploring your interests—without dismissing them as unimportant—is a key part of living authentically, feeling empowered, and making life more meaningful.
You’ll Hear About:
How adulthood often shifts our focus to productivity, obligations, and efficiency—leaving little room for creativity, joy, and exploration. Prioritizing what lights you up (instead of just consuming content on social media or TV) helps you reconnect with what you’re made for.
Noticing signs you might be losing yourself—feeling drained, stuck, or like something’s missing. What sparks your curiosity? Are you making choices based on people-pleasing or what you can tell you actually enjoy or find interesting?
The importance of allowing creative or experiential activities to be imperfect, inefficient, or outside your control. Recognizing and breaking unhelpful self-imposed rules is key to personal growth. Strengthen your confidence through inner validation by telling yourself: “This standard isn’t working for me anymore—I give myself permission to explore and enjoy this in my own way.”
Ways to Practice Finding What You Love:
Slow down physically when you feel rushed. A slow body invites a clear brain. This will help you notice what truly catches your attention—things that are beautiful, inspiring, or just things you appreciate. What if these were things to explore and spend more time in?
Appreciate and love yourself in real time. When you laugh or react uniquely, savor the moment! Acknowledging your own, natural responses and and valuing them builds confidence and deepens your life satisfaction.
Your Free Coaching Call
Experience personalized coaching with Annaliese! Click to set up your FREE 1-hour Discovery Chat at www.linktree.com/coachannaliese to start making real changes in your own life.