Photo Credit: Elizabeth Ashley & Co.

I have had a wide variety of experiences in my life and in my work that influence how I live and work today. Fortunately those experiences have included deep healing so that I get to (mostly!) have a life of consciousness, joy, and meaning - as stated in my mission statement. I am a firm believer I can not support others in areas where I have not been willing to go myself. 

Raised in a middle-class family with alcoholism and a rigid notion of religion at the foundation, I grew up having all my physical needs well taken care of, but lacking a sense of love and acceptance for who I am. As the youngest of five, I took on the family rules of not feeling and just making it look good on the outside for a long time. Those rules had me work really hard to “succeed” as the world defines it so maybe no one would know the emptiness, confusion, and shame I carried within. 

My first career was in the glamorous world of advertising, where I worked in account management roles for 20 years. I did indeed achieve a decent level of success, being a VP at one of the hottest creative agencies in NYC by the age of 30. Unfortunately that work and repressed grief fed my own drinking, so that a short time later I found myself bottoming out and taking a year off to focus on my newfound sobriety. I did return to advertising for a few years as a sober woman, and reaped the rewards of reaching higher levels complete with a larger salary and bigger staffs. Ultimately I came to find the work “soul-sucking” as it did not mesh with the life I was working to build, one based in soul, spirit, service, and meaning. 

Towards the end of that career, I enrolled in an Interfaith seminary, not ever expecting my work would be of a spiritual nature but trusting that experience would support my own healing and growth….and did it ever. In my first year of seminary, 9/11 happened and my husband died from cancer. For the second time in my life, I deeply surrendered to grief and was held. While I did manage to open a bookstore that was oriented to personal and spiritual growth for a couple years after seminary, the reality is my main work for a long time was to heal from grief, especially since I had come from a family that made no room for it. In the process of doing my own healing, I came to realize how few people in the world have the support they need to find the transformation that is possible when we have gone through a loss that shakes us to our core. Supporting others in that journey became a core part of my work, and remains so today.

Since I am a lifelong learner and a person who embraces many paths, I also enrolled in extensive training in spiritual counseling and energy healing to be able to make that a part of my offerings as well.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Ashley & Co.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Ashley & Co.

For many years my work consisted of a private practice of grief counseling, spiritual counseling, and energy healing as well as working in related part-time jobs. One of those jobs, chaplain at a local hospital that had a detox unit as well as a 2-4 week substance use stabilization / recovery unit, led me to this latest chapter of my work life. 

When I started that job, one of the substance use counselors keyed into the fact that I had a background in grief and said, “Are we going to put you to use!” And that they did. I started working with clients 1-1 initially about the way grief had impacted their substance use, then eventually running an optional weekly group on that topic as well. While I was not surprised to find the link between grief and substance use common, what I was surprised to find was that no one I worked with had ever had anyone talk to them about it before - and many of these people had been in and out of rehabs and recovery for decades. I even had one young man of 22 tell me that he had always been aware he started using immediately after his father’s death but when he had tried to talk to counselors about it, he was met with the statement, “That’s not what we’re here for.” I knew I had found my work.
Realizing that I needed to be licensed to offer this work, I went back for an MSW at the age of 58, graduating one month before my 60th birthday. While working with people who deal with grief and substance use issues is at the core of my heart, I also find myself working with people who have related issues and loving that work too. As long as it fits with the mission I outlined on the home page, it is work I find necessary, meaningful, and deeply rich for the client and me both. 

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Ashley & Co.

Outside the work front, my own personal and spiritual healing and growth has been a major adventure of mine. (If you want details, you can read my memoir, If You Want the Rainbow, Welcome the Rain: A Memoir of Grief & Recovery.) Other passions are travel, creativity, nature, and connecting with people I love. In the realm of my own lifelong journey of learning and healing, I recently studied with Francis Weller, a wise, compassionate man steeped in the lineage of Jung, in a Soul Convivium (community) and a Grief Ritual Training program. This year has me in a yearlong program learning about The 13 Original Clan Mothers, a book by Jamie Sars. As for the current definition of my own spiritual path, I describe myself as a Buddhist Taoist Wiccan whose primary spiritual guide is Mary Magdalene. I am also embracing this new chapter of my life - with new career and new city - as being that of a “fun, funky, creative elder.” 

Other human identities of mine include…Writer….Seeker….Adventurer….Aunt…..Dog Lover…..Friend…..Theater Goer……Traveler…..Dancer…..Meditator…..Artist….Confidant…..Lifelong learner……Hiker…..Facilitator…..Minister….Spartan…Sports fan…Sister…

Yet my core answer to the question “Who is AnnE?” is that I am a spiritual being having a human experience, to borrow from Ram Dass.