Listen here:

In this episode, we will cover:

• Annelise’s call to serve
• Steps to release fear around finances
• Navigating budgeting for health and expenses
• Automating savings
• Making a plan for debt
• Shifting the money mindset
• Giving yourself grace over shame

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Episode transcript:

Sarah Small: Welcome to the Uncensored Empath, a place for us to discuss highly sensitive energy, illness, healing, and transformation. My name is Sarah Small, and I’m a life and success coach for empaths who want to create a thriving body, business, and life. Think of this podcast as your no-BS guide, navigating life, health, and entrepreneurship. You’ll get straight to the point totally holistic tips for me in real-time, as I navigate this healing and growth journey right beside you. This is a Soul Fire production.  

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Uncensored Empath. Things may sound a little different over here, and that’s because they are. Not only has the show rebranded into the Uncensored Empath, but we have also joined an amazing Podcast Network called Soul Fire productions. I recently had the opportunity to meet Kelly and Connor in person here in the Denver area and beyond both of their amazing shows. 

You guys, they’re amazing people. I just felt so welcomed into their home. They also abide by my own uncensored approach to podcasting and to speaking the truth and having really real, raw, honest and open conversations that I know you guys want to hear, that is different than your cliché conversations that just stay on the surface level because it is so important to me to go deep and to be able to unearth new truth, a new perspective, new understanding, new healing modalities, consistently on the show and to always remain true to myself. My morals, my values, my integrity is more important than anything. 

Part of what really inspired me to say yes to this opportunity of joining soul fire productions was Kelly and Connor’s energy. They just exude this really amazing, welcoming and real, real, authentic energy. Their expertise is all around getting important messages out into the world and growing audiences on podcasts, so more people can tune in and hear these messages that are so important to me, and it’s part of my mission and legacy that I want to leave on this world to continue to speak the truth and to have these open honest raw conversations.

So I cannot wait for the Uncensored Empath to blossom and grow even more and thank you to all of you who have been tuning in from the beginning, and to every single one of you who has ever shared the show on your social media or sent a link to an episode that you know will resonate with a friend. The content of this show is remaining primarily the same, but you can expect even more amazing guests, higher quality editing because I am no longer going to be doing that solo, I have up until this point. You can also expect just more opportunities to receive support, and even discounts on my favorite, holistic, sustainable brands. 

So the Uncensored Empath is emerging of my two words, two words that you probably already hang out in, but there felt like there was a bit of a disconnect. Now I get to merge these two pieces together to be congruent across the board. So those two words were the Empowered Empath, my social media brand and account, and the podcast, which was previously, Healing Uncensored. So bringing those together, we create the Uncensored Empath. You know, your girl doesn’t hold back on any of these shows, any of these conversations, and you guys really get to see into a window of my life. 

I mean, I’ve come on and I’ve shared so much of my personal healing journey, my personal money story, my personal business building experience, and of course, the loss and grief that I’ve personally experienced and struggled with. Again, it is so important to me to continuously show up in a way that is authentic, that you feel like we know each other or that we’re sitting down to chat. I’ve had people who I’ve had the opportunity to meet in real life or even just over video chat, be like, I feel like I know you and that’s the goal here is, I want You don’t feel so connected, I want to be your no BS soul sister that allows these conversations to just be meaningful and be memorable for you. 

So the archetype of the Uncensored Empath is someone who is highly sensitive, feels the world deeply and speaks her truth in order to shine her light on the world unapologetically because there’s not anything to be fucking sorry about when you’re speaking your truth. So expect even more amazingness to come. I can’t wait for where this evolution is going to take us. I want to just pause for a moment and thank you for your continued support and love. It means the freaking world to me, and I just can’t wait for what’s next. So without further ado, here’s the first episode of the Uncensored Empath. 

Today’s guest is Annelise Bretthauer. She has been a Crohn’s disease warrior since 2017. In 2019, she left her corporate financial planning position that she’ll talk about today, in order to start her own wealth management firm. This has given her the opportunity to specialize in helping families managing chronic disease with their money. She believes it’s important for everyone to talk about money, health, and wellness and wants to change the perception that money is scary, because girlfriends, money doesn’t have to be scary. 

While I’ve certainly talked about money on the show before, today’s episode is different in that we’re specifically talking about managing your finances and finding stability within your money as a whole in order to be able to support your health and your wellness. So she’s going to talk about setting up banking structures that help set you up for spending success, how to automate your savings, how to be in the driver’s seat of your health journey, and her own experience in managing her finances with a chronic illness, Crohn’s disease of her own. I know you guys are going to take away a lot of tangible tools. So pull out your notebook, pull out your pen, and let’s dive in with Annelise. All right, welcome to the show, Annelise. I’m so excited to have you on today.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Sarah, thank you so much for having me. I’ve been following you. I love your work. You’re amazing. Thank you so much.  

Sarah Small: Thank you so much. I’m sure I’m going to learn, like I was saying before we pressed record, so much from you today. This is a topic that I think the listeners are going to be really interested in. You are not only a Crohn’s disease warrior, but you are also on a mission to help families manage chronic illness with their money because I’m sure the majority of people listening right now completely get it, and they know that when you go on a health journey, it does oftentimes require an investment of not only time and energy, but money to get well and to get back into that place in your life where you feel like you’re thriving and not just surviving. I was reading in your bio, you used to work in a more corporate position, what inspired you to leave that position within financial planning and focus more on serving families that are going through chronic illness?  

Annelise’s call to serve

Annelise Bretthauer: I would say, it started with less of an inspiration and more of a need. I found myself loving my job. When I say myself, what I mean is my brain. I loved my job, I loved my coworkers, I loved everything I was doing there. At the same time, my body was suffering immensely, to the point where, honestly, I couldn’t even put on pants in the morning, I was in so much pain and worried about a client meeting if I’m going to have to run out all those things that come with Crohn’s disease. That experience stemmed from, I have dyslexia as well, and growing up, I learned that the way to overcome my dyslexia was just to work harder than everybody else. 

So I created this dynamic in my life, where I worked so hard and ignored everything that was happening in my body. The scary part is it served me so well through school at the start of my career until it didn’t anymore. So I came to recognize this issue and I didn’t know what to do about it. The only place I knew where to start was to get a therapist. So that’s what I did. Working with her for probably close to a year before I actually left my previous position, started to learn how to be present in my body. I am nowhere near an expert at doing it, but I at least know how to listen now.  

So that led me to realizing that I needed to make a change to have a sustainable career. I needed to focus on learning how to do this and support my body so that I can be a financial planner forever because I love it. That was the impetus for deciding to leave that position and start my own business to help people just like me.  

Sarah Small: Congratulations on making that change. I’m sure it was not the easiest decision to make, but also one that ultimately as you said, you want to be able to do this forever, so needs to be in an environment that allows you to thrive. For so many people listening, I think they’re probably listening and tuning in to this episode, especially if they don’t listen to all my episodes, and they just picked one randomly. If that’s you, I see you. But they may be tuning in because money is scary, yet they want to learn more about it and they want to feel more empowered around money. But in this moment, talking about money, looking at a bank account, freaks them the F out. So how do we start to release some of the fear around money as a whole?

Steps to release fear around finances

Annelise Bretthauer: I just got good stuff. As you were saying that because I think that’s something everyone can relate to, and they’re going to relate to money being scary in their own way. But at the end of the day, there’s a tension that comes along with money, and especially when you talk about money and health, because our health comes first, of course, but the society we live in, financial stability is important. Finding health, you need financial stability. So I talked to clients about creating very simple habits. A great place to start is just getting comfortable opening your bank app. 

Sarah Small: Yeah, I used to dread that, dreaded it, avoided it at all costs, and now I look at it every single day, but oh my, and it’s empowering, but I can still put myself back in those old shoes of being just terrified of looking. I don’t even really know how to fully explain it other than I think I knew I wasn’t going to see what I wanted to see. So I just took that strategy of avoidance to not have – to pretend like it wasn’t real, when it’s very much a part of our day to day life like we need money to be able to buy food and live. So that was your first tip, was start opening up your bank app.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Yep. You’re exactly right. Everybody has the same experience. It’s almost like if you don’t see it, it’s not real. So until you get that credit card bill, and you’re thinking, how in the world did I spend that much money? So don’t even go there, just start with opening the app, and you’re going to feel that tingly, scary feeling. But once you’ve opened it every single day for a couple of weeks a month, that’s going to go away. Naturally, when you open up the app, you’re going to be curious because you see the number. So maybe you just start with opening and closing it, but once you start to get comfortable, you will naturally click on the credit card, click on the bank account. That’s what leads you to that awareness. Recently, I’ve come to believe that awareness is a destination, not a step on the journey. 

Sarah Small: It’s more of a state of being. I think when you look at and you are more aware of what the numbers are, then you can start to make more empowering decisions with your money because you are aware of what’s there, what’s coming in, what’s going out, instead of being at the grocery store or wherever. Girlfriends listening, I have been there, I get this, you’re at the grocery store and you’re either opening up your bank account to see if you have enough money to pay for it, is that card going to go through, or you’re swiping it sweating and being like, ‘Shit, I hope this goes through’? That feeling sucks. It’s not a good feeling. I have been there, like my early to mid-20s, I struggled with money and was very disempowered by it, but that awareness really helped me grow into a place of feeling empowered and being aware of where my money was going and the places also where I was overspending, and being able to cut back on that as well.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Yep, exactly. My husband and I do something that I teach clients to do as well, which is have financial planning Saturday. 

Sarah Small: Tell me more. 

Annelise Bretthauer: So this was something we started and we were engaged, and we merged our budget together before we merged our finances. I recommend that to other engaged couples as well. But essentially, you take five to 15 minutes, it doesn’t take very long, every single Saturday and it’s your time that you set aside to look at what you spent last week, what’s coming up next and where you need to adjust. So if you’re doing this every week, you’re course correcting, and by the end of the month, you know exactly where you stand, it becomes easy. Financial planning Saturday for us now, it’s five minutes because we’ve been doing it for a couple of years. But it’s just getting in that habit of facing the music, and when it’s only been a week, you have so much time to first correct and adjust. 

Sarah Small: I’m really glad you brought up that you bring your husband or at that time, your fiancé, into the conversation because that’s something that my husband Andrew and I did. We started living together, we merged budgets, we actually still haven’t merged our accounts yet, but we very much are on the same page with where my bank account looks like and his bank account looks like and all the other accounts we have and how that plays out. It’s so important I think to be on the same page because when we first started dating before we lived together, it was such a un-talked about thing and I don’t think you should talk about this on your very first date or anything. But once we moved in together, it was like, No, I need to know what are your finances look like, so that we can make sure that we’re making smart choices. 

I was sharing with you before we started recording that I recently ran more lab tests. So he’s never dated somebody with chronic illness, let alone live with somebody with chronic illness before me. I think he was appalled at first, full transparency, he’s super appalled at how much I invested into my health. It started with hiring practitioners that were not covered by insurance because they’re more holistic practitioners, are going to acupuncture appointments. Now, we go to the chiropractor every week together, but that’s something we pay out of pocket for as well. He loves it now, but there was all these things that I was investing in. More recently, I just ran over $1,000 worth of labs and I just rehired a practitioner who I love for almost two grand. 

So there’s money that is constantly being invested. I like to use the word invested versus spent or used or the price of that. It’s very much an investment in my health, and you already mentioned, that’s one of the most important places we can invest in ourselves, is our health, so that we have health to be able to do other things in our life. But in a partnership, or part of a family, he definitely sees me spending in these areas. It’s not that he’s saying don’t spend Sarah, because he supports me, but it stresses him out because he doesn’t spend nearly as much money on his health, he just doesn’t, he doesn’t require that. My question to you, I’d love to hear your take on being in a partnership and with one person who does have a lot of health expenses, and how you start to navigate that both on the budgeting financial planning side, but also as in a partnership or in a relationship?  

Navigating budgeting for health and expenses

Annelise Bretthauer: I love this. It’s such a natural lead to talk about your banking structure, which is how I like to teach people to budget. So your banking structure, it’s just a fancy way of saying, what kind of bank accounts do you have and how are you using them.

Sarah Small: Like; checking, savings, credit card.

Annelise Bretthauer: Correct. I teach four bucket or five bucket savings, thinking structure approach. So bucket one is your spending account, this is usually a checking account, where you’re doing your day to day spending, your debit card purchases, your ATM withdrawals, groceries, gas, that sort of thing. Account number two is a storage account. So this is for things that come up during the year that don’t happen every month. So maybe as property taxes; if you own a house, or if you pay your car insurance every six months, maybe it’s car insurance, holiday spending, your Christmas spending or whatever holidays that you celebrate. Account number three is your savings account, this is for long term savings and things like buying a house or starting a business, that sort of thing. Then, for your emergency account, this is your buffer account, no matter whether you do have a chronic health condition or not. Ideally, you have six months of living expenses there. 

Then the fifth bucket, which is really important for us with chronic disease in managing illness is your health bucket. So my husband and I decide $1 amount every month that goes into that bucket. I’m not spending that dollar amount each month, but it’s building up so that when I do want to like you said, I’ve spent $1100 a month a couple of months ago, this is when I implemented the health bucket, and said, oh my goodness, this is so worth it, but there needs to be a plan. When that money set aside, you don’t have to talk to your spouse, okay, we have $10,000 in a checking account what’s going where, you’re making the bank remember for you. So I find that to be a successful way to start that conversation with your partner.

Sarah Small: That’s really helpful. I think that really breaks up those buckets, like you call them, into easy to understand, easy to visualize spaces and how we’re spending, and it seems like depending on each individual’s life and lifestyle that could be altered or shifted a little bit or tweaked based on what are the expenses that you have, what is most important to you in your life. I’m also curious to know about coming from the financial planner mindset, what is your opinion on having a credit card and managing a credit card?  

Annelise Bretthauer: Good question. I think credit cards can be extremely useful. Even though I’m not a huge fan of the FICO score, it’s required to do things like buy a house and buy luggage. So building credit is important. But you have to know yourself. So do you have a spending money personality, and a credit card is tough for you? Maybe you give yourself a much lower limit than the credit card has. When I say that, I don’t mean you call the credit card company and say, ‘’Hey, I don’t want $1,000 my credit card anymore, I want $500,’’ I’m talking about making that mental shift, because the more credit you have available, and the less you’re using it, the higher your credit score is going to be. So I’m a fan of credit cards, but I’m a fan of careful credit card use. If you can’t afford to pay off your credit card, you’re probably not quite ready to take on that credit card because the interest rates can be, 20 plus percent, which you’re never going to get in any market investment. 

Sarah Small: Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure there are a million different opinions on credit cards and not having a financial background, but I take this approach of, I’m very grateful for how credit cards have helped me start and invest in my business in a way that I didn’t have the cash funds to do that when I got off first started. I’m also grateful for my Amazon Prime credit card because I get 5% back on all my Amazon whole foods purchases, which I make money back because I just pay it off at the end of each month, and it makes so much sense to get the points and the rewards. But I’ve also, as I mentioned more in my early-mid-20s, depended on a credit card, where I was not making enough to pay my basic needs, my basic expenses. 

So again, there’s gratitude for them being able to have that credit, but then it added up and it added up and it added up, and it became really stressful for me, it really started to be this burden and this thing that within my own money story and my own money beliefs, like I thought that oh, I’m so irresponsible about money, which, I just didn’t know, I was still learning what my relationship with money was. You mentioned though, that there’s a way to automate your savings so that you don’t have to think about it. I would love to hear, how do you automate your savings? It’s something I think I can get better at, and I think that if there is anyone listening who has credit card debt, they’re probably wondering how they could either automate savings or so to pay off that debt before they get into the savings mentality or savings mode. So, I’d love it if you had tips on one or maybe the overlaps between both of those around automating savings and paying off the debt.  

Automating savings

Annelise Bretthauer: I want to close the loop a little bit on the credit card question because I think part of being a good financial planner is not having judgment. I have my own money story and my own personal relationship with money, but I think a lot of us can – I call it work mode. You get into that headspace and that mindset of how you need to show up for your clients. I think that’s a really important piece.  

Sarah Small: I’m just putting myself in the shoes of a potential client of yours, or any financial planner. If I were considering hiring a financial planner, and I had this fear that they were going to judge me or tell me that I was shitty with money, or Oh my God, how did you ever get into this place, I would feel so much shame and so much judgment that I wouldn’t want to work with that person. So I think it’s so important like you just said, to not only for the client to be able to feel safe, but then for you to take that non-judgmental approach of like, I’m just here to help you, I’m just here to get you feeling better about money not to rag on you about what the relationship has been up until now.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Exactly. Financial Planning is about looking into the future and planning for the future, not about reliving the past. I think the important part is, I love when clients are just going to put it all on the table. That’s part of my job is to make sure that they can trust me so that they can tell me about all of the purchases that they may or may not wish they had made. Then, what do we do from there, because part of my fulfillment as a financial planner is to educate and inspire people to change their behavior so that they can use their money to live intentionally. Money is just paper or numbers on a computer.

Sarah Small: Yeah, I tell people, I’m like, it’s just neutral energy. We attach emotion or meaning to it, but at its core, it is just a piece of paper or a number on a computer that only has the energy that we give it or the power because a lot of us give it so much power that it doesn’t inherently have, but that we give to it in our own minds. 

Annelise Bretthauer: Yep, exactly. I totally agree with that. So back to the automating savings question. The way I like to do it and the way I teach clients is to, and this is a trial and error process because setting up a budget, figuring out what I call the spending plan, I like the terminology better. But how much should go into each of your buckets, each of your accounts is you’re not going to know at first, you’re going to make your best guess. So there’s going to be this trial and error process until you find a ratio that’s comfortable. Once you’re there, each day, you get paid. 

So if you get paid twice a month, you’ll have automated transfers twice a month, you’ll set up an automatic bank transfer from your checking account or wherever your paycheck is going, into each of your accounts, into your other budgeting accounts. For example, if I wanted to spend $400 a month into my health account, I would just go into the banking up and set up an automatic transfer on, let’s say, I get paid on the seventh for that to happen. So it does two things. One; if you’re checking your banking app every day and looking at your checking account, you’re not spending that money you’ve allocated for elsewhere. Two; you get so used to it, that it becomes expected. Over here, you’re saving and it doesn’t feel negative. 

Sarah Small: I feel like I don’t have it set up exactly like that. This is really helpful. But I think that being a very visual person, even looking at my online banking and the way I currently have set up, it would be so much easier if there were more buckets to be like, okay, so that I’m not looking at some value and trying to consider X amount of this is going to go to my practitioner, that I owe X amount each month and X amount is going to go here. So then after all that, how much is left, and what does that look like. Instead, visually, even it would be easier to look at and figure out how much is in each bucket. Then, what are the expenses for that month within each of those categories.

Annelise Bretthauer: Yep, exactly. If you’re someone like me, who gets nervous when you spend big chunks of money, whether it’s on health or something else, when you designate it into its own bucket. So for example, I am going to another colonoscopy. So I am building up a bucket that is basically for that. I need another one, and I know it’s going to cost $4,000. It’s there. There’s no anxiety that comes along with making that choice. 

Sarah Small: I just want to timeout for a hot second because I don’t want anyone who’s listening to feel shame that they might be hit with an unexpected health bill and not have that 4000 or 1000 or however many dollars already saved up. You guys, it’s okay, we’re just giving these tips and talking to Annelise today to help empower and educate. We were just saying, you’re not judging anyone on their past decisions, and instead, how can we feel more empowered around money moving into the future. So that’s not so scary, and that we can have more conversations around it. So that also brings me back to that debt question, which I think when I’ve talked to potential clients and clients that I’ve worked within the empowered empath community. 

Oftentimes people will share financial stuff with me, and if they do have credit card debt, they share in a very burden guilty way, ‘’Well, Sarah, I have this amount of credit card debt. I just feel so much guilt than investing in your program or in this healing opportunity because of this.’’ So I have my own response to them that is not financial advice, but more of energetic advice. How do you look at somebody who’s coming to you and just like, ‘’Hey, please help me,’’ and create a plan to then get out of that place that is not filled with guilt and shame and instead, okay, it is what it is, now let’s make a plan to get to move forward, let’s just make a plan to get you out of debt and in a place where then you can start to save more or be able to pay off more of your other bills or whatever that looks like? How do we start to make that plan?  

Making a plan for debt

Annelise Bretthauer: Sarah, I’m glad you brought that up, because we are talking about this from a lens of having financial privilege in a lot of ways, and not everybody is in that position. That’s not an important piece of this. So if somebody was coming to me with a significant amount of debt, one, I love it when I’m working with someone like you, because I think the mindset is huge in being able to release all of that negative energy that’s coming with whatever brought you to this place. 

Second, it’s just to start, so it doesn’t matter if we’re starting with $5 a month, or we’re starting with $500 a month or $5,000 a month or $1 a day, it doesn’t matter, it’s the habit that changes, the behavior because you have a system that supports it. So it’s just chipping away. Once you start, that anxiety, that fear is reduced, and you will feel empowered, even if there’s still a lot there and you have long ways to go, that’s okay. You and I are here to remind them of that because TV and social media and radio is or not, it’s how do we consolidate, how do you get out, those things just perpetuate that fear and anxiety.  

Sarah Small: You’re right. How often are people literally showing you behind the curtain? Like, hardly ever, does anyone be like, ‘’Yeah, you want to look at my bank account and see how I’ve everything divided up and how much is in my savings and how much debt I have’’? We don’t talk about this stuff. So I see this perpetual shame that is building around money and what people think they’re supposed to have or not supposed to have, because we’re not talking about it enough. That’s why I love having people like you on the podcast to have authentic conversations that do talk about money and allow us to acknowledge that maybe there is debt. I don’t know the percentage, but there’s a shit ton of people out there who have student loans that they’re paying off because of the astronomical cost of going to college and getting a degree. My husband and I both have our master’s degree as well, and there’s data associated with that. 

I once heard a money teacher shared with me that, Sarah, debt is a neutral choice to pay something off over time, it’s just a choice to pay something off over time. You mentioned creating the habit then, of actually paying it off over time, versus looking at this number inside of whatever account that you owe and being like, ‘’I’m never going to be able to pay that off in full,’’ or ‘’I’m never going to be able to make big chips away at that number,’’ and instead, like you said, well, let’s not hold ourselves accountable to paying it off all at once, we’ve probably put it on a credit card or took out a student loan for the exact purpose of being able to pay it off over time. So chip away at it, just make the payments.

Annelise Bretthauer: Yep, life is a marathon, not a race. 

Sarah Small: That takes so much of the pressure off too.

Annelise Bretthauer: Yeah, it doesn’t need to be pressure-filled, it’s just that’s what we’re hearing from society because they want you to buy whatever they’re selling. 

Sarah Small: So what are some of the most impactful habits that you have, or even mindset shifts that you have created around money and finances as a whole that have helped you create a successful system for yourself as also somebody who does have Crohn’s and chronic illness to manage your money? 

Shifting the money mindset

Annelise Bretthauer: Great question. I think it’s important to start with what are your closely held beliefs about money, what came up in childhood. I’ll tell you one of mine. My family was fine. Growing up, my mom was mostly a stay at home mom, but she did work part-time. My dad worked really, really hard. My dad isn’t Enneagram six, for people that follow the Enneagram, which is the loyal skeptic sometimes is what the six is called. My mom is an Enneagram seven. I didn’t ask her if I can share this, but that’s okay. She’s always in pursuit of pleasure. So there was this tension between my dad’s skepticism and my mom’s desire for pleasure and especially around money because my parents grew up in different worlds when it came to money. 

So my perception of our household was that there was never enough. Even though now looking back, there was always food on the table, we always had what we needed. So I bring that with me and I as a one, and my perfectionistic and self-criticism comes into play, I connected money with how good I am. That has been something that I worked on paying attention to what is the story I’m telling myself, because when I first got diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, and the financial piece was huge, I had a hard time wanting to spend money on my health because, in my mind, I thought that I’m going to go back to normal, I shouldn’t have to be spending money here. 

I had to accept what my diagnosis was and how I was going to move forward and be empowered by it, not let it drive me down. So I think asking yourself that question, ‘’What are my closely held beliefs with money?’’ It’s a really hard question to answer, because none of us want to open that door, open that closet. Then, following up with a Bernie brown question, ‘’What is the story I’m telling myself?’’ because that comes up all the time for me. Every time I’m investing in a supplement that is $150, and I know it’s really beneficial, I have that like, is this okay? Yes, it’s okay. 

Sarah Small: Almost like I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but like, Am I worth this? Is my health worth that $150 investment? You talk about the pre-illness version of you, pre-diagnosis version of you, that probably did spend money in a different way. Then, through illness, I think you learn a lot of things, but oftentimes your relationship to money might change or shift because your priorities are now shifting and changing. I think it can be really hard. I resonate with this. It’s like, all that money that I was spending out at the bar or going to concerts or traveling – I did a lot of traveling in my late teens, early 20s, I feel like got rerouted into a health bucket, and into investing in my health. 

It was really sad for me for a while that it wasn’t even just that I wasn’t spending money in those areas, but that I was spending money on my health, so I felt like, oh, I can’t do that stuff anymore. I think there are a grief and a mourning process that we oftentimes go through as our life changes. From my perspective, one of the things I’ve realized though, is that if I had continued spending money on traveling, for example, those traveling experiences would not have been fun and not have been good because I felt like shit. There were days I woke up and I thought I was dying. So I didn’t actually want to be traveling, but there was still this old version of me that was like, you’re so different now, Sarah and a lot of this is judgment. So how have you navigated not only the way that you’ve to reprioritize maybe where your money is going as you navigate a chronic illness journey and a health journey but also, just a previous version of yourself, versus the version of you now?

Annelise Bretthauer: A lot is coming up for me when you ask that question. In college – and I have a very vivid memory of this pre-financial planner, pre-Crohn’s disease warrior, I used to put everything in terms of a $5 Starbucks.

Sarah Small: How many lattes is that worth?  

Annelise Bretthauer: Exactly. I can’t drink lattes anymore. To me, that was something that gave me a lot of happiness and was expensive. So I would think, if something was $20, is this worth for Starbucks? It’s funny, we laugh now think about because when you get sick like you said, your priorities change tremendously. I haven’t talked to anyone really besides my husband about this. But on our first date, I said to him, this is taken out of context, so take it for what it is. I said to him, ‘’I will never quit my job for you.’’ What I meant by that is I always say, being independent was important for me. I had watched my mom make career choices to be able to support my sister and me and be there for us. I had this image that I didn’t want to do that. 

Getting sick, it’s funny because now, part of the reason I left my previous position and worked on getting healthy and started this business is so that we could have a family. So it’s just amazing to think back to what my perception used to be. It also has given me a lot of insight into – if somebody has to cancel on me, that does not bother me one bit, because it is not about me, I have no idea. If I have to cancel on someone, I’m not going to give them the gory details about why. It’s just okay, everybody is doing what they need to do to support themselves and their bodies. I get the choice to appreciate that. It’s up to me to make that choice.

Sarah Small: The illness can teach us so much. There are so many little golden nuggets in what can be a yes, a very challenging path, but there’s so much to be gained, so much to be learned through that process, like just looking at you and hearing your story now, it’s illness has led you into a very niche part of the Financial Planning world that I would assume is very fulfilling for you to be able to help people who maybe come to you feeling disempowered by money, and just show them that smile and talk about money in a really beautiful way, and it doesn’t have to be so scary. Who knows if that ever would have been a choice or decision that you made, if you hadn’t gone through the walk the path that you’ve walked to get to here now.

Annelise Bretthauer: I’m sure it wouldn’t have been. Yeah, it totally changed my life. I’m really grateful because I’ve always felt misunderstood. I think part of that is being an empath and not knowing I’m an empath, so twofold. One, we were talking about this before we hit record. I am communicating in ways that most people are not receiving, and I have to remind myself of that, because then when they’re responding in a way that that doesn’t feel authentic to me, it was really exhausting. I kept thinking, I’m just missing something, everybody must just be much better at managing this than I am. So to come to that realization that as an empath, your neurological system is just built a little bit differently, and I need to be better at verbalizing how I’m feeling, especially in intimate relationships, my friends and my husband, because I’m perceiving that I’m giving off all sorts of communication. 

Sarah Small: Wait, you didn’t telepathically receive that from me? 

Annelise Bretthauer: Yeah. When you don’t have the understanding that other people aren’t reading receiving information the way you are, that’s exhausting. 

Sarah Small: Yeah. Well, I’m sure that being an empath also adds to your strength in the role that you play, helping people of noticing where fear is coming up for them, where hesitation, where judgment, where shame, like these emotions that you don’t have to necessarily call people out on to utilize in order to help them. So it’s like noticing those subtle energies and feelings in your potential clients or current clients and being able to support them on a deeper level because you’re picking up on those things that the average Joe is probably not picking up on.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Exactly. That is one of my favorite parts of being a financial planner. As you said, I’m not usually saying to a client, ‘’Oh, I’m feeling that you’re thinking this.’’ But it’s just playing a role in how I’m responding to them because, without behavior change, financial Planning is just a plan. We have to implement it and monitor it and actually do something about it. I find that so incredibly fun. I just love it. 

Sarah Small: I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your insight and your knowledge. I think we set this beforehand. It’s like, neither of us is really claiming to be experts or to know everything about money or everything about anything, but I do believe, I truly believe that this conversation still adds a lot of value and it brings so many tips and little nuggets of support to people. If nothing else, you’re not alone, wherever you are in your money path, money journey, current circumstances with money as energy, you’re not alone. There are resources and there are tools to be able to help and to support you. 

Annelise is a beautiful resource to get started and to start to make some of those behavioral changes like you’re saying, it’s one thing to have a plan and be like, ‘’Cool, I’m just going to look at this plan,’’ versus, ‘’Let’s actually implement this plan and start to shift, not only the energy but the literal behaviors around money.’’ I think that’s so empowering. So loved to hear from you. If you just have any other main points or takeaways that you’d love to share with the audience today, anything you feel like they need to know.  

Giving yourself grace over shame

Annelise Bretthauer: Give yourself grace. Especially when it comes to money, you deserve it, your worth has nothing to do with how much money you make or what you’ve done with money in the past. Your worth is just your being. So that deserves grace and your effort.  

Sarah Small: I love that. I think that’s so important, and really ties together what we’ve mentioned several times, like, there’s no judgment here. Oftentimes, even if there’s not a judgment coming from the external, we still have an internal judgy voice. That is where your tip comes in hands so good and so well as, give yourself grace and just allow yourself to receive; receive the solutions, receive the inspiration, receive the advice, be able to move forward and make a change and make difference. At any point, we can decide to change our trajectory and our pathway forward. So there is hope for all of us. Thank you so much for being on the show. Can you also share with the audience? I think you mentioned something about some free resources or courses or something. So how can they learn more about you, and what do you have for the audience?  

Annelise Bretthauer: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Sarah. It’s important to me to be able to reach people whether they can afford one on one planning or can afford not, can’t pay anything. You can be your own financial advocate. So I’m working on a number of free courses, that will be available to anybody that wants them. They’re not out yet. I’m actually just working on updating my website, but the new website will be www.riseupfinancialplanning.com. You can sign up for our email list there, a newsletter you’ll be the first to know. Also, when they’re up and running, there’ll be a tab right on our website. So share all the free resources with all of your friends. Let me know, if there’s something you want me to build, I am happy to do it. 

Sarah Small: That’s so helpful. You guys go check it out Annelise’s website because I know I’m going to be tuning into the free courses. You have so much to share and so much to offer. So, thank you again for your time today. I so appreciate it.  

Annelise Bretthauer: Thanks, Sarah.  

Sarah Small: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. I recently created a guided hypnosis to support healing on a cellular level, more specifically to help boost and heal your immune system, which we can all use more support with. Oftentimes, autoimmune disease, something I talk about very often, is described as the body attacking itself, but your body is never against you, it is naturally a self-healing organism. So think of this hypnosis as an opportunity to heal your relationship with your body and the cells inside your body, as well as to tap back into your body’s innate healing abilities. 

If you’re new to hypnosis and aren’t sure what to expect, think of it simply as a deeply relaxed and meditative state that allows you to reprogram the subconscious mind and bypass all the ego and conscious thoughts that often stand in the way. It is powerful, it can provide tangible results. This hypnosis to support cellular healing is free for you when you rate and review the Uncensored Empath podcast. Simply go to iTunes and share your honest feedback. Make sure to screenshot your review, and then email your screenshot to Sarah with an H at theuncensoredempath.com, and in return, I will email you your free hypnosis. Thank you so much in advance for your support. I can’t wait to talk to you next time.  

About Annelise