I’m thrilled to bring you a conversation with Anne Symens-Bucher, co-founder of Canticle Farm and former executive assistant to Joanna Macy. We explore her 15-year journey of fundraising for Canticle Farm, an intentional community in Oakland.

Anne shares how the realization "I can't do this alone" became the foundation for a completely different approach to money—one rooted in relationship, gift economy, and the courage to receive. We talk about unhooking the exchange between giving and receiving, the intimacy required to truly ask for support, and what it means to practice faith in abundance even when the path forward isn't clear.

Anne Symens-Bucher was Joanna Macy's executive assistant for 20 years before Joanna's death in July of 2025. Prior to that Anne worked for 25 years for the Franciscan Friars of the St. Barbara Province, primarily as co-director of their Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Office. In the 1970s, she lived at the New York Catholic Worker with Dorothy Day, and subsequently founded the Oakland Catholic Worker. She co-founded the Nevada Desert Experience, organizing events at the Nevada Test Site and serving on the NDE Board for 3 decades.

Anne and her husband, Terry, are the founders of Canticle Farm in Oakland, an intentional community experimenting at the intersection of faith, social justice, and Earth-based nonviolent activism. Canticle Farm is rooted in Franciscan spirituality and the Work That Reconnects, a body of teachings of which Joanna Macy was the root teacher. Anne & Terry have been married for 39 years and are the parents of five children and grandparents of three.

• The moment "I can't do this alone" changed everything about fundraising
• "You are already further along than you realize"—trusting what's already happening
• As a fundraiser, it's your job to ask, their job to say yes or no
• Why the "no" makes it easier to trust the "yes"
• Canticle Farm as a platform for the Great Turning
• Gifts just move—they don't need to be forced forward
• How to receive a sacred gift: pausing to honor the exchange
• Making the leap of faith before the path appears

Canticle Farms Joanna Macy

#Fundraising #GiftEconomy #IntentionalCommunity #JoannaMacy #CanticleFarm #SocialJustice #Abundance #Relationship #AskingForHelp #ReceivingGifts

Click here to watch our interview on Youtube

Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. All the Colors is not a registered entity and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Natural Investments. See our Disclosures and Disclaimers and read our Form CRS.

Amy Pinnell shares with us the unique intersection of high sensitivity, caregiving professions, and financial wellbeing. Amy shares her journey from burning out early in her social work career to creating a sustainable practice that serves highly sensitive helpers and healers. We explore why sensitive people are both naturally gifted at caregiving and more vulnerable to burnout, the role financial stability plays in preventing burnout, and how to release the martyrdom mentality that tells us service requires self-sacrifice. This is an essential conversation for anyone in a helping profession who's trying to honor both their calling and their own needs.

Amy Pinnell is a Registered Social Worker, Clinical Therapist, and the founder of Sensitive Social Worker. She is on a mission to help tender-hearted, deep-feeling helpers and healers engage in meaningful, social-justice oriented work, without burning out. Through her private therapy practice (Brave Spirit Counselling), online courses and live workshops Amy has helped 100s of helpers and healers release martyrdom mentality and embrace their sensitivity so that they could continue showing up whole-heartedly for their communities and for themselves.

Amy is the creator of the Love Notes for Social Workers Card Deck, a pocket-sized support for busy Social Workers which has been purchased by Social Workers worldwide. Amy has a Masters of Social Work from the University of Victoria and has 10+ years of experience working as a Social Worker in the areas of mental health and addictions.

• The childhood memory that revealed early money beliefs: "My parents would not be able to afford all those gifts"
• Realizing the two options presented in childhood: spend as little as possible or use credit
• The challenge of asking clients for money in private practice after years of free services
• How learning about high sensitivity felt like "a missing puzzle piece"
• Why 50% of therapy clients are highly sensitive, even though only 15-20% of the population is
• The critical difference between burnout prevention and burnout recovery
• Why reducing stimulation matters: highly sensitive people can't filter out noise, lights, smells, and energy the way others can
• "The personal is political"—bringing social justice into personal finance decisions

Sensitive Social Worker Instagram Brave Spirit Counselling The Highly Sensitive Person Sensitive Strengths Instagram

#HighlySensitive #BurnoutPrevention #SocialWork #FinancialWellbeing #EmotionalBoundaries #SelfWorth #HelpingProfessions #SocialJustice #SustainableCaregiving #MartyrdomMentality

Click here to watch our interview on Youtube

Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. All the Colors is not a registered entity and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Natural Investments. See our Disclosures and Disclaimers and read our Form CRS.

Today I speak with Sarah Carr about the intersection of trauma, neurodiversity, and financial well-being. Sarah shares her journey from growing up in a high-demand high-control religious environment to becoming a financial therapist who helps clients—particularly women and neurodivergent individuals—reclaim their relationship with money.

We discuss how trauma responses show up in our financial decisions, why income became Sarah's security blanket after leaving an oppressive marriage, and how raising two children on the autism spectrum taught her about nervous system regulation and the beauty of different ways of thinking.

Sarah is a Certified Financial Therapist®, Certified Financial Planner®, and wealth manager committed to helping people rewrite money stories, deconstruct old patterns, and cultivate embodied financial well-being without shame.

Raising and educating two neuro-diverse children, Sarah has learned more about the impacts of Autism and ADHD on her clients' financial lives and relationships. Sarah serves on two non-profit boards: Reclamation Collective, a national community advocacy organization providing resources and support for those harmed in religious and spiritual contexts, and Endless Mountains Pride, a local non-profit providing education, advocacy, and connection for the LGBTQ+ community. While Sarah works with clients across the country, she resides in upstate New York where her favorite place to recenter is along one of the many waterfall trails she loves to hike.

• Growing up in high-demand, high-control religion shaped Sarah's early beliefs about women and money
• The identity crisis of becoming a stay-at-home mom after having financial independence
• How leaving an oppressive marriage revealed her money script that income equals security
• Discovering financial therapy while navigating early motherhood
• Processing personal trauma while learning about son's autism diagnosis
• Working with women leaving high-control religious systems and neurodiverse clients
• How trauma creates stuck emotions and disrupted agency
• Permission slips and questioning deeply held beliefs about capability
• We don't heal individually—we heal collectively

Website LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Reclaiming Financial Agency: An Interview with financial therapist Haylie Castillo The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge by Ted Klontz and Brad Klontz Truth and Repair by Judith Herman

#FinancialTherapy #ReligiousTrauma #Neurodiversity #MoneyMindset #FinancialEmpowerment #TraumaHealing #NervousSystemRegulation #FinancialWellbeing #WomenAndMoney #HighlySensitive

Click here to watch our interview on Youtube

Diana Gisel Yañez is an Investment Advisor Representative of Natural Investments PBLLC. Natural Investments is an independent Registered Investment Advisor. All the Colors is not a registered entity and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Natural Investments. See our Disclosures and Disclaimers and read our Form CRS.