'You Are Your Own Touch Tree'

Some individuals have a presence so radiant, they light up every room they enter. These people are the true Chief Energy Officers of our teams and organizations.

Anna Brooks is one of them.

As a founder and steward, Anna is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and leaders who value the soul of their work as much as its strategy. She has collaborated with some of the brightest and most transformational high performers across industries. Most recently, she launched The Touch Tree Collective, a company offering 1:1 deep-dive sessions, small group facilitation, and customized programming, projects, and partnerships to guide leaders toward deeper alignment and purpose.

“No matter where we find ourselves on the path, inside each of us is an innate intelligence longing to guide us home,” Anna recently shared. “Attuned choice by attuned choice, by listening to that sometimes whispering voice, we can move closer to who we truly are. Our sacred system knows what to do, and I’m here as a steward for your intuition and inner knowing.”

The Daily Coach spoke with Brooks about the art of blending “soul” and “strategy,” why a regulated nervous system is powerful, navigating uncertainty, and building a foundation of inner sturdiness.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Anna, we're grateful for you doing this. Tell us about your childhood and some key lessons from it.

Thank you for having me, I'm so glad to be chatting with you today! This is a beautiful question because it brings up two themes. First, I grew up in a family that noticed things and shared them with one another. We still do that today. We paid attention to the small details and made them important. That practice shaped how I approach life now—people often tell me I notice things others overlook. That ability to see and highlight meaningful details stems from the environment I grew up in, where appreciating everyday beauty was valued.

Second, I spent a lot of time outdoors as a child, and nature became a foundational part of my life. To this day, I often say, 'Nature is my church.' Spending time in fresh air, finding slowness, and connecting with the world around me feels grounding. This upbringing fostered a deep appreciation for simplicity and connection, both of which influence how I move through the world.

How did the concept of blending “soul” and “strategy” become a cornerstone of your work?

The way this came about was interesting. It actually started with my clients. Our customers give the best marketing material and ways to frame things. What I kept hearing from people—over and over—was that they could find coaches or support that were very strategic and business-oriented, offering clear direction. And they could also find people who were more heart-centered, maybe more spiritual. But it was rare, at least in their experience, to find someone who combined the two.

I kept hearing this feedback again and again, and when you hear something that often, you notice the pattern and think,'Okay, there’s probably something here.' So I started paying attention to the language people were using.

Strategy, to me, is so important—it’s about being thoughtful, directed, and discerning—but it’s more than that. It’s about being deeply values-oriented and tuning into that inner wisdom, that soul-side of yourself. We all have access to so much insight if we just slow down and listen, but we’re not really taught to do that. The world moves so fast, and most of us don’t make it a regular practice.

We need strategy—it’s necessary to navigate the decisions we face, especially in high-stakes situations like many of the readers of The Daily Coach are in. But when you combine strategy with tuning into your inner wisdom, something deeper happens. You start to notice things, see truths, and get information you’re ready for at just the right time. That’s when aligned action becomes possible.

I often say: 'Notice and attune, then take aligned action.' That’s what makes the difference. It’s about shortening the gap between knowing and doing. That gap—between realizing what needs to happen and actually taking the step—is often where suffering lives. It stretches out and makes things harder. But when you listen inward and align your actions, the time shortens, the perspectives shift, and the quality of those decisions improves. It’s not just about getting things done; it’s about doing them in a way that feels deeply aligned.

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What was the inspiration behind founding The Touch Tree Collective, and how does your unique approach shape the impact of your work?

I think one of the best places to start is with the approach to the work. It’s really rooted in three core systems. The first is the nervous system. I use things like co-regulation, embodiment, and somatics, which are all about building inner sturdiness. That inner sturdiness creates more inner peace, which naturally extends outward and cultivates more outer peace. It’s a foundation for everything.

The second is a personality system, or core system, that I borrow from Internal Family Systems (IFS). It’s about recognizing that we have many parts within us and allowing all of those parts to exist. Our multiple parts come together to make up our core and connect us to our true self. When we orient in this way, there’s greater harmony and connection. The work I do here involves getting curious about those parts: What’s in the driver’s seat right now? Do we want it there? Is it working for us? And this is really key—there’s nothing wrong with any of us. It’s not about exiling a part of ourselves; it’s about softening around it, allowing it to be, and deciding whether it’s the part we want to lead in that moment. A lot of the things we learn early in life—things from our family or childhood—can unconsciously take over. This work helps bring awareness to those dynamics.

The third is the soul system, which connects us to our own inner knowing, the Divine within, that innate intelligence that lives inside each of us and to something larger than ourselves. Some people call it God, others call it Spirit or Source, nomatter what you name it, it creates a deeper alignment with purpose, love, meaning, and truth. It’s like the roots of a tree—grounding us while growing. This metaphor ties into the name of my business, The Touch Tree Collective.

As for what led me to start this work, it’s interesting because it’s both new and deeply rooted. I worked for an organization where I did some of this work, and it became really clear that facilitation, stewarding, and guiding were things I was meant to do. But if I look even further back, I can see little glimmers of this path throughout my life. Retrospect can be a beautiful thing—it allows you to see patterns and moments that point to where you were always headed.

People often come to me and this work when they feel disconnected from their soul, seeking more aliveness and less dysregulation in their bodies. A Touch Tree serves as a guide to help them remember who they are—or, for those already on the path of transformation, to support them in going even deeper. 

Can you explain what it means to have a regulated nervous system and why it's important?

Let's first start by talking about what a regulated nervous system really means. It doesn’t mean you’re always calm or at ease. It means you can move between states—between fight, flight, and calmness—without getting (too) stuck. Those other states, like fight or flight, are adaptive and absolutely necessary. Regulation is about reducing how far we swing and shortening the time it takes to come back to a grounded place. 

From my perspective, it feels so important because it impacts everything and it's where so much stems from. When we're in a ventral state we can make attuned choices and often arrive at very different realizations than we would otherwise. From this place significant shifts are possible, because what it most often leads to is more clarity, more expansiveness, more sturdiness, more peace and ease, more self-trust, more aliveness (vs. simply reacting unconsciously). This is where curiosity comes in, accessible in a ventral state. And from that conscious and curious state SO much is possible. I believe a regulated nervous system also means we begin by gazing in first, rather than gazing out, and ultimately centering the sacred. What might have previously been unattainable, unheard, unfelt etc. makes itself known and all right on time for each person and their own unique path. It’s a beautiful, poetic, living and breathing thing—a profound unfurling.

Gratitude—a very powerful frequency—when sourced authentically can also help us access that regulated state more easily. It’s not about forcing a feeling, and more about allowing space for it to arise naturally (and sometimes it's about finding something seemingly small to be grateful for), even in the midst of uncertainty or challenge. It's like that Leonard Cohen lyric: ‘There's a crack in everything, it's how the light gets in.’ Gratitude can be that light, even if it's shining dimly.

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Change can be unsettling for many. How do you guide leaders through uncertainty?

I think one of the very first things that’s most helpful is adjusting our relationship with uncertainty. Uncertainty is so often seen as 'bad' or 'negative'—we’re constantly searching for absolute certainty in so many areas of life. But that’s kind of the first joke, right? There’s so little that’s actually certain, even though we want it to be. So if we shift our perspective and approach uncertainty with curiosity instead of resistance, things open up in new ways.

One of the tools I often share is this simple truth: Two things can be true at the same time. You can feel frustrated by uncertainty while also being a little curious about it. And that curiosity is key. I work a lot with the nervous system, and curiosity can only come from a regulated state—what’s called the ventral state. When we’re in other states of stress or dysregulation, curiosity isn’t accessible. But when we’re regulated, curiosity allows us to expand our perspective.

Another way I think about it is through the lens of expansiveness. There’s a concept in grief work that says grief doesn’t get smaller, but you can expand around it. I think the same is true for uncertainty and change. When we expand around uncertainty, it doesn’t have the same weight or power over us. We’re not trying to change it or make it go away; we’re just allowing it to be. That approach—softening and allowing—often leads to more clarity, discernment, and ease in moving forward, even if the situation remains uncertain.

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How do you think about gratitude as a practice?

First of all, I think it’s important to acknowledge that gratitude is a practice, just like anything else. Some days it’s easier, and some days it’s harder. But we practice because that’s how we integrate it. By creating a routine around gratitude, we build a tool that we can access when we need it most. Often, it’s about practicing gratitude in moments when it comes more naturally so that, in the harder times, we’ve built that muscle memory to lean on.

I think a lot of readers, especially those in athletics, understand this concept—it’s like training for anything. It’s the same process, but with a little bit of playfulness and fun, which is so important. Gratitude doesn’t have to be so serious, and adding some lightness can make it easier to engage with.

On the nervous system side, it’s interesting to note that a feeling or emotion typically takes about 90 seconds to move through your body as a chemical process. Now, that doesn’t mean the feeling is completely gone in 90 seconds—that’s a misconception. It’s not like, Okay, in 90 seconds I’ll feel grateful, and I don’t have to work at it anymore. Sometimes, we have to go through that process multiple times. But this ties to gratitude because there’s something powerful about softening around how we feel. What if we allowed ourselves to feel exactly what we’re feeling and told the truth about it? If you don’t feel particularly grateful in a moment, what if that was okay?

How do you think about building inner sturdiness, and what advice would you give to someone starting that journey?

I believe building and cultivating inner sturdiness, and recognizing the sacredness within, is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. For me, I came to the inner sturdiness I have today through a series of events and experiences I wouldn’t wish on anyone—those 'on-your-knees' moments when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, and then you discover there’s another thousand-foot tunnel below that. But that often seems to be the way these things come isn't it. And here’s the thing: the math will never add up. You can’t quantify whether it was worth it or often even make sense of it logically. But for me, I would never give up the inner sturdiness I’ve gained—it’s inextinguishable now. So, it’s not even a question of whether it was worth it; it’s that this sturdiness is foundational, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

That’s why I encourage people to approach inner work with intention, with the orientation toward eventually building that inner sturdiness. It’s not something you have on day one—absolutely not. Like anything, it’s a process. But even starting with that intention feels deeply important.

There’s a quote from Viktor Frankl that I think about often: 'Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.' That space—the one between stimulus and response—is where the work happens. It’s where we pause, regulate, and notice instead of reacting. And to access that space, you need some level of regulation, which is why we talked earlier about what a regulated nervous system actually means. It doesn’t mean you’re always calm or at ease. It means you have the capacity to move between states, to find balance, and to return to groundedness.

For those starting out, my advice is to find what resonates. It’s like that saying about exercise: 'The best workout is the one you’ll actually do.' The same applies here. With inner work, it’s about finding a practice or approach that feels meaningful, that sparks something in you—even if it’s not joy, maybe a sense of aliveness or curiosity. Those are the things that make returning to the hard stuff, to the dark places, over and over again, not necessarily easier but more aligned and more true.

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What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would tell my younger self: Trust your inner knowing. There’s an inner wisdom inside of you, longing to guide you home. You already have so much of what you need within you. Sure, your experiences and everything else will shape that, but there’s this current running through us all, full of wise information if we learn to listen.

Another thing I’d say is experiment. Be curious. Play. When you try things on and allow yourself to explore, you reconnect with that childlike sense of wonder that some of us lose along the way. It’s important to give yourself permission to mess around a little, to rediscover joy in the process of figuring things out.

The last piece of advice ties back to something central in my business and life: You are your own Touch Tree. A Touch Tree is a concept from the survivalist community and that bestselling author Glennon Doyle wrote about in her book Untamed. It’s the tallest, strongest tree in the forest that you keep returning to when you’re lost. It’s your home base, a guidepost to help you not get too far gone while you go out to explore and find resources. But the key is this: your Touch Tree isn’t something external. It’s not a person, a modality, a level of success, or anything outside yourself. It’s YOU. 

When you orient toward yourself as your Touch Tree, there’s a different kind of confidence that emerges. It’s not the conventional idea of confidence, which often feels tied to external validation or being good at everything. Instead, it’s the kind of confidence Dr. Becky Kennedy talks about—it’s the belief that it’s okay to be you. It’s not about excelling at everything; it’s about feeling at ease in your own skin. The more you allow yourself to feel that way, the more confident you become.

Looking back, I wish I had known to trust that earlier, to start with myself rather than seeking it outside, to gaze in before gazing out. I think we all know this innately when we’re young, but life pulls us away from it. And for many of us, it takes a whack load of experiences to find our way back—back to ourselves as our own Touch Tree—inside each of us is an innate intelligence longing to guide us home.

Q&A Resources

Anna Brooks ― Website: The Touch Tree Collective | LinkedIn

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