BUCKET LIST #13 | LEGACY & IMPACT | IN PROGRESS
“I give to everyone…
It was time I gave some to me.”
ANN VARNEY | DA NANG, VIETNAM | MARCH 2026
Bucket List #13 is to write 1,000 gratitude letters to the people who have made my life better.
I’ve been doing it for months now. Sometimes it’s a letter. Sometimes it’s a note tucked with a tip for someone who served me with genuine warmth.
Sometimes it’s a message to a woman I haven’t spoken to in years, telling her exactly what she meant to me at a moment she probably doesn’t even remember.
I am nowhere near 1,000. I have a long, beautiful way to go.
But today… a chill afternoon in Vietnam, sitting with a quiet mind and a full heart, someone asked me what I was working on in my bucket list. And as I went through it, something hit me.
I write these letters to everyone else. Constantly. Generously. Without hesitation.
When was the last time I wrote one to myself?
“I give to everyone. It was time I gave some back to me.”
Because no one knows how long they have. We all die. That isn’t dark, it’s clarifying.
And back then, when I was 57, I realised something simple and life-changing:
I had a choice.
I could drift through the next 30+ years reacting to life… or I could design the life I wanted to live.
So I wrote a list. Not a “maybe one day” list. A declaration list. A blueprint for the rest of my life. A living vow that I would not arrive at the end thinking, “I wish I had…“
I wanted to arrive saying, “What a fricken ride that was.” And darling… I did.
Everything changed once I wrote it down. Because it wasn’t just a list. It was a frequency. A standard. A contract with life.
One by one, it unfolded. The Oracle Code became what I always knew it could become. The retreats happened. The schools got built. The scholarships multiplied. The women rose. The money arrived, and my nervous system didn’t collapse this time. The love arrived, not drama, not chaos… just warmth, humour, and devotion. The sisterhood deepened. The art exploded into colour and meaning. The grandchildren came, and my heart cracked open in the best way. And yes… I danced. I danced a lot.
I didn’t live smaller as I got older.
I lived truer.
BEFORE THE LETTER
Here’s something I’ve noticed about myself, and maybe you’ll recognise this too.
I am the first person in the room to give. To help. To show up. To tip generously, write the note, send the message, hold the space. It’s not performance. It’s not strategy. It is simply who I am, at the core of me, without question.
And around me, I watch so many people focused entirely on what they can take. From a situation. From a relationship. From a person like me who will always, always give.
I was told off recently by a friend for being too generous. Again.
And do you know what my answer was?
When people disrespect my generosity, it doesn’t break me. It puts fire in my bones. It makes me want to show them, quietly, with no announcement… exactly what I’m capable of.
That fire? That’s mine. I’ve earned it. And I’m grateful for it.
But today I sat in a beautiful café, surrounded by digital nomads, and I gave myself something I rarely give myself:
My own gratitude.
I sat there, rubbing my arms, a little technique I use, giving myself warmth, giving myself heaven, and I said out loud, quietly, just to me:
“I love this life. And I love you.”
And then I came home and I wrote it down properly. Here it is…
THE LETTER | WRITTEN MARCH 2026
LOVE, FAMILY & FRIENDSHIPS
I want to talk to you about something you never let anyone talk to you about.
You.
Not what you’re building. Not who you’re helping. Not the next goal, the next retreat, the next letter you’re writing for someone else. You. Just you. As you are. Right now. In this café. In this life. In this extraordinary, ridiculous, joyful, fire-filled existence you have somehow created.
I am grateful for your tenacity. The kind that doesn’t announce itself. The kind that just keeps going, quietly, stubbornly, magnificently, even when no one is watching. Especially when no one is watching.
I am grateful for your integrity. In a world full of people who take the shortcut, you take the long road and you do it with your head up. You have never compromised who you are to make someone else comfortable. Not once. And that, that… is rare.
I am grateful for your humour. For the fact that you can be in the middle of something hard and still find the thing that makes the room laugh. That is a gift. Not everyone has it. You do. Use it always.
I am grateful for your generosity. Even when it’s been taken for granted. Even when people have walked into your home, eaten at your table, and left without so much as a thank you. Even then, you gave from a pure heart. And a pure heart never loses. It just filters.
I am grateful for your fire. God, Ann. The fire. The way someone underestimating you doesn’t flatten you, it ignites you. The way being disrespected doesn’t send you home crying, it sends you back to work with something to prove. That fire is not anger. That fire is power. And it is yours.
I am grateful for your action. You don’t just dream. You decide. You book the motorbike. You jump off the rock. You write the list. You get on the plane. While others are still talking about what they might do one day, you are already doing it and writing the blog.
I am grateful for your magic. The magic you’ve always had but haven’t always claimed. The magic that lights up rooms, shifts energy, changes lives, sometimes with a word, sometimes with a look, sometimes just by being in the space. You are not ordinary, Ann. You never were.
And I am grateful, deeply, completely grateful, that you never stopped. Not when you were burned out. Not when you were broke. Not when people left. Not when things fell apart. You kept going. You kept giving. You kept becoming.
Look at where you are. Look at where you are.
Sitting in a café in Vietnam. Building something extraordinary. Writing letters. Ticking off a bucket list. Living — actually, fully, loudly living… the life you designed.
I love you, Ann. Not despite all of it. Because of all of it.
Now go enjoy the rest of your chill day. You’ve earned it.
THE BUSINESS | BIT FOR MY FELLOW GIVERS
Here’s what nobody tells you about being a natural giver in business.
It is your greatest strength. And if you’re not careful, it will be the thing that burns you out, because you will give and give and give, to clients, to communities, to teams, to strangers, and you will forget, entirely, to give any of it back to yourself. (even when people don’t see the energy of what you give behind the scenes)
Gratitude is not just a spiritual practice. It is a business strategy.
When you are genuinely grateful, for your own tenacity, your own fire, your own capacity to keep going, you stop operating from scarcity. You stop giving from a place of needing to be needed.
You start giving from fullness. And giving from fullness is a completely different energy. Your clients feel it. Your community feels it.
You feel it.
And here’s the other thing. The people who take from you, the ones who disrespect your generosity, who sit at your table and give nothing back, who underestimate what you’re building, let them.
Not because it doesn’t matter. But because that disrespect, that underestimation, that quiet dismissal, if you let it, it will be the most powerful fuel you have ever put in your engine.
I don’t need anyone to believe in me. I believe in me. And that is more than enough to build everything I came here to build.
Write yourself the letter. Mean every word. And then get back to work.
BUCKET LIST #13 | STILL IN PROGRESS
I am nowhere near 1,000 gratitude letters. And I am completely at peace with that.
Because every single one I write, to a stranger, to an old friend, to a woman who changed my life without knowing it, to the cleaner who smiled on a day I needed it, every single one matters.
And today, I added one more to the collection.
The one I wrote to myself.
I’ll add this one to the blog when I reach 1,000. Until then, consider this the beginning.
Now your turn. When did you last write a gratitude letter to yourself? Not to your clients. Not to your team. Not to the people you love. To you.
Go write it. Right now. Even if it’s just three lines. You deserve it more than you know.
P.S. If you are sitting there thinking “but I don’t deserve a gratitude letter” that thought right there is exactly why you need to write one. Immediately. The bar is on the floor, darling. Pick it up.
P.P.S. I tipped the café. Obviously. Some habits are non-negotiable. 😄
About Ann Varney
Trained with 5th generation Shamans in Peru, Rinpoche’s in Nepal, Native Americans in Outback in California, and Druids in Scotland.
Also trained with Tony Robbins, William Whitecloud, Scott Jansen, Bob Proctor, Jeffrey Allan, Donna Eden, Michael Beckwith, Anodea Judith, Peggy Dylan, Dr Joe Dispenza, and so many more spiritual teachers…
Postgraduate Degree in Psychology and is qualified in Master Hypnotherapy and Meditation. An acclaimed International Spiritual Teacher and Author of 3 books, specialising in; Shamanic Energy healing; Angelic Healing; Alchemy; Master of Sekhem/Reiki; Pranic healing; Firewalk Instructor, Educational Leader and so much more.
With a deep dive into your innermost heart, I am here to help you uncover the unique passions that define who you are and reach for what lies beyond. With more faith in yourself comes an easier manifestation of whatever goals await – let’s break through those barriers together!
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