See'rs, Be-ers, Knowers and Doers
See'rs, Be-ers, Knowers and Doers
How Awareness of What isn't Peaceful Can Be Your Intuition
I spoke with Lorraine Finnigan on Nov 15, 2021. She share her story about brain injury and concussions and how the lessons from them have been a blessing. Her attitude of gratitude for the hard things in life shines through as she shares some of her story. Lorraine also shares how a paint brush was part of her healing and using it has been a huge passion. Her knowing and body awareness has become a gift as well.
Bio
Lorraine Finnigan is a talented, creative mind who has a passion for painting anything that doesn't move. Her world of design and painting collided into a business for many years where she got to share her passion with many in her region. She currently has downgrade the business to a home studio she calls The Sacred Studio and has downgraded the responsibility that goes with running a business. Now she focuses on sharing her passion of paint with others and is blessed with the knowing of how our creativity is healing.
Welcome to Sears beers, knowers, and doers, a podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me, is that inner sense for knowing that something is true and yet I have no proof, but there's so many definitions and there's so many ways it can come and go even to bring together and share with you. Some amazing guests, you have some amazing life stories and also some insights into how intuition can come. And I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees. I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition. And I hope that by doing that, we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me
Speaker 2:Before we get started today, I would love to share some tools with you to help with stress and feeling overwhelmed, especially for the energetically sensitive person. Feel free to go to my store on my website at www dot healing, vitality.ca. Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me. So I'm super excited today because I have had the most wonderful conversation and I only know a small bit about my guests. Thank you so much, Lorraine Finnegan for saying yes to do my podcast. I really appreciate it. So Lorraine, would you please tell the world a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Hi there. Thank you so much for inviting me to this, giving me this opportunity to kind of tell my story, I guess, with, uh, brain trauma, injury, concussions, and whole life of learning experiences that has brought me to a place of, I I'm going to say contentment, you know, we, we fight for it, but we don't realize that we needed as bad as we do. So 20 years ago I had a brain trauma injury that I guess they, they explained it to us like a stroke. I had a mini burst in the basement with rain and it caused a whole lot of change in me, more so than anything. My husband said it was like going to bed with Cinderella and waking up with the wicked witch of the west. Uh, you know, it was because that was the dramatic change that, uh, came about because of some frustration frustration, because I lost my ability to communicate how the world would, I need it, but I want it who I was. I was brought to a humbling place of the ability to speak six words. And by the time I got my six words, most conversations moved on to three or four different other topics. So it was a very frustrating time and have a couple of years later. And I guess at that point I was able to speak a little clear. I was able to communicate a little bit more and I started getting my, what we call independence license back. I was able to drive and I was able to kind of start doing normal things like going to a grocery store, which I told him he couldn't do that. I couldn't do anything that required thinking and communicating. So 20 years later, if we fast track, I was sitting here talking to Heather, finding it really funny because I didn't think I had an interesting story. My life was not, you know, interesting enough. It was just my life and concussions later after the brain trauma injury I have been in and out of that space of confidence and space of even lovingly life several times. And as of recent, the most recent knock on the head and I've had a lot of them, but the traumatic ones, the last one was one that left me off to a place where my communication skills were absolutely minimal again. And my awareness of my surroundings was wasn't really almost no anger and frustration started to take over and quickly very quickly because we've been down this road a few times, not to this degree, I think this time or not to the degree of the first brain trauma injury, but to a place where we quickly caught it. My husband said, oh, no, I don't want to go back. I want my Cinderella. We have very, very to deciding what needed to be done, but not, I guess until I find myself lost in places like by rural areas and not knowing how to get back and not understanding where I was, how I got there until it happened tonight, ended up in a psychiatrist office, which was probably probably the most humble thing that's ever had to deal with, but psychiatrist, office, and being diagnosed with what they call complex PTSD, meaning after trauma, after trauma, after trauma and life, because we all have lots of things that happen in our lives because more real, we don't share that stuff. All of those personal things that just kind of make life also is traumatic experiences for everybody. But you throw a few head injuries in there. We can communicate it frustration. So huge plane, so complex PTSD. And what did you do with it? Well, prior to being diagnosed with that, I owned and operated the greatest little home decor paint store. That's fun little place. And it was, it was just to happen in place. We, you know, creativity was a thing. I sold paint. I fold furniture that I've painted. I let people paint there. It was just an open opportunity for do it yourself projects for everybody. Anyways, that was, that came to a quick, after this last little concussion anchored communications and all of that stuff sort of brought me back to, okay, let's, let's quickly move on because you're 60 years old now, the rain and it's time to start enjoying your life. So we went quickly into a cognitive behavior therapy treatment, um, occupational therapy, all of the things that kind of brought me around to, from the very beginning, from the first, from the first traumatic brain injury, I was able at that point to take a deep breath. So of my little studio, well, the contents of my studio and moved home literally to my class. I went to my friend class where I put my paint, where I put, where I, where I create it still had to create, I still had to put brush to, to something. Some artists use a canvas. I use furniture. I use, well, actually, if it's not, if it's sitting still long enough, all painted. So, you know, it's not moving. I'm good. Although I have painted a fan. So, you know, it's been two years and I got myself into this great little out of my class in indoor room. And this is where I use my brush to come because it's a neurological thing too. So I, I shake a lot now. So as soon as I pick up a brush did is helped like in, I start painting, it helps. And ironically enough, the first type trauma injury that I had, but I print it, they handed me a paint brush and said, let's talk and you paint. And here I am still painting.
Speaker 2:And there is something to busy hands calming the mind I've had that statement said to me there. Right? Yeah. So you're onto something for sure. And if anybody hasn't been exposed to, and I, I think it's probably rare, but because concussions are, are far more prevalent than they were ever talked about in the past, but there is this, the brain and moods and mental health and concussions. There's so many lines to be drawn. So I think it's uncredible that you shared all that you have shared because trauma can be a very physical thing. Um, but it can create that ripple effect that leads to emotions and mental health and energetic stuff. Like it's, it's a whole bottle of wax cause your, your whole system has been shaken and stirred. So
Speaker 3:I think the PTSD for me, we don't, we don't know it. We don't see it coming, you know, and I kind of the things that I, I, I kind of request right, is the PTSD part of it as an opportunity to actually take a deep breath, slow down and kind of be aware of my surroundings because you do see it coming amazing because the brain, um, allows you to actually see it if you slim down
Speaker 2:Well, and that has been a theme on a lot of prod. CAS is that pregnant pause is where the intuition comes in a lot of times. And in our discussion before we get, I am going to shift gears a little bit in our discussion before we get started is you, you were describing how your injuries have created the need to trust your intuition. And I'm going to back up a little bit before you get into some, some information about that comment and just ask you, how does your intuition comb, different people receive it different ways, but for you, what, what are your, what are your ways of, of connecting the dots? So to speak that your intuition is talking to you,
Speaker 3:How my intuition is taught. So how I become aware?
Speaker 2:Well, like some people hear words in their head and some people get goosebumps. Some people just know when they do something next there's
Speaker 3:I just know in my network, you know, so, you know, my knower, what is that? Well, I believe it's my spirit. I believe that I believe it's, I guess if I can just back up a tiny bit, you know, um, I believe that, you know, my intuition is God love. I believe that God is love. And I believe that, you know, love comes in forms. You know, I am a Christian and I do believe that Jesus is the earthly human form of, of God in love. I believe that my spirit that I have is my God. It's my love. So it gives me this confidence, um, knowing that I'm never alone and the awareness comes really from, from gratitude and gratitude for the things I think more so, but they've gone wrong in my life. Things that have gone, right? Because then I'm responding because all of a sudden that I, you know, I'm trying to leave my world all by myself and I'm trying to be that great marketing manager. And I'm trying to be so many things like perfect mom. And when I, when that ability is taken away, I have to learn to trust. And there's something I know that if it doesn't feel peaceful, if it doesn't, if there's something that doesn't feel right, if I get my spirit gets stirred, I know that I need to be aware because there's something around me. There's some things that I need to pay attention to. So I've had to, you know, there's simple things like timers and I use sticky notes. I use a lot of things to make me aware that I put something in the oven and over, I've got to do something and then pick something up. But really that feeling of being stirred up, you know, I know that there's something not right. Like, it just doesn't feel good in my, maybe my core where you can find nowhere in my knower is, is where I believe my spirit, spirit of God. So yeah. It's just, you just know, like, I just know if it doesn't feel right, it's not right. It's just, something is not right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's so true. And it's interesting how even the choices of words that you use to describe it is stirred up. And I just finished saying that, you know, a concussion shakes and stirs the whole field. And so you're living in this post multiple concussion place and strong place. And yet there's a calmness that resides in your spirit in your essence that you connect with that when it stirred, you're able to discern. So that's the first time it's kind of been described that way. So I'm just underlining and highlighting how even the most stirred up person can have peace and wow.
Speaker 3:We, yeah. And that see awareness and they think you and I spoke a little bit about the awareness when I actually realized that I had a problem. I, you know, when, when the accident first happened, I had no idea that there was anything different. I had no idea who I was and what I was, what my purpose was. My 14 year old daughter is to leave me a note and saying, mom, you've already had your breakfast. And, and you know, you, you have something prepared in the fridge for your lunch and, you know, so I would have notes and it, it's a sad thing when you don't, when you can't be independent. But I remember the first time. And as I shared with you earlier, that I realized going through when they took my life away from me and I was unable to drive. I remember the first time I became aware that I had to be aware, and it was literally begging the stranger, the cab driver to take nature, to Morton's to get a coffee and a weapon until probably an hour later when my awareness something, uh, to me and said that driver just ripped to change. And it, and I was angry and I, and it wasn't, it was the first time I've had to, as I felt that kind of emotion, the first time I was aware and the, I guess my therapist at the time taught me to celebrate that because they were excited that I was aware anger was making me aware. Right. So I guess I clan learned that if something didn't feel good, you know, that chances are nothing good with this happening. So I had, I had to learn to look after myself, like to be aware of those things. And, you know, I was very grateful for the things that, which would sound really funny, but, you know, kind of drive me out from a$20 bill, but I, and I bought him a coffee and, you know, it, it was a good thing. It was probably one of the best things that ever happened since the beginning with the fact that, you know, God was showing me to be smelled and to be aware. And that was cool, you know? So I started to came around and grateful for those moments, those awareness moments. And that's probably where my contentment comes from. That's where I'm like, Hey, what's this now. Like, I'm pretty excited that, you know, I get to be aware, some people don't,
Speaker 2:I just want to highlight for people that that was in your most cognitively challenged time, that your inner guidance, your connectivity, your awareness was highlighted for you. So we have to realize that it's available to anyone, any age, any capacity, because that to me is a sign that it's in all of us, whether we're, we can still ourselves enough to grab hold of it or to become aware of how the clues come to you, because it is about creating, or it is about creating turmoil so that you listen, it's one or the other. So I appreciate you sharing that with everybody, because to me, it's, it's an important thing that you talk about, you know, not everybody has the awareness right now, and yet it is in everybody to receive it, whether you believe in God or spirit or mother nature or whatever it is, it still comes through to you. It still comes through to you, whether you have a belief system around what it's called, it still comes through to you. It's accessible to everybody. So I really am glad you shared that story. And I would love to talk a little bit about how, what you're doing now with your space and creating space for other people and how, you know, stripping you of, of all of the, um, what the outside world would, would call success.
Speaker 3:Well, it's validation, you know, prior to coming to my little policy to space that, you know, I call my secret studio. Um, I think that prior to all of that, it was more common to hear Heather email what I got to be really, really real right now, but I just want
Speaker 2:That's okay. We were talking about how prior to like you owning the business with 30 people and you were happening business owner and manager, and how the validation of all those things was external versus I think internal where, cause I've, we've talked a little bit about this story before we got started. And I was like, wow, the beauty of the flip of that and the healing that goes on within your sacred studio now for others, because you've had this flip in your communication and this awareness in your communication that the power of, of sometimes knock thing, anything can leave people space. So anyways, I don't know if that triggers your
Speaker 3:Now it's okay if we, if we go back to, you know, my, my studio that was out there and it was for the whole world to see, you know, it was where I actually made a little bit of money to keep it, but it was something that I was able to come my contribution to being all grown up and, and successful. I was a little bit so after everything that I had true for me, right? So I carried that for about four or five years where, you know, I really loved that. And, and being a business owner and, you know, being humbled back to a place and recognize that, oh my goodness, I don't know where I navigate, do not know how to operate a business anymore. You know, and this high can be a little bit personal here. The accident that I had that caused me to have this last brain trauma injury concussion was almost like it almost brought me back to the very beginning when I had the first brain injury where I wasn't able to communicate. So I could feel this frustration starting again. And I, all of a sudden was not aware of my surroundings because I would find myself curled up in a ball in a broom closet, just wondering, coming around to go, how, why, what, why and humility. I came with that and the humbleness of, you know, having somebody find me on the side of the road crying like a baby, because I don't know where I'm at that humbleness and that humility, you know, forced me to be, to realize that, you know what, this is not about me being successful. It's about being content. It's about me at 60 years old, starting to realize the only thing that matters is, is giving back and being grateful that I'm actually here, but I'm here. And, you know, 20 years ago when this started, they put a paint pressure in my hand and said, you know, try to talk and communicate. So I realized really quickly that every time I've been brought back to that place for compliments, there was somebody that in the same boat as I was, you know, it's, it's, uh, everybody's got this huge story and so much going on in their license, especially now with COVID time that I would take, try to offer a little bit of that piece back and give people the opportunity to at least see what it is as I do so that they can, you know, create champions, you know, just to be yourself, you know, to still loose. This little studio has provided a place without me having to be dismissed. So I think there's more rewards and loving others and helping others through these crazy times that we're living in. It makes me feel complete. It makes me feel, it makes me feel grateful. It makes me when I hear their stories, because this little studio studio for a reason, and lots of things have been talked about in this little place, the traumatic stories that I heard makes mine. And I'm like, you know, nothing there. It's amazing how healing to ask and by allowing people to heal
Speaker 2:Well, and you're giving them space and you've learned the art of listening. And I'm so grateful that you,
Speaker 3:I forget. So it's all good.
Speaker 2:That's probably a blessing, you know, that gives you a clean slate of non-judgment. I may come back the next day.
Speaker 3:That's right. I might I'll remember what color painting they're working on, but their story, I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:God works in funny ways.
Speaker 3:He has indeed, indeed and grateful, I think for the things that have gone wrong, more so in my life and is a less than that. I'd like, I want the world to hear that. If we're, if we're grateful and if we can just be patient to be aware of what I'm first Randy, that there's chat and they're waiting, they're waiting to see how we do it. You know, everybody's waiting to see how the other person's doing it. If it's working, they want a part of it. And what I've learned is forgiving forgetting is a good thing. And being aware of her surroundings, those are things that we all need to know. We all need to learn in order to find contentment in order to find peace. You know, I, I know that my God is love and I know that he promises me. Peace promises me a lot of things. If I will just pay attention. And it's not about me, not about me ever.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just going to highlight and underscore that Lorraine, thank you so much for today. That is, or somebody who wasn't sure she had anything to share with the world. I'm so glad you came full circle today in this interview,
Speaker 3:I would almost say, Heather, you kind of tricked me a little bit because I asked her a 45 minute conversation. I had no idea that this was happening today. Even though I taught them
Speaker 2:Sometimes planning, isn't the best place to do things. Sometimes spontaneity is the best place to Me to do it this way.
Speaker 3:And thank you for sharing. You shared, uh, that you know, my world and your world are very similar and you know, it's kind of, that makes me feel like I'm not alone again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not at all. It's been wonderful to make the connection Lorraine. And thank you so much for today. I will look forward to our
Speaker 1:Conversation continuing on or off the podcast.
Speaker 4:Right?
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives. And I'm so grateful for Peter trainer for his time and giving me this original music. It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place until next time, keep seeing being, knowing, and doing. If you like this podcast, please share it. If you want to find others, like it, go to www dot healing, vitality.ca or wherever you would find your podcasts. We would love to have you join us on this journey. Come be a Crow sitting in the tree, be part of our community.
Speaker 4:[inaudible].