Episode Description
Have you ever experienced a moment when your gut feeling guided you to make a decision that logic couldn't explain? Sit tight as I, Karen Covey, joined by Fran Gallaher, an intuitive leadership coach, explore the misunderstood yet fascinating world of intuition in decision-making. We unravel the intricate relationship between intuition, emotions, and logic, and why honoring your inner voice can be a powerful compass in navigating life's myriad choices.
From the mysterious instincts of animals to the silent whispers of our own hearts, this episode is brimming with stories that celebrate the wisdom of our subconscious. You'll hear about how my trusty dog Basil's instinctual behavior saved us during a storm, and how a spontaneous dessert choice led to unexpected joy at a women's retreat. Fran and I also provide actionable advice for those standing at life's crossroads, contemplating significant changes. We tackle the complex dance of aligning heart, mind, and gut in making choices that resonate with our true selves, especially within the realm of relationships.
Closing the conversation, we discuss the importance of being attuned to the signals our body sends us, especially during transitions in our personal lives. Every relationship is unique, and there's no universal remedy to marital challenges. Whether it's revitalizing a partnership or mustering the courage to walk away, we emphasize the vitality of listening to your body and prioritizing your well-being. Join us for this enlightening journey to more authentic and intuitive living, and may you find the courage to trust your own inner wisdom.
Show Notes
About Fran
Fran Gallaher is an Intuitive Leadership Coach who helps leaders tune into, develop and use their intuition to inform their decisions to guide their work as a leader, from within as well as without. Fran helps her clients understand that emotional intelligence and intuition—whether you call it your gut feeling, your Spidey sense, or just that thing you feel or sense or simply know—is going to be required of a new generation of leaders. And whether the title of leadership is conferred upon you or you one day find yourself stepping up because your instincts demand it, your leadership will be informed from within.
As a child Fran saw and heard non-physical beings who offered her solace, guidance and protection. Fran says, they are with me now as they work with me to offer my clients a way forward out of confusion and frustration while they learn to trust themselves and their inner wisdom, experience increasing clarity, and she helps them embody the confidence and authority of their own true nature.
Connect with Fran
You can connect with Fran on LinkedIn at Fran Gallaher or on Facebook at Really Flourish. You can also follow Fran on Instagram at Really Flourish and check out Fran’s YouTube channel at Fran Gallaher. To find out more about how to work with Fran visit her website at Really Flourish.
Upcoming Programs
The Gift of Guided Visualization: June Meditation
Join me on June 6th for a transformative journey into meditation during my free monthly masterclass. Designed with professionals and executives in mind, this session offers a unique opportunity to cultivate inner peace and enhance focus. Learn practical techniques and engage in guided meditation exercises to unlock your full potential. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your mindfulness practice and achieve greater clarity in both work and life. Register here
Shine: The Program in Intuition for Unconventional Leaders
It’s time to pay attention to your intuition. It’s the gift you have always known you had—you just didn’t know when to trust it. When to pay attention to it. When to silence the doubts, stop the iterations in your head, and make a choice. Join us for Shine 2024.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Fran
- Fran Gallaher is an intuitive leadership coach who helps leaders develop and use their intuition to guide their decisions and work.
- Intuition is defined as an "aha" moment or insight that comes without preceding logical reasoning.
- Intuition is not rational, but can be equally or more valuable than pure logic and rationality in decision-making.
- She teaches a method for developing intuition by tracking energy levels, checking in with the body's instinctual wisdom, and observing feedback loops.
- She argues that humans are not purely rational beings, and many major life decisions like falling in love or having children are driven by intuition rather than pure logic.
- For major life decisions like whether to stay married or change jobs, Gallaher helps clients tune into their intuition as one data point, along with logic and pragmatic concerns.
- She shares personal stories illustrating how intuition has guided her at key moments in her life and her son's life.
- Factors like soul agreements, guilt, timing, and conditioning can complicate major decisions, making it valuable to work with an intuitive coach.
- Guilt can keep people stuck in unhappy situations longer than their soul agreements intended.
- Fran emphasizes using both intuition and logic, not picking one exclusively over the other.
- She teaches clients to pay attention to physical cues like goosebumps or riveted attention as signs their intuition is being engaged.
- Integrating intuition with logic, rather than seeing them as opposed, allows for more holistic and wise decision-making.
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Transcript
Embracing Your Inner Compass: The Power of Intuitive Decision-Making with Fran Gallaher
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
decision making, intuition, logic
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Fran Gallaher
Karen Covy Host00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covey, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show
00:42
With me today I have the pleasure of having Fran Gallaher, and Fran is an intuitive leadership coach who helps leaders tune into, develop and use their intuition to inform their decisions and guide their work as a leader, from within as well as without. Fran helps her clients understand that emotional intelligence and intuition whether you call it your gut feeling, your spidey sense, or just that thing you feel or sense, or simply know that's going to be required of a new generation of leaders. As a child, Fran saw and heard non-physical beings who offered her solace, guidance and protection. Those beings now work with her to offer her clients a way forward out of confusion and frustration, while they learn to trust themselves and their inner wisdom, experiencing increasing clarity, and she helps them embody the confidence and authority of their own true nature. Fran welcome to the show.
Fran Gallaher Guest01:42
Oh, Karen, thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and I'm so hopeful about sharing some things that may help members of your audience.
Karen Covy Host01:54
Well, thank you, I appreciate it and I know that they do too. But what I want to talk to you about, because you're a little different from my we'll call it ordinary guest, right? So you work in the world of intuition, and that's a subject that a lot of people either they think it's too out there to woo woo, or they know they have it on some level, but they don't really know what it is and they certainly don't trust it. So how would you let's start here how would you define intuition? When people are like, well, what is intuition? How do I know if I have it? What would you say to them?
Fran Gallaher Guest02:35
So intuition is one way our brain, our minds work. So logic is when you drive away from the house and maybe you have a list Got my cell phone, put the dog in the yard or brought the dog in, turned off the lights, you might have a real list or a mental list. That's logic. Intuition is you drive away from the house and you go. I forgot my cell phone.
03:03
It's the aha moment, it's insight and it's gotten this terrible reputation because it isn't rational. What that means is nothing precedes it. So if you're walking down the street and you suddenly get the idea that you should walk on the other side of the street, there will be no fact that justifies your movement. That precedes your movement. However, when you change and you go to the other side of the street and Wile E Coyote drops the anvil on the spot where you were just standing, then you have your evidence. That means it's not rational.
03:45
All I'm saying is you cannot find a reason for your actions and we have this notion that we humans are rational and I'm going to call BS on that. You know it's not an entirely rational decision to fall in love and marry someone. It's not entirely rational when you just know that that's your house and you're going to buy it despite the problems, right? It's not even rational, sorry folks, but it's not even rational to have children. Okay, there's a lot of things we do. Getting a puppy in the middle of COVID, that is not necessarily rational. Now, we humans are clever. We can rationalize our actions, but try doing that regarding some of the life choices you and I and your listeners have made.
Karen Covy Host04:42
Yeah, you make a really, really compelling case for how we are not as rational as we think and, as you and I both know, science has kind of proven that we like to believe that we make decisions from a place of rational thinking. We weigh the pros, we weigh the cons and we come up with the best decision. Except that's not really how your brain works. You think that's how it works, but what it's really doing. What science has found is that all decisions are emotionally based, no matter what they are.
05:18
Oh yeah, they did experiments on a guy. There was a man, I think his name was Elliot, if I remember correctly, this was decades ago. He had a tumor, a grapefruit-sized tumor, in his brain. They did brain surgery, removed the tumor and found that he was functioning in every single way, except he was emotionally flat. The tumor had damaged the emotional center of his brain, so he couldn't feel any emotions at all, but otherwise he was fine. And what they found was that he couldn't decide what to have for breakfast, he couldn't decide what route to take to work, he couldn't decide what to wear, he could not make even the most basic decisions after his emotional sense was gone. And so scientists went oh, that's interesting. And they followed it up with subsequent studies, which all proved the same thing Emotions are the foundation of decision-making.
06:17
The thing is that our brains are so fast and they work so quickly that what happens is you make the decision for an emotional reason and you immediately justify it with logic. Exactly so to you it seems like it's logical. And what I want to know is that when people are thinking, they get that illogical or not logical idea like out of nowhere. How can they know? Yes, this is my intuition, I should trust this versus this is just some crazy idea that popped in my head.
Fran Gallaher Guest06:50
Well, what a great question. First, I'm not done talking about me, Karen. I just have to say one more thing. Yes, my joke is that I'm the only intuitive who is also capable of logic, and that makes a big difference, because people are terrified. They can think it's an either or choice. Either I'm going to act upon my intuition or I'm going to be logical. No, no, no, no, no and I often use the example of you might suddenly have the insight I need to go to this particular doctor or I need this particular medication. You go to a doctor, you say I would like to try this medication I read that it could help with my blank and the doctor gives you the medication. You're going to be logical and follow the directions on the label. You're going to do both. You have the intuitive insight to go to the doctor or that doctor or that med, and you follow the logical directions. So let's put both into this story, okay, yeah.
Karen Covy Host08:04
I am so glad that you said that, because I think a lot of people do look at it as an either or right. So how do you marry those two?
Fran Gallaher Guest08:14
Well, that's what I do with my clients. So I teach a program Shine, the program in intuition for unconventional leaders, and that program is um a group model, but I'm beginning to work with people one-on-one in a more um, structured way. I mean I work with people one-on-one on whatever arises in our session. You know people say you're never going to believe this happened. And of course I have to believe that it happened because you're never going to believe it happens all the time. But what I have found is that I can teach it one-on-one one and I can hear when someone is deceiving themselves. I hear lies. They irritate my ears and lies I have found and you and your listeners can try this on, lies are generally not interesting, they don't hold my interest. And toward the end of my marriage, I couldn't listen to my then husband anymore and I was scolding myself. You know you really have to stop and listen to him. Well, he was telling me lies right and left and that's why I couldn't listen to him. But I didn't catch on and you know I didn't expect that. So back to your original question. So when I teach intuition, the first thing that I teach is that the intuition is not rational. So quit trying to make it be and realize that the out of the blue idea is your intuition. Then I want you to start to track your energy, and what I mean by that is your sort of like, your attitude, your enthusiasm for doing things and what. The way I teach intuition, I use three prompts, and the first prompt is what do I have energy for? So let's say, you get the idea.
10:25
Well, last week I was finishing up the week and I realized I was just a little ahead financially. And before I got too excited, I heard or felt I don't know how to explain it, but that I was to give that little extra to a certain person. And it was like really, and um, I, this person I haven't had much contact with for the last two years. They, they had put a lot of distance between us and at one time I was more connected to them, so I kind of had written them off. And then I looked at I thought, oh, I don't even know how to give them money, I don't even know if I still have their phone number. So I texted them and they had just gotten out of the hospital. They had been hospitalized for a month and I don't know any details other than I believe that this person must have been close to death because they have resisted hospitalization in the past and without going into any details. So they had no income, they had nothing, and you know, in my opinion that's God's work when it's like, okay, this person over here needs this.
11:54
Or one night it was Christmas night, you know, Christmas Day that night, and I had done a big dinner. I had my boyfriend's family over, my family over. I sat down to listen to the Nine Lessons, lessons and carols, and I was just chilling and I heard in my head go to this one woman's house with a can of soup and take her some soup. Well, it's a long story how I know this woman, but my son at one time he would stay with her and so I would know what door she left unlocked, and it's kind of a long story, but anyway.
12:35
So it was an awful cold winter night in Denver. There was ice everywhere, and so I took a can opener and a pot, because I didn't know what I was going to find and I let myself in and I called out and she was bedridden and she hadn't had anything the whole day, and so I came with a bowl of. I heated up the soup and what was really peculiar is her daughter came home while I was there and was like hi, Fran, and went home and I thought you know, people should be a little more alarmed when an intuitive shows up in your kitchen fixing you a bowl of soup. Now that's not the everyday thing that happens. But when I got the message in both cases I had energy to follow it up. Now, if I personally, if I get the message, I do what I'm told, and luckily it's rare nowadays. You know I don't. I'm not being put to work as much for random acts of kindness. More I'm working on my business, which is to bring intuition to all of your listeners.
13:48
But my point is that usually when we receive a direction like that, it also comes with a little package of energy that lets us carry out whatever the directions are. So if you hear in your head, get out now, you will also receive a little adrenaline rush that will let you get out now. If it's your superego, the judge within the inner critic, the minute you have a little extra, by golly you're supposed to give it away. That's not going to feel good. It's going to come from a critical place. It's going to feel like you are small because somebody is telling you what to do. Again, you must be six. I need to be six to do a good deed. Right now it's my turn, and so what we start to do is ask what do I have energy for? And then we develop a feedback loop. So I'm giving you the first few steps of my course and what the feedback loop is. You pay attention.
14:52
I got the idea that I should have done blank. I either did it or I didn't do it. Let's see what happens and we learn whether it was correct or not. So I bought some stock quite a few years ago. I don't have any stocks now. Someday maybe I'll get back on that horse and ride it.
15:17
But one day I woke up and I heard that I should sell the stock that day, and I was busy. I didn't do it. The next day I heard in my head you need to sell that stock. If I had sold it on the first day I would have. It would have been four times what it was its original worth. Instead, on the second time it was three. On the second day it was three times its original worth. So that's not so bad. So we track the feedback loop. I didn't do it and I lost 25% of it. I gained. Then I did do it and I gained whatever. So we start to pay attention. And nobody is asking you to become a believer overnight.
16:11
I was a skeptic. I didn't want this gift. You know you were talking about brain research when I was a kid. I wanted to become a doctor and I read everything I could about brain research and I still remember they would use when, when they were doing brain surgery, they would stimulate different parts of the brain because they were trying to make sure they didn't damage. You know, like the way that they knew where they were in the brain in that story you told is probably because they were electrically stimulating parts of the brain.
16:50
So they had a guy and they stimulated his right arm to reach up and grab a ball. So they were, they threw a ball and they stimulated him. I don't quite know how, but anyway he grabbed the ball and he said that it was his idea to grab the ball. He denied and denied that they had stimulated his brain to make him do it. He was incapable of conceiving of that, and so how much of our lives is based on the illusion that we're rational. We're making all these great decisions. We grabbed the ball when it came by. We're just superhuman, without really looking at the source of what really makes us superhuman is our intuition.
Karen Covy Host17:48
That is absolutely fascinating and it sounds like then. Maybe this is weird, maybe I'm getting it wrong, but that you're almost taking a scientific approach to intuition, which is considered to not be scientific.
Fran Gallaher Guest18:06
Well, you just gave me the biggest compliment. So when I was 17, I got a job as a research technician in an ophthalmology lab at Washington University School of Medicine. I wish I had stuck around and stuck with that job, but in any case they used to joke about that. They gave me the job because I had recently had a car accident and I had smashed my nose into the steering wheel and so I had these black eyes and they used to say well, we only hired you because we thought you were dying of leukemia. That's nice, I know, but I learned to do controlled experiments. You know double blind or controlled experiments, and I did that for about five years So I learned. You know, most of us we have way too many variables to control, for we don't know how to stop and pay attention and which variables to even attend to. So what I'm saying is start feeling your body, because your body has an instinctual wisdom that you can tap into.
So I'm going to tell two quick stories. I had a cat who was the bane of the neighborhood. One of the neighbors told my children he was going to kill our cat. And my children came home crying and I had tried everything to keep this cat in a cage, but the cats were fighting in the neighborhood in the summer. That's what they did. And so my dog, basil he was a supposedly a collie lab mix. He wasn't as big as either of those breeds, but he was very amazing he was. I trained him, he was perfectly trained, and so, um, we developed this thing where if we heard a cat fight, we get up in the middle of the night and we go to the front door. And Basil was so eager that he one time he ran his nose into the door because I didn't open the door fast enough. So I'd let him out. He'd find a cat fight, he'd run into it, break it up and he and the cat, the cat and no name would stick to the cat. That's why he was named the cat and he had his tail in a flag and they would walk home the coolest guys in the neighborhood and so, and so that's how I started to keep the cats from fighting.
20:42
So, anyway, one night we hear meow and I get up at 3 in the morning. I was young, I could go back to sleep, and now I don't do such things, but anyway, I go to the front door and open it and he doesn't move. And I nudged him with my knee and I spoke to him, go on. And he didn't move. Well, the cats were fighting around a lamppost that was about 20 feet out in front of the front door, not far at all, maybe a little further and the cats were fighting around this lamppost and we would have been right there the next moment lightning struck. Everything turned blue, the lights, I mean. The cats, went everywhere. He saved our lives, and it's that instinctual knowledge that resides in our bodies that we can tap into when we ask this question what do I have energy for? He had no energy to move forward. You know what it's like when somebody asks you to do something and it's as if your raincoat belt is caught. You closed it in the car door. You know you can't move, so um.
22:00
The second quick story is that I was in a women's group and at the time I baked cakes from scratch and I was a maniac about these beautiful cakes, and so my prettiest cake was this yellow cake, layers of butter, a golden buttermilk cake, and it would have raspberry filling, whipped cream on the outside and sliced almonds all over and then dusted with powdered sugar and it traveled well and it was beautiful and I was going to bring it to this women's retreat. I had bought the raspberry preserves to use as filling. I was all set. I made the same cake layers but strangely, I made a Boston cream pie. I made custard filling, I made chocolate icing and I'm looking at what I'm doing and it's like I made chocolate icing. And I'm looking at what I'm doing and it's like you were going to make that raspberry cake, Fran. So it's a Dr Seuss thing with a, you know, on top of the custard and it's wobbly and I'm taking it up to the mountains.
23:08
God knows what happened. Maybe it was, you know, good enough. I get it out for the big dinner for her birthday, the women's group leader and she said oh, Boston cream pie, my favorite. So when we act irrationally, we could be acting from wisdom. Now I am not going to suggest that everybody give up rationality, I'm just saying that sometimes it's time to do something a little bit strange because you feel it in your body, okay, but how do you?
Karen Covy Host23:47
I mean, that's all well and good when you're talking about a cake, right? But people, I'm going to play devil's advocate with you here, right? So let's say that a client is facing a major life decision. Could be anything, could be whether or not to stay married, whether to stay in a job or start a business, or some kind of major life decision that has significant consequences. If you get it wrong, how can that person learn to use the intuition, because the stakes are way higher than? Oh, I made a Boston cream pie instead of a raspberry cake.
Fran Gallaher Guest24:30
Yeah, you're asking the correct question. I'm going to cheat and say they should make an appointment with me. So what I do is I help guide people and I give them information. So, for instance, a new client came to me and you know this could be anyone right, Any gender. I've had this same question. I no longer feel affectionate or interested in my partner and, you know, in one case I might get one download of information for them, In another case I might get a different download.
25:10
The last time this happened, I said it's not the time. You have to buy some time because your work situation is uncertain and this person is doing this and this person is doing that and you need to see the fallout of this. Because I said, would it make sense that so and so is going to be retiring? And they went oh, that's what's going on. And so people are being shuffled around, you know. And so I said now is not the time. Cool your jets, I don't care, I know. You know the person is, is unhappy or whatever. But sometimes we have to decide what is the priority.
25:57
In another, with another client, I might say you are endangering your health to stay in this situation. You know, it just depends, and I listen very, very carefully to what people say. You know, a friend of mine had a work situation where they had been in a city doing something. They left that city but their major referral partner needed them back in that city. And when they wrote that, I wrote back and said you already know what to do. You identified it. You said your major referral partner needs you. So you get your ass pardon my language you go back to that city, I don't care if it's inconvenient. And they wrote back thank you for reframing it.
26:46
When I do the Shine program with a cohort, what I do is set people up to practice with their members of their cohort, because we all need what I jokingly call our psychic friends network. We need to run things by people. You know, if you talk to your best friend, you may you know who to trust. Perhaps who is going to say you keep saying you're so tired, there's something wrong here, and we don't always have to have it all figured out. If we just say you're so tired, what's that about? You know, I was the one getting us to counseling. I was the one. I mean, I exhausted myself trying to save a marriage and I remember a friend of mine, when it was all over and I was weepy or whatever, a friend of mine said, you know, so-and-so was begging to have you divorce him, was begging to have you divorce him, and she was right, that's what he was doing, because he couldn't pull the trigger. So I had to.
Karen Covy Host28:03
Okay, let's dive into that, because you said a couple of things that are really interesting to me. One is the idea that one person might have to pull the other the trigger because the other person, who is equally miserable, can't. Say more about that. How does that work in terms of energy If I'm the person that's saying, well, I know my spouse will never pull the trigger, but he's miserable, so I'm just going to do it for us? How do I know I'm not just justifying my decision to myself to make me feel better that oh, he couldn't do it, versus knowing like, no, this is, I'm listening to what my gut says, or my heart says?
Fran Gallaher Guest28:49
Well, the intuition is usually one piece of the information. So we've got to look at all the information. And you know, I had a woman a long time ago. She came to me and she wanted to leave her husband, but she couldn't do it. It so, you know, we talked about it and sometimes when somebody they may not come back to me because they don't like what I said. And so then I ran into her at a party Not that long after we met. She came home and found her husband pardon me passed away and watching television. So her inner wisdom was to stay put, and because she stayed put, she got life insurance. I'm sorry, but it worked out.
29:58
I was meeting with a data expert yesterday a friend to have a conversation about why does data have to only be factual? Why can't we have various types of data, including intuitive data, such as my gut says I have to stay, my gut says I have to leave, but let's say you're waiting to get vested in your company and you've really got to concentrate on work. You can't, you don't really have the bandwidth to start concerning yourself with a divorce. You can feel it, but it's not time, or for whatever reason. And then you also have to not drag your feet.
30:49
Because I knew a woman who she was in a relationship and she was not a client. The man she was with would not marry her because he did not want her to have an access to his fortune and she was offended by that and she decided to leave him. But before she could get it together and engineer all that, she was in an accident, a terrible car accident. They were hit head on New Year's Day and he took care of her. So her recovery took a few years. So then she gets it together. Now she's going to leave, but she doesn't get it together. Soon enough he gets diagnosed with cancer, so she sticks around to get him through that and him well, and then she left him. But she felt like you know, she could have left sooner and avoided all that. And maybe not. Maybe that was the exactly right thing for the two of them, that maybe they had agreed on a soul level to take care of each other.
32:07
There's so many complications and I bring in your soul, your purpose, what your guides tell me, what your dead grandpa might show up. You know your dog might show up, there's all kinds of things and, by the way, sometimes a dog will accompany us through the whole divorce, establishing yourself as a single person and all that, and then the dog passes away. And the dog tells me my agreement was to get him through that difficult time. I've got goosebumps and, by the way, goosebumps is the body confirming what I'm talking about. If you get goosebumps or suddenly your arm is yanked, that can be the body confirming what you thought, what you heard yourself say or what you heard someone else say. You hear a song and it's like he doesn't love you. Your attention is on it. That's a message and that's another clue is that your attention will be riveted on the information. Like get out now is fairly riveting.
Karen Covy Host33:28
Well, but to the point, let's say it's not quite so extreme as get out now, okay, but let's say that the hit that you get is this isn't working or you know whatever. How do you learn to trust that as an intuitive hit? That it's really. You know, it's your body telling you something, versus just some idea that came into your head or wishful like because so many of my clients are. They're torn, yes, no, yes, it's like they hear. They get riveted by that song. He doesn't love you anymore. But then the rational mind kicks in and says but how are you going to pay the mortgage? Or you can't afford this or whatever. So often those bits of data that people are getting the logical, the rational, the intuitive are in conflict. How do you sort those bits of data out to help them inform? Help you inform the best decision that you can make in the circumstances.
Fran Gallaher Guest34:40
Well, it's tricky and that's why I teach intuition, because it can. There's also your conditioning and there's the superego. Your conditioning might be telling you all kinds of things Men don't leave their wives, men don't leave their families unprovided for. Women do and do not do this, that or the next thing. Yeah, we have to sort through a lot of stuff and that's why people hire me to help me, to have me help them sort through those things. But, and when we tune into the body, the body is going to have clear messages. Sometimes the body is going to put weight on, for instance, because we don't want to have sex with that partner anymore. So the body gets the message from us. We might not want to be putting on weight, but the body gets the message that the weight could protect me, or the weight makes me less attractive. It is a barrier between me and my partner. So if I'm going to stay in this relationship, apparently my body thinks I'm going to have to be big to get through this. See, there's so many different factors.
36:08
I can't answer it in just a simplified way. You know, there was a man I was friends with. He was a very successful C-level executive and he used to tell this story to everyone. So he told me I could tell it. But he was unhappy. His wife was an alcoholic and he was extremely successful. He had four residences and he did not want to go through a divorce because he did not want to give up one of those residences. Now I realize that this is a very rarefied problem. So I said we went to dinner and I said to him you live your life fully in every area of your life except your relationship. Why? And he said it totally changed his perspective. He was willing to give up one of the residences in the divorce and let his former wife have that and he moved on. He found a woman. He fell in love with her. They blended their families. He ended up very, very happy. But he had to face the fact that he had to make some deals in order to make this happen.
Karen Covy Host37:35
Yeah, that's a really important point and it's not as rarefied as a problem as you might think it is. I mean, the scale was in a place where, I mean, most middle-class people don't have four homes, right, you've got to have a certain level of income to be able to afford that. Okay, fine, but it's the same. I don't want to get divorced because I don't want to give this up, whatever the thing is. I don't want to get divorced because I don't want to give this up, whatever the thing is.
38:05
And if you are a multi-multi-millionaire maybe it's a home, maybe it's a significant part of your fortune, maybe I mean the numbers you've got a whole lot more zeros that you're dealing with, right? So the problem looks bigger. But even if you are not that wealthy, if you're just a middle-class person, if you're not even a middle-class person, it's the same emotions and the same feelings, but about something that's on a different scale, that's all, and so the that's really what people need to think about, and sometimes it's just shifting your perspective, as you were able to do for that man. You shift your perspective a little bit, and when you see things differently, you act differently and you become different.
Fran Gallaher Guest39:00
Right.
39:01
So you know. There's another factor here. I mentioned earlier soul level agreements.
39:07
There was a man who came to me a long time ago and he had gotten divorced. He felt that it was the right thing, but he wasn't happy and he couldn't. He felt guilty. His wife was not functional for whatever reasons, and so she was struggling because she had been more very dependent upon him and he knew I don't know, remember now, maybe she was an addict, I don't know. But I said how long were you married? And he said 14 years. And I'm going to say I looked at this. I can't necessarily see this for any client who comes, but sometimes I can look at the soul level agreement and I said your agreement. I said did the marriage problem start at year seven? And he said yes. I said well, that's because the agreement was that you were only supposed to be married for seven years. You have been slogging it out of guilt and it wasn't necessary. It freed him. He could move on in his life. He started dating, he started having a more full life.
Karen Covy Host40:29
Yeah, and guilt. I mean we could go down that rabbit hole for a very long time because so many people, that's what keeps them stuck. They're riddled with guilt over how could I do this? This was my decision. What am I doing to my children? What am I doing to the family? On and on, and on and on.
Fran Gallaher Guest40:49
Right, I mean, I did that. I stuck around until my son was 18. And his version. He's got two versions of the story. The first is I've got two sons, but this is my younger son.
41:03
The first version is yeah, when I turned 18, my mom said happy birthday, your dad and I are getting divorced. And then the other version of the story is that I woke up at about two in the morning the night before he was to turn 18. And I saw because I'm highly visual with my intuition, and I saw that he had some stupid plans to go out with friends driving, they would be in a car crash and he could have anything from you know, a broken ankle to something far worse. And so I couldn't go back to sleep. I was distraught, and so he woke up and I said happy birthday, but whatever you're planning to do tonight, you must change your plans, because I see a car crash and I it could even result in your death. So then the story was happy birthday, you're gonna die, oh geez. But he changed his plans and nothing happened.
Karen Covy Host42:19
So it helps to have an intuitive mom.
Fran Gallaher Guest42:23
Oh, and you know I saved that guy a lot of times. Um, yeah, that's a whole nother story, but uh, showing up at just the exactly right time. Um, do we have time for one more story like that?
Karen Covy Host42:43
We have time for one more quick one.
Fran Gallaher Guest42:45
So when he was 11, We always joked that you wanted to have your attorney present when you did anything with him, because he could argue anything. And he had found out that at age 11, you can be alone. So he wanted to be alone. Left alone one day and I was going to my office. So he happily went out the back door. He was going over the fence to the kid's house behind us. I pulled out of the driveway. I was going to my office All this was new, you know and I pull out into the street and I hear go call my son now.
43:26
Well, this was before cell phones, so I had to pull back in. I go to the phone and I'm like what am I gonna say? He was so excited about going. He doesn't, he's not gonna want to come home. But I called him up and I said um, another kid answered the phone and I said let me speak with my son's name. And they put my son on there. I said you need to come home. He said, okay, bye. He came back over the fence. I'm completely stumped. Why the hell did he just agree with this? He comes in the back door and he said he got there and they had all been deciding who was going to fight the biggest kid in the neighborhood. They were all in this kid's basement and so my son walked in and they were like you're going to fight him. And he was the biggest kid. He weighed 150 pounds at age 12. And so just then I call and say you need to come home.
Karen Covy Host44:30
He's like sorry, guys, suddenly being alone didn't sound so good.
Fran Gallaher Guest44:36
So, um, you know that story over and over until now. He's grown. Now I have to say he has some resentments toward me, and one of them that he believes I was overprotective. So but you know, spirit gave me that information.
Karen Covy Host44:55
So yeah, he could have still said no, I'm going to fight the guy. You need to remind him he was very happy to come home. Oh, my friend, this has been a lovely conversation. We could talk for hours, for sure, but it's time to sort of wrap things up and bring it to a close. Can you tell people where they can find you and if they're interested in your intuition program, where they can find you and if they're interested in your intuition program, where they can find that?
Fran Gallaher Guest45:26
Well, the intuition program is on my website. It does not have a set date yet, but we're going to be starting up for a group in August on their own path, and we can combine intuitive learning along with coaching to have them sort out their own situation. So my website is reallyflourishcom. Flourish has a U in it for those of you who might not be good spellers, and I also am available on LinkedIn. I'm available on TikTok. I must admit I don't pay attention to Facebook, but okay. If you Google me, I think I'm going to, if you do intuitive leadership coach, Fran Gallaher, you're going to find me.
Karen Covy Host46:25
Fran, thank you so much, and for anybody who's watching or listening, we're going to link to all the places you can find Fran in the show notes, so you can find all of that there. Fran, thank you so much. I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.
Fran Gallaher Guest46:40
I have enjoyed it also, Karen, and I can imagine that you give people great comfort as they go through this transition. Well, I do my best, and whether it's a transition to a more settled marriage that works, or a transition to ending the marriage, to, um, ending the marriage, I don't have some kind of a preference about what people uh, what is best, I, I think if, if you can stay married, do yeah, but don't ignore your body's messages, because you know, um, we've got to keep our life force, energy, up. That's what well-being and health actually is, and if you're getting worn down by something that isn't working, please pay attention.
Karen Covy Host47:35
That is wonderful advice and I could not have said it better myself. So thank you so much. And for all of you who are out there watching or listening, if you enjoyed today's conversation, if you like what you hear or what you're watching and you want more of it, please do me a big favor. Like the podcast, like the YouTube channel, subscribe, and I look forward to hearing and seeing you all next time.
