Unlocking the Power of Intuition with Anna Quigley

In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking, Carrie speaks with transformational coach Anna Quigley about the power of intuition and its role in guiding individuals through life transitions, particularly in midlife. They share personal stories of how intuition has influenced their decisions, discuss the science behind intuitive thinking, and explore practical steps to recognize and trust one's intuition. The conversation emphasizes the importance of self-discovery, overcoming fears, and finding purpose in life, especially for women navigating changes in their 40s and beyond.

https://theintuitionzone.com/

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Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. I'm your host Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their stories with one another, it's the main way we build empathy and humanity, which is something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. Today is episode seven of season two, and I have a guest with me. Her name is Anna Quigley, and she's a transformational coach. She primarily works with people in midlife and beyond, and a lot of her clients are women.

She works with people to help them figure out what the next steps are going to be in their life. And one of the main ways she does that is by helping people attune to their intuition. also talks a lot about her own experience with learning how to tap into her intuition and how that's informed big decisions in her life, where to move, career, relationships. She has a lot of wisdom to share and I think you'll really enjoy her perspective.

I also talk a little bit about my journey and listening to my intuition. That's something that has guided my life in a big way. And also about some times where maybe I didn't listen as much as I should have to my intuition. If you are new to listening to the podcast or if you've been listening, I always like to say thank you and I appreciate any time that you want to spend. If you are able to rate and review the podcast, that would be great. I would appreciate that. It helps it to be more noticed.

The call to action that I'm asking for is for people to join me if they are able in donating to their local food banks. I think that food scarcity is a real thing and food insecurity is real. Nobody should be without food. So if you can help in your local community, I encourage you to do so. I will make sure to include Ana's information in the show notes or her website and ways to contact her. And she is going to offer anybody listening

a free consultation call to see if there's any way that she might be useful to you or just like I said to get a little bit from her in terms of perspective. So I'm going to go ahead and get us into this discussion and I will talk to you all in another couple weeks.

Carrie McNulty (02:21)
Hi, Anna, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Anna Quigley (02:24)
Hi, Carrie, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Carrie McNulty (02:27)
Absolutely. I'm excited about what you're planning to talk to us about today because I feel like intuition is something that has guided my life on a very deep level and I'm excited to hear more about what you have to share with all of us about how you've been guided by intuition, how you learned to tap into yours, and what that's done in your life.

Anna Quigley (02:47)
It's guided me essentially through from the time I was probably in my early 20s and learned about it into jobs, in and out of jobs, in and out of relationships. It was a good thing too. Giant red flags, don't do this. And it's difficult sometimes when you're in a situation like that. yeah, it's always been, in my experience, has always been right.

Carrie McNulty (02:55)
Yeah.

You're right sometimes.

Anna Quigley (03:17)
It has always been for my highest and best interest. So yeah, it's extremely.

Carrie McNulty (03:21)
You've never been steered

wrong by listening to your intuition.

Anna Quigley (03:25)
I have never, I'll share with you a story of when I didn't listen recently. It's just embarrassing, but you know, I'm human.

Carrie McNulty (03:36)
Go for it. Let's hear it. What's a time recently?

Anna Quigley (03:38)
I

was in a wonderful zone. I'd come home from, I was just driving home from an acupuncture session. So I was so relaxed and I don't want to take the freeway. I'm going to take this lovely back road. It lines up over the hill and it's through the trees and it's just, yeah, that's what I want. I don't want to deal with the freeway. And I got about a block from the entrance to the freeway that I would normally take.

Carrie McNulty (03:48)
Mm.

Anna Quigley (04:03)
And that little voice, that beautiful little voice that I have learned to recognize, just like I would know your voice, said, take the freeway. And it kind of startled me because I was in this Zen spot, you know? And I'm like, what? No, no. And, you know, my rational mind can be a little bit of a bully. And the rational mind generally is there to keep us safe, to, you know, keep things functioning. It keeps the trains running on track. But

Carrie McNulty (04:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (04:31)
I'm like, no, no, you know, I wanted to take the easier, the smoother route. So I ignored it. I didn't get a block and a half past. And again, the little voice is like, turn around, take, take the freeway. Well, I hate turning around. I hate backing up. well, no, I'm already there. So I ignored it a second time. Yes, exactly. And I, you know, maybe a quarter of a mile later, I turned on a street and I hit major road construction.

And I was probably a half an hour delayed instead of that. No, was not. It was everything. But and I was I'm laughing at myself. I could you know better. You you know, you heard your guidance twice and you ignored it. But again, the rational mind was like, no, you said, you know, we said we wanted this more relaxing route.

Carrie McNulty (05:06)
which was not relaxing, I assume.

Thank

Anna Quigley (05:24)
The other thing I had to laugh at and I thought, well, this is a great, I actually was kind of glad it happened because it was such a good reminder that that's how intuition often works. We don't know why we're guided to turn right or turn left or get on the freeway. Had I taken the freeway, I would have gotten home, I'm sure, easily. No big traffic, no accidents. I would have gotten home smoother, but I never would have known.

why I was being invited. Now sometimes you run into someone you've been thinking about or have a great experience or you find a fabulous new restaurant or you never, you know, there's some really wonderful things that can happen when you listen to it. But honestly, most of the time it's guiding us away from things that could just delay us or, you know, cause this problem. So I had to laugh and I was kind of...

Carrie McNulty (06:17)
Yeah.

Anna Quigley (06:19)
little frustrated with myself and I'm like, okay, you're human. Just, you know, remember that, you know, the little rational minds being a little bit of a bully sometime

I tested it when I first started understanding and learning about, you know, major spiritual exploration stage of my life. And I thought, okay, you know, this sounds really cool, but I don't know if this is real or if this isn't real. So I'm I'm very analytical. I'm a little bit of a skeptic sometimes. And I was at this point because

Carrie McNulty (06:36)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (06:49)
I just wanted to see it and test this. So I picked a really silly thing. I had a belt, clothes, I love clothes. I had a belt that I wanted, but a particular color, particular style. was popular at the time. And I thought, okay, where do I get this belt? And my intuition told me to go to a shop that I knew a boutique across like 20 minutes across town. And I thought, well, okay, but there's like 10 places between

where I was in there and I was like, I'm just somebody will have it. So I stopped at all of these places. Nobody had the exact thing that I wanted. And I finally got to the shop. My intuition had said, go here. I looked around the shop. They didn't have it. I did a second tour. They didn't have it. So I'm like, well, I tried, you know, this was an experiment with the test. So all right, now I know sometimes work sometimes doesn't. As I got toward the front door,

my little voice said, just ask. I'm like, what? No, they're not going to tell me if it's not on the floor, we don't have it. And I started to walk. And again, you know, it's like, just ask. And I thought, all right, this was a test. So let's really see. And I went up to the counter and I showed a picture. This is exactly it. This is the color. This is the belt that I want. And without missing a beat, the woman behind the counter said, ⁓ yeah, that came in this morning. We just haven't had a chance to put it out.

Carrie McNulty (07:46)
You

Anna Quigley (08:14)
And I knew I was onto something.

Carrie McNulty (08:16)
Yeah, you're like, wow,

I got the belt and my intuition works. This is a great day.

Anna Quigley (08:21)
And I got proof in my own

mind that, this is real. And it was something silly like a belt. But the universe doesn't know large or small. There was no difference. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (08:34)
Yeah.

And if you're going to listen for the smaller things, the hope is, I'm guessing, that you're going to listen for the bigger things. ⁓ So that was a low stakes test, and it worked out well. But when the stakes are a lot higher, you're going to trust it more. And that's

Anna Quigley (08:43)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

And that's part of it. It's a tool. And it's built into every one of us. It's whether we learn to recognize it and have the trust and the faith to follow it, to know. So for my own sake, I had to prove it. Again, I needed my empirical. And that was a sure fire. All right. And of course, I continued to listen and see the results. And ⁓ I just.

You know, it's never been anything but neutral, like, you know, not taking the freeway. And so many times, I mean, even silly things like just streamlining my Saturday errands, saving me from duplicate trips. But it's also guided me into some of my best jobs, even though they didn't look like they were the right fit. So.

Carrie McNulty (09:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. How did you get

interested in learning more about what intuition could do or how did that come to be for you?

Anna Quigley (09:53)
Well, was ⁓ probably in my 20s and I, know, life starting in career. And I used to be, I used to be so fearful about making a decision when I was young. It was like, well, what if I, what if I changed my mind? Can I go back? Maybe I can't undo it. You know, it was almost like if I take this road, then I'm stuck on that road forever. Yeah. You know, in my naivete,

Carrie McNulty (10:16)
Forever.

Anna Quigley (10:20)
when I started learning about it and it came through spiritual studies and playing with it and testing it, I realized it gave me the agency to choose. It gave me the agency to make changes effortlessly in my life when I listened and that I was being guided to my highest and best always through intuition. So it was practicing it. It was learning to recognize it.

Carrie McNulty (10:31)
You

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (10:49)
don't know if your listeners are into science, but I love the science behind it. Yeah, it's fascinating. And there were a couple of things that I just was amazed at, but we get about 11 million bits of information every second, but only 1 % of that information comes through our brain.

Carrie McNulty (10:52)
I was just going to ask you to tell us more about the science behind it.

Anna Quigley (11:14)
The rest of it comes through our senses. And I was surprised it was so weighted to our senses. But in a lot of ways, it makes sense. And it totally clarifies why listening to our intuition works and how those messages come. So there's something they call the four clairs. But essentially, it's the way the senses pick up and receive those messages. So.

Carrie McNulty (11:16)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (11:40)
the clear cognizance, that's that knowing. I think we've all had that feeling. It's like, don't know how I know this, but I know this. I know it as there is no changing. It's that deep kind of gut feeling. It doesn't always make sense. therapists have a word for that. think thin slicing was Malcolm Gladwell, I think is his name.

Carrie McNulty (11:43)
Thanks.

I just know it. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (12:05)
who came up with that term, it's just, you can't explain it, but there's that absolute knowing. There's clairvoyance, which is that seeing, not like seeing ghosts, but you know, a little different than that. But let's say you can't decide whether you want to take a vacation to the beach or to the mountains, and all of a sudden you see billboards for the Bahamas or here's a ghost count flight to Hawaii.

Carrie McNulty (12:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, no.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna Quigley (12:33)
You know, things like that will show up. Or when you're looking at a particular new car to buy, all of a sudden, that's the only car you see on the freeway, right? It's the same color, the model, it's everywhere. So those are how, you know, some ways that our eyes coming through our visual. The little voice, of course, that's the auditory. And you can really learn to recognize that just like you would your best friend calling on the phone.

Carrie McNulty (12:40)
see.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (13:00)
You'll start to know the more you practice and work with it. You really start to learn. The auditory too, I've learned to pay attention to when I hear about, let's say a book. If two or three people in a really short period of time tell me about a book or a movie or someplace that I should go, I've learned to really pay attention and have found that there's something in that book or that experience that benefits me.

Carrie McNulty (13:27)
is meant for

Anna Quigley (13:29)
Yeah, benefits me

in some way. it's so many different ways that it can come through our senses. And then, of course, we all know that gut feeling, the butterflies, the chills, that stomach turning with excitement or like, ⁓ this is not a good place for me to be. Yeah, and then I think it's the most common. It's the easiest for us to recognize.

Carrie McNulty (13:38)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Your body then really gives you a clear sign. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (13:56)
you can learn the more you pay attention and practice listening to these.

Carrie McNulty (14:01)
for me, it's mostly ⁓ the just knowing. For example, ⁓ when I was doing my breast cancer treatment at the very start, I was given the option of participating in a clinical study and being randomized to one of three arms of the study or doing the standard of care. I was 29 years old, unexpected diagnosis completely.

Thankfully, it had great hospital system, I have the option of doing a clinical study and immediately I knew it was going to extend my treatment. I knew that the treatment was going to be more harsh because of what it was, the kind of chemo that was being offered with a study drug. And I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew I was supposed to do the study and I knew I was going to be randomized to the drug that I needed to get.

And I was, did, that's the step that I took. And I was randomized from the three arms of the trial to that study drug. And I think that's one of the reasons why I've continued to do so well up until this time, know, 15 years later. ⁓ but it was tough. It was, I cried because I didn't want to prolong my treatment. I was in one semester into grad school chemo and treatment and mastectomies, surgery, you know, all of that. But

I knew it was the right thing. I knew it.

And I couldn't say where that comes from. It wasn't like a voice. It was just something that I knew, which I think is so cool.

Anna Quigley (15:23)
Isn't it? I know, I love that we have this guidance, this inner guidance. I call it our GPS system sometimes. It is, it's our internal, but I also sometimes call it our God positioning system because it is built in. We're born with that and it's just like, here, we're gonna help you out a little bit. Life's tough enough. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (15:29)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah!

Yes, we'll give you a little

something to help the universe guide you. Yeah.

Anna Quigley (15:48)
Exactly.

And it can come like you know things more, but it can change. Each person can have maybe one area that they're a little more attuned with, but it can come through all of the different senses. So I actually recommend to my clients that they start tracking. It's just an awareness exercise. And I have a tracking sheet that I can offer your listeners.

Carrie McNulty (15:54)
Thank

Yeah.

Mmm.

Awesome.

Anna Quigley (16:14)
Just to note, when did I get this intuitive sense? How did it come? Was it a knowing, or did I have that little voice? And did anything happen or not happen? it helps to start listening to your body, listening to those signals. It's a practice, like any other skill, just getting familiar with it. So I find that that helps.

Carrie McNulty (16:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

from your perspective, because you do coach a lot of women and especially women who are in transitions in life or maybe 40 plus years old, how do you think we get to the place where we get so out of tune with our intuition?

Anna Quigley (16:50)
Life is hectic. Life is busy. And particularly when we get to that midlife and even beyond, we've been busy taking care of everybody else. You take care of the kids. You're taking care of a spouse. You have your house. You have all these responsibilities. Then there's job, building a career. A lot of times, dreams are things that you wanted to do when you were a kid or high school or.

Carrie McNulty (16:57)
Yeah.

Anna Quigley (17:16)
college and it doesn't seem practical. It's not a rational way to make a living and it gets kind of stuffed down. And then all of these activities, it takes so much out of this and we focus on that and it's almost like tuning out the intuition. So practicing that it's literally like changing a dial on a radio ⁓ tuning into that frequency more,

Carrie McNulty (17:16)
Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (17:42)
The rational mind too is keeping us organized and it is very strong. it's keeping us safe. That's that's a big part of its job is to protect us and keep us safe. But the intuition is really the guidance. So it's finding a balance and knowing learning to listen to it helps kind of tune off that that rational mind. It's like, no, no, we're going to protect you. We're going to do here. But the other can open up more possibilities for you.

Carrie McNulty (18:00)
Yeah.

the more ingrained we get in our everyday schedules, the less room there is for that flexibility, you know, like we get so into our routines that something outside of that might not seem like you said, practical there isn't any space for that right now. Just keep doing your routine. Yeah.

Anna Quigley (18:07)
Thank

Exactly,

exactly. It's like, what is that? I mean, you may be sort of conscious of it, but you dismiss it because I got to get the kids off to school or I have to do this. And that takes priority. So and our priorities change through life. you know, that's where I'm focusing more on, particularly women, midlife and beyond, because by then, you're

kind of finding yourself again. The kids are maybe out of the house and you've gone through a career. you're like, well, I mean, I'm doing well. Life is good, but there's something missing. And I totally believe that every one of us has a particular gift that we're here to give. And it's our job to find it and give it.

Carrie McNulty (18:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anna Quigley (19:10)
That's, know, what else are we here for is to better humanity and better other people and other people's lives. So, and we do that by sharing whatever that is for us. It could be creative endeavor. It could be, you know, it could be a different job, a different focus type of career. I mean, there's so many different ways, just even sharing your wisdom, leaving a legacy for future generations,

Carrie McNulty (19:35)
What would you say to somebody who says, I am way too old to make a change,

Anna Quigley (19:41)
you know, it's that's a that's a rational mind talking. That's the limitation of the rational mind. Well, I may have to go back to school or I may have to study or I have to radically change, you know, how I'm doing things. And that can be a little bit of a fear. It's like what how do I how do I even begin? it is dreams have no deadline. They have no deadline.

Carrie McNulty (19:49)
Hmm.

I love that.

Anna Quigley (20:02)
There are so many, mean, Samuel L. Jackson pops into my mind. super famous actor, love him, he's so good. He didn't even start to do anything until he was in his 50s. ⁓ Wang, you know, created a whole new line in her late 40s. Julia Child was in her 50s when she had her first...

Carrie McNulty (20:15)
amazing.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (20:23)
television show and she's done all right, or did all, you know. I mean, one of the things, I remember growing up, Grandma Moses started painting in her seventies, but there's so many examples like that of, people that really do more. I'm one of them. You know, radical change in my late forties and my life was, yeah, you know, I was living my dream life and this is so,

Carrie McNulty (20:25)
Yeah.

⁓ I want to hear that story.

Anna Quigley (20:53)
typical of what I hear so often. I'd always wanted to live in San Francisco, have a Victorian house in the city. Yeah, exactly. It was fantastic. My job was great. I loved what I was doing and a lot of good friends. Within, I think it was a month, I was laid off due to industry changes. I had been in this job for seven years. I ended up in a legal dispute with

Carrie McNulty (21:01)
That sounds amazing.

Anna Quigley (21:21)
⁓ kind of a crazy co-owner of the building that I was in. And things just all of sudden, it's like this beautiful life started imploding on me. this was kind of funny because I rely on and I use meditation a lot. That's been a really big key for me to quiet myself, even if it's five minutes at a time to be able to listen to intuition. And my first impulse,

Carrie McNulty (21:38)
Yeah.

Anna Quigley (21:44)
while my rational mind saying, okay, you got to find a job, you got to deal with the lawyers, you have to take care of this. And, you know, centering, I'm like, no, I need to go sit on top of a mountain and meditate. don't get clear. Well, within a day and a half, my cousin called and she goes, I'm going to India to an ashram. Do you want to come with me? Well, the ashram happened to be on top of a mountain.

Carrie McNulty (21:55)
I need to stop and listen. Yeah.

You're like, I have to now. Yeah.

Anna Quigley (22:11)
Doesn't

get much clearer than that. It's like gee, which one do you think I picked? ⁓ I Went to India and it was Extraordinary left, you know the attorneys I'll get a job when I come back, I'll deal with all of that and I I came back with clarity I didn't come back with the whole answer. I Got the next like three feet. Here's what you're doing next smaller part.

Carrie McNulty (22:16)
you

Mm.

Anna Quigley (22:38)
I get to see three feet ahead of me. I don't often get the full picture. And I knew it was time for me to move as much as I'd loved that experience. was like, no, you're ready for the next step. So sold my house, moved up to Washington state. And there I was in this wonderful new house, totally different than my, you know, Victorian in San Francisco, which was a good thing.

Carrie McNulty (22:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (23:07)
And then it was like, OK, now what? I'm here. I'm my late 40s. And I'm like, OK, midlife calling. was my midlife calling, not a midlife crisis. was definitely being called to something else. And I just started thinking and meditating. had read in the books Sarah Richardson.

Carrie McNulty (23:10)
I am here.

Yeah.

Anna Quigley (23:32)
suggested if you're not clear on really what's next or what you might even think about doing. She said, ask your friends and your family, people that know you really, really well, ask them two questions. The first one is, OK, so I said, Carrie, what do you think I love? What do you think I really love? And the second one is, what do you think I'm good at? Again, because women, the things that

Carrie McNulty (23:55)
Hmm.

Anna Quigley (23:59)
come easily to us, tend not to value as much. yeah, that's just me.

Carrie McNulty (24:02)
and we're also

told that we shouldn't brag or be proud of what we are good at. We always have to be humble and we always have to be graceful and we always have to be, you we don't want to take up too much space, whether it's our bodies. So we might not always know truly what we're good at or feel comfortable being objective with that,

Anna Quigley (24:09)
Yeah.

Be the good girl. Yeah.

you have to be modest and humble. asking, that's where the power in this is, asking your good friends and your family, because they'll tell you, they'll see, for me, the obvious with what do you think I love was travel. Everybody across the board, I said, yeah, that one was clear. But the surprise in what do you think I'm good at came in a couple of ways.

A couple of people say, you're so good at accessorizing. You're good with clothes and fashion and all of that and decorating your house. You're really good at all of that. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you. But I so dismissed it. like, yeah, thank you. I appreciate the compliment. give me something. Yeah, This is useless for me. It's a nice compliment. I love that. But thank you. Well, here's the surprise.

Carrie McNulty (25:00)
You're like, no, but what can I make a career out of?

Anna Quigley (25:11)
decided that I would start an import business. And I had just been to India, They had wonderful things. I loved the beaded handbags and beautiful scarves and shawls. And so I'm like, OK, I'm going back to India. So I knew the product cost was good. And I've never done importing, but let's just dive in, act of faith. Let's jump in. Well, when I got to India,

Carrie McNulty (25:15)
Hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (25:39)
Every shop, every stall, every street vendor that was selling handbags and scarves and jewelry and little furniture, I would make a beeline to. finally, dawned on me a, oh, this is how that skill of accessorizing and decorating is gonna tie in. it kind of shocked me. I'm like, oh, I get it now.

It wasn't just a nice compliment. It really was a clue.

Carrie McNulty (26:09)
Yeah, that your

style is something other people would appreciate

Anna Quigley (26:12)
Exactly, exactly. So I really recommend people try that if they're not clear. Just a couple of simple questions.

really getting comfortable and learning to recognize your intuition, you can build that trust and that faith. Even though I didn't take the freeway, you know, I knew better. Even though I didn't. But most of the time I listen to it, I'll catch it. the more you're comfortable, the more you learn to how that comes to you, the easier it becomes to have that.

faith and take that leap of faith. The job in San Francisco,

fell out and I thought, well, are you going to still go? And I opted to still go. And I just needed a job. I just had to have work. And one listing just kind of intrigued me and I kept seeing it. Okay, fine. I'm going to go ahead and apply. What didn't seem like it was really the job that I wanted.

I'll be employed, it'll be good. And I can always keep looking. It wasn't even a month later that I realized this job was so much more than the managing director had explained in the interview. It became ⁓ actually one of my best jobs, one of my favorite jobs. I got to do so many different things and really.

do a lot of marketing, I ended up being the operations manager basically and not just an admin or an assistant with that. I was hesitating about doing it, but my intuition kept saying, no, just go have the meeting, go talk to them. I didn't like, I didn't like the interview because I'm not a morning person. And he's like, it's 7.30 for coffee at this place. I'm like, what? I have to get up and get ready for an interview.

Carrie McNulty (27:47)
you

Ugh. it's

not even dirty. Ugh.

Anna Quigley (27:54)
Just do it, intuition. Just go.

Just do it. OK, fine.

Carrie McNulty (27:58)
so then you went to importing and starting that business? How did we get to ⁓ coaching where you are now?

Anna Quigley (28:08)
finding my own passion, figuring out what my purpose was in my life has kind of haunted me literally most of my life. I remember being in my 30s and literally just in tears get emotional even talking about it. You know, what am I here to do? And it's been a process.

Carrie McNulty (28:22)
Yeah.

Anna Quigley (28:28)
intuition and helping these, these transitions using kind of the reverse. Since everything's coming through our senses, all of these million, 11 million messages a second are first being recognized by our senses by using

visualization, employing our senses to create the vision, create the dream that we want. And a key to that is as if we already have it, we're literally reprogramming our brain. We're re-engineering our neural pathways, scientific proof on that. We're shifting that.

Carrie McNulty (29:03)
Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (29:06)
This is what your career is. This is where you should be guided. So that's part of I'm teaching. finding a purpose, started 2016, several years ago, started interviewing people. How did you find your purpose? What was the path? I love biographies. I learned from other people's stories. How did you do that? What were the tricks and the tips?

Carrie McNulty (29:21)
Hmm

Anna Quigley (29:28)
So I started interviewing people on how they found their own purpose. And so often it included listening to an intuition like, ⁓ I don't know why I'm going to this class with a friend of mine. And then the woman was a sculptor and she just created this amazing project in the first hour and the instructors like, whoa, and she's now a world-class

Sculptor stories like that and I so I was really building that I want to continue I'm continuing to take stories so if any of your listeners have anything they want to share I'd love to hear or you and to put a book together then I had my own health adventure that kind of way laid me a little bit cancer and I used that visualization technique to heal myself

Carrie McNulty (30:00)
Cool. Yeah.

⁓

Anna Quigley (30:15)
I knew I was going to get through this. I knew I would. didn't know how. It was like, well, here's the next thing I have to learn.

Carrie McNulty (30:17)
Yeah.

Anna Quigley (30:23)
I went through a stem, had multiple myeloma and I went through the stem cell transplant, whole thing, and they wanted to keep me on maintenance meds, chemo, low dose of chemo. I'm like, no, know, everything in my body, all my intuition, everything I knew was like, no, my body knows how to heal. It knows how to heal. And I...

Carrie McNulty (30:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anna Quigley (30:48)
used visualization through the whole process, an image I had of what the cancer looked like, like a red patch of flowers in this beautiful multicolored garden. And I went about gardening. Every day I would visualize myself gardening and pulling up those red things. I went in with a backhoe at one point.

Carrie McNulty (31:07)
Thank you.

Anna Quigley (31:09)
I tended the soil with really good nutrients and healthy things and had a drone flying over my garden. I just had fun with it engaging every sense that I could and just had fun with that until ⁓ I realized I was completely in remission in a matter of a few months. I still did the stem cell transplant, but I knew it was gone. I knew the cancer was gone.

Carrie McNulty (31:35)
Yeah.

Well, that's amazing. And I'm so happy that you're

Anna Quigley (31:38)
And when the doctor's

no, no, you don't stand maintenance meds, we'll go low dose. And she kept downsizing. We'll only go quarter dose every three days. And I said, no, I bless it to this day because I use both the Eastern and Western. use the visualization and I use the Western. I use anything and everything I could to get it gone.

Carrie McNulty (31:56)
Yes, you found your plan that worked for you.

Anna Quigley (32:04)
I'm almost eight years, totally cancer free, no trace of it. ⁓ once a year I talked to my oncologist, she goes, I don't know, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. I said, it's already done. But I can't really talk to her about the whole thing because it's very empirical. trained in that, but I used everything that I could on that.

Carrie McNulty (32:07)
That's fantastic.

Anna Quigley (32:28)
I totally believe the second half of life, like the fourth quarter of football, it's where all the good stuff happens. Yeah, I mean, we don't have the family, the kids are gone, you're usually in it. like this whole new opportunity, this whole new space opens up where you're really free to create your life

Carrie McNulty (32:34)
That's where the action is, yeah, right?

I will say that while my forties have been a weird time because it's been all pandemic time. ⁓ in terms of who I am as a person, I feel the most myself and the most secure in who I am.

in my mid 40s. And I think that probably will only get better. you become more comfortable just being as you are. And if people resonate with that, that's amazing. But if they don't, then we learn more

easily what is for us and what isn't for us.

Anna Quigley (33:18)
love hearing that and you're absolutely right. It just keeps getting better. can promise you I'm ahead of you here several years and it does even though you know, there've been turmoil and you know, leaving a job and all of that. That's life. That's part of it. Yeah, it's how it will always be but having these tools to like, okay, here's how I can move through this more easily and find my next stage has been, so powerful

Carrie McNulty (33:23)
Thank

Yes, I will always be. Yes.

Anna Quigley (33:43)
in our 20s, we have a different thing. Oh, we're building careers and we care more about, like you said, how how we're perceived. And this is the image and this is, you know, we're planning and we get to a point where it's like we have the wisdom, we have discernment. It's what's important and what's not. it becomes more OK, this is what

Carrie McNulty (34:00)
Yes.

Anna Quigley (34:05)
who I am, I need to live my life authentically. I need to share who I am, be who I am. it just starts resonating at a soul level in a whole new way. It's so exciting, isn't it? Don't you feel that?

Carrie McNulty (34:15)
Yeah.

It is, it's very exciting and I feel

like there's no way to go back and give that to our younger selves. But it's the idea that we become obsolete in society when we get to a certain age is just not true.

Anna Quigley (34:31)
I can testify if you will as to how it can work and how Much better it just continues to get so I'm feeling so blessed Right now to be in the situation where I can share

Carrie McNulty (34:35)
Mm-hmm.

Anna Quigley (34:47)
my wisdom leave a legacy if you will for the women you your age and even older than me you know to be able to do this to be able to find what that is in their life.

Carrie McNulty (34:47)
Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Well, the

gift that you're giving is the ability for people to trust themselves more and to know that they are being guided and that there's a part of them that's doing it and it's okay to listen to that. Though it's not that obstacles won't come up because that's like you said, life and it always will, but your ability to trust yourself to get through it is gonna get stronger. And then what you can accomplish beyond that will be bigger

Anna Quigley (35:25)
And those bumps in the road, you know, there's a saying, it's like the universe will talk to you, it'll whisper, and then it'll start shouting and then it brings out the club. And it's like, well, I see. And that's the thing. We've had those experiences by the time we're midlife. We've been hit with the bat a couple of times and no, it's like, oh, I didn't pay attention to that.

Carrie McNulty (35:33)
yes. yeah, I've been there too.

yeah.

Yes, I always say that, the universe will keep trying to give you a message and like you said it will be maybe a whisper and then it's gonna be a yell and then you know, I the first marriage that I had when I was 23 and knew I didn't I wasn't supposed to do it and I didn't want to do it

Parents had paid a lot of money for it. It was already in motion. It was going to happen. And that was not a great time in my life. And I only stayed married 11 months. And I figured it out from there. But it was a time where I knew I was going against what was better for myself and for that person. And I still did it anyway.

Anna Quigley (36:30)
⁓ I so empathize with that. I canceled a wedding two and a half weeks before. I had the dress, the store took my dress back, believe it or not. I had the flowers ordered, I had a sit down dinner. I mean, it was a big deal. And I drove around for probably at least two weeks with the invitations in the back of my car, stamped, ready to go.

Carrie McNulty (36:33)
Thank

Anna Quigley (37:00)
But I knew the second I put him in the mail, I'd have to go through with it. And those red flags and the gut feeling and all of that. And I was crazy about the guy. But, man, and I'm so grateful for that because I, like you, I don't know if I, maybe it would have lasted 11 months, who knows. But I had half a dozen friends come up to me afterwards and go,

Carrie McNulty (37:00)
no.

Anna Quigley (37:29)
only I had had the courage to listen and and not go through with it. I wouldn't be divorced. So I so empathize with with her story. And I don't know where I came up with the strength, but that was, you know, a period where I was, you know, in that in that learning in my mid 20s. And it was, you know, I'm so grateful. I had I had a lot of doubts. I spent a lot of years going, oh, I probably should have gone through with it. And what if I'd done that? You know, questioning, but

Carrie McNulty (37:30)
Yeah.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Anna Quigley (37:57)
Even those doubts is what started me on the spiritual path to really learning and exploring and going, OK. And then I came to realize, now, was I was being guided out of this. This was a gift. And that was a real catalyst for helping me start to really learn and understand this gift that we have, this innate ability we have for discernment.

Carrie McNulty (38:03)
you

the one first step you would say to people to help them figure out how, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard anything. I've never seen anything. I don't just know things. I don't get a feeling in my stomach. What's the one thing that you would say?

Anna Quigley (38:32)
Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (38:37)
to help people kind of get to the place where they can.

Anna Quigley (38:37)
It's yeah, and that's really difficult and it's a process

and it doesn't come overnight No pressure Carrie, thank you Okay, do this and your life will be fixed be happy you'll have perfect life Yeah, you will never have another issue or a trauma ever Yeah, I wish but for me

Carrie McNulty (38:44)
sure, it's not like, Ana tell them one thing and they've got it, but like...

You will go amazingly the end. Yeah.

Anna Quigley (39:06)
And I think this is true. Find if it's five minutes in your day where you can step away from the chaos. An ex of mine who is a therapist, gave me this great example. It's like because all this confusion is this OK, you've got like a tornado going around with all of these things and these issues and these drama. Picture yourself in the middle in the eye of the tornado. There's a calm.

in the eye of the tornado. And he said, then just grab one thing, one thing. But putting yourself in the eye of the tornado, and it doesn't have to be a tornado, but finding five minutes of quiet time where you can step away. go out in nature and just walk around the block, something where you can step out of that environment where all this crazy stuff is going on.

And just breathe and just breathe and find some way to find stillness for a minute and then you have to listen to kind of what those messages are.

finding that pause and then get comfortable doing that and then do a little bit more. you know, don't have to sit on a mountaintop in India. I highly recommend it, it's not for everybody. But it doesn't take that. You don't have to go that far. there's something so powerful in that moment of calm and stillness.

Carrie McNulty (40:18)
We don't have to go all way to India for this. ⁓

Anna Quigley (40:33)
Listening you start being able to hear those messages

Carrie McNulty (40:37)
really what you're kind of saying is just give yourself the willingness to take a couple minutes. Just be willing to sleep.

Anna Quigley (40:41)
Oh, and that's not easy always.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. However you have to find that, like I said, lock the bathroom door and take a bath, put the kids out. Although, know, banging on the door, I know that. Even my animals do that. They'll go, let us in.

Carrie McNulty (40:57)
Yeah, what you doing for one minute by yourself? No!

Anna Quigley (41:01)
And you know, I mean, it's the, you know, and your clients know sometimes that even that is hard, can be hard. Sit in your car, you you drive, you get home, don't jump out of the car right just give yourself a couple minutes to just sit in your car because there's no distractions and just sit and be quiet and think and let your body talk to you.

Carrie McNulty (41:07)
Yes.

Anna Quigley (41:22)
it's a practice.

Carrie McNulty (41:23)
Well, is there anything that you want to say in parting to the audience or anything additional you didn't get to share that we didn't get to talk about?

Anna Quigley (41:31)
goodness, we've talked about a lot. This is great.

reach out and get guidance from a therapist like you or a coach like me that has been there. You know, we're way showers. We're way showers because we've lived through these examples

Carrie McNulty (41:41)
Yeah.

No.

Anna Quigley (41:50)
We've been here. We've done this. We know the way out and we can help you.

Carrie McNulty (41:55)
Well, I have really enjoyed having you on and I appreciate your stories and your wisdom. And I know that the people listening will too.

Anna Quigley (42:03)
It's been so much fun. Thank you. I can talk about this all day, obviously.

It is my passion.

Carrie McNulty (42:09)
Yeah, and that really shows.

Anna Quigley (42:11)
Yeah. Thank you.

Carrie McNulty (42:14)
Well, for everybody listening, I'll be back in another couple with another episode. And so until then, everybody be well and take good care of yourselves and each other.