Adair Finucane – Breaking Free from Trauma

This week’s podcast brings us another enlightening conversation about trauma and healing. Thanks to our guest, Adair Finucane, who allowed us to hear her most vulnerable and most decisive.

Diagnosed with Celiac disease at three years old, Adair’s journey was about discovering her trauma through her trauma research and nontraditional social work. She started with her theory that the immunological celiac condition she had has something to do with her emotional balance. She could not eat a lot of food; her siblings and other kids could otherwise do. Growing up with supportive parents and the environment indeed helped her, but her parents didn’t know what to do; they didn’t have the right tools to heal her fully.

She was rageful at 6. And that rage turned into anxiety and depression over time. She had this tumultuous inner world with a lot of pain behind her seemingly ordinary social world. She was capable of joy; she was socially and academically on-point, but she was so sensitive to pain.

Adair became a trauma expert when she was on a journey of calibrate her emotions and life. She was 22 years old when she met a psychotherapist with expertise in dialectical behavioral therapy and mindfulness practice who gave her the crowbar to smash all the boxes that enclosed her. From there, she fell in love with social work and providing service.

But her continuing search for healing brought Adair to different spaces. She studied with amazing mentors and discovered Kundalini yoga. She got trained on eye movement desensitization retraining (EMDR) and other trauma healing techniques. That’s when she realized she was not intended to go on a traditional social work path. Adair decided and since then has been helping healers to be able to continue helping others. Taking care of the self is part of the dharma, and Adair is sharing this now with her yoga health coaching.

Alex gracefully draws out from Adair’s own experience that at the root of all classical traditions of awakening or trying to reconnect with yourself, the journey to being awakened is never a straight path. It takes a lot of tools and not just one process.

So from these two wonderful ladies, this podcast profoundly reminds us that we have to go too far and too disciplined and undisciplined. Somewhere in between, they assure, we get to be alive and hopefully happy. Embrace and love life.

Links mention in the podcast

• Adair’s website
• Watch video of the podcast
• Download Audio
• Support me on Patreon and receive great gifts!
• Start today – Road to Self Care – Ayurvedic Self Massage Techniques

Podcast Highlights

• It was really grounding to be in a space where what I’m dealing with was not unusual. Dialectical behavioral therapy had me learn coping skills which let me track my progress. The shift was extreme. It got me more into my yoga and meditation. It also led me to love social work and the activism world. – Adair Finucane
• I started learning coping skills and I realized nobody ever taught me how to breathe. It’s very simple stuff. Western culture is very sick for not having it a part of how children are raised.  – Adair Finucane
• It’s funny that some of the most uncomfortable experiences in our lives can bring such huge joy and clarity. One of these brought me to Kundalini yoga practice, like my second crowbar, which helped my energy explode. It made me realize that I could control my energy, turn it to joy and power.  – Adair Finucane
• We often see experts with an annotation to their name. But I think experts are also those who really lived life and who walk the talk. – Alexandra Kreis
• I wouldn’t be drawn to the teachers I’ve trusted and been with if I didn’t know my heart, soul, and gut that I’m supposed to be with them. But they’re not gonna be there forever. I have to be my own teacher. Stick with your gut. Stay close to your friends who know you. Always be willing to stop a practice; never think you have to do a practice in order to be on the path. Because it will just be attachment and it will confuse you. – Adair Finucane

Guest BIO:

Adair is from Rochester, New York, living with her big love James. She started out as a social worker who’s now in the Ayurveda health and wellness practice to help people heal and turn life into a passionate and fulfilled one. She grew up with the Celiac disease and finding full healing on her own. She was a social worker, worked around labor, environmental justice, among many others. She’s now helping healers, coaches, teachers to take care of their own trauma and self with her own yoga health coaching With Adair.