okay, folks! Well, here we are it’s episode, 78 of the read method, insider podcast and we are live and i’m in toronto.
Canada.
That’s one of the first things our special guest – and i were talking about, is i’m in toronto and you are where tonight i’m in louisiana louisiana i’ve.
Actually, i literally flew through louisiana for a few hours uh earlier this year, um, but that was a whole different story.
Was that in new orleans i’m guessing yes, yes, it was that’s far from me.
I’m way up north you’re up north close to the texarkana and oak and arkansas border correct.
I remember that way up, north, absolutely and and i’ve been there as well, but anyways folks.
Here we are, let’s introduce our special guest tonight.
She is a dynamic speaker and life coach, as well as a bob proctor certified consultant.
Her main platform is built on and around the magic of gratitude.
The whole philosophy of the magic of gratitude she joined forces with bob proctor and say that three times fast, she’s joined forces with bob proctor and the proctor gallagher institute as a consultant.
Since her merge with pgi, her life has dramatically uh, catapulted or propelled to new levels and new heights.
She has been an on an exciting ride, getting things she wanted, that she never knew how okay and now she spends her time, helping people through their personal journey into the magic of gratitude and i’m pleased to be joined tonight by evie shaw on the read method.
Insider podcast, as we discuss the magic of gratitude, welcome to the show evie.
Thank you i’m happy to be here.
Well, there you go.
I mean we had a little our little share of tech issues to begin with, and it seems to always get me.
You know at the last minute where you think oh we’re almost there and something else comes up and tonight was something that we’ve never really dealt with before.
But here you are and uh it’s uh.
When we spoke a couple of times on the phone it was, it was so much fun and i’ve been looking forward to this episode and uh.
Here we are from louisiana to toronto and the rest of the world.
Yes thanks so much for having me.
Yes, absolutely so listen um! This is a very interesting subject.
So why don’t you share with us evie what led you to go down this path? On the subject of gratitude? Wow, that’s a good question and it’s a it’s not an easy answer.
It’s not just.
It was this, it was a long road to get to the magic of gratitude.
Quite a long road um.
It all started sort of when i was eight years old and i laid in my bed and i just thought: how do you get a daddy to stay and so from then that little girl always searched and wished and hoped for a one, a marriage, one marriage To one person forever and ever and live happily ever after and raise kids with the mom and the dad the whole nine yards, and so that’s where it started.
And so then uh go forward.
Many many years and i had been married 22 years and had three children and they were 11, 12 and 13 at this time and my husband left and it threw.
I mean it was awful.
It was like you know, worst case scenario and um, and i just wanted him to come home and i wanted my boys to have their dad and i wanted that.
One man, one woman, all children happily ever after you know the end of the story, and so that desire led me to try to figure out how to make this right and how to make the marriage work and have my husband want to come back home.
And so that’s how i got started and then from there just wishing and hoping and praying that my husband would come home um.
I came across some books, um one book, the first night that my journey happened is there was a book on my shelf and i had read it ten years before and for some reason i just knew to get it off my shelf, and so i did.
I pulled it off and let it fall open and it was about a woman whose husband was an alcoholic and he had gotten sent to jail for some reason or another and they divorced and he moved on.
And she got a hold of the gratitude message and began to be thankful for even that situation and they reconnected.
He came back.
They got married lived happily ever after.
So that’s my cliff note version, but when i read that story, the first night, i thought – oh goodness, gracious.
Where are we going here, like the moral of this story, can’t be for me to be thankful that my husband is not here that he’s somewhere with someone else like for real? That can’t be the the story here, and so i put it back on the shelf and kind of went along for about five days.
Five days later and um, i homeschooled my children and we read a group in in in a town nearby where we went for ten years uh once a week, and there was a lady there and i had never seen her before.
I’ve never seen her since and she got up in front of our group and she talked about a book that had changed her whole family’s lives.
I mean her husband or children, or you know on and on just so many lives, and so i love books, and so i said, oh i’d love to have that book.
You know i want one, what’s the name of it, and so she gave me that copy of it and i came home and i read it that night and would you believe the whole the whole book.
The theme of the book was to be thankful for everything to give thanks for everything – and i was like oh brother – this is where we’re going right with this, and so so you know what you know.
What evie! My very next question almost ties right into that.
So let me let me preface what you’re about to say, which i think, and you know there isn’t a word in the english language.
You know with more magic in the in word than than gratitude.
So when you hear that word gratitude, what does that mean to you wow? Well, for sure now it means something completely different than it did those nights, because i had no idea what was about to happen, but now i know that gratitude and being thankful for everything will change your life gotcha it not.
Maybe it will.
It will change your life yeah and we’ll get into to some of that as to how that’s actioned and how you know, you know when you’re in that right place.
Um and you know what you identify with and what are the signals, and you know what you look for so um, so how we can enjoy.
So let me ask you, the straight up is, is: is that what gratitude um helps to identify and bring? Does it help? Is it one of those warmer associations where it’s with your children? It’s with your neighbors, it’s with your business associates.
You know how we enjoy that closer fellowship.
You know friendship, whatever type of relationship is that what gratitude helps us to identify when we have these relationships, that’s part of it.
It definitely plays in, but it’s deeper than that.
It goes further to when you have to be thankful for not just those wonderful relationships, not just your children, your parents, your great best friends and it’s deeper than that.
It’s for being thankful for things.
You don’t really want to be thankful for, because there’s a greater good that can come from it.
So is that about sometimes where we take things for granted because they’re there and like in the case, you thought maybe your husband, because you had kids you he was going to always be there and then he was gone and he you know he did not return And then you’re like, oh, my god, he was actually here.
Yes and now he’s gone um, so is you know the deeper lesson within that is okay, even though someone is here with me now um, we can’t take the situation for granted, whether you know the relationship is working or not, doesn’t mean it can’t end.
So, what’s the deeper purpose of understanding gratitude or identifying, you know that connection between two people well for me personally, where it took me um in all the books that i read right, then it was, he was saying you had have to be thankful even for the Things you don’t like yes, and so there was quite a few things i didn’t like with my husband leaving to spend the night somewhere else every night, and i didn’t know if he was coming home or not coming home and i’d never heard from him on the Weekends, on friday and saturday we didn’t hear from him, and that was heartbreaking to me because i’m thinking this is family time and so for me personally, i had to be thankful that he wasn’t there now.
I wanted him there, but i had to just learn to be thankful, because if he was supposed to be there he would be so it’s not just thankfulness there’s a huge amount of faith involved.
Knowing whatever is happening is what’s supposed to be happening, and we don’t always understand because it’s not what we want all the time.
So some of the research that i’ve looked at has shown that people are happier and energetic and hopeful than those who are not grateful.
So grateful people are happier and energetic and hopeful than those who are not grateful.
So why do you think this is having gone through everything that you’ve gone through? Why do you think this is you know what it’s that’s, a great question and being thankful, like, i said, has so much faith wrapped up in it and when you have faith that whatever’s happening is supposed to be happening, you can relax for me personally before i Was like when’s, he gon na, be here when’s he gon na when’s.
He gon na come when’s it.
Why is he late where’s? He been okay, that’s hard work! Yeah! I didn’t.
I didn’t know it.
I was trying to control the whole universe right, but when i just sat back and relaxed and was thankful that he would be here, he wouldn’t be here, it’s very calming, so it’s very restful, it’s peaceful, so there’s so many amazing positive qualities that come along with It and that allow you to be more energetic, so so is it a case then, where, when you practice gratitude, what i’m hearing from you when you’re practicing gratitude um is, is that incompatible with negative emotions and many that may actually diminish or deter the feelings of Anger, bitterness or greed like in your case, you know the fact that you change from okay.
When is he coming? When is he not coming to just letting it be and being thankful that when he shows up, he shows up and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t and being you know, being thankful, either way, not being angry not being bitter and that actually helped to pull you through? The whole circumstance it did, it did well something else.
I asked myself in that and being thankful.
I would ask myself: is he going to want to come home to an angry person or to a person, who’s, loving and kind and relaxed and and so and i knew for my children i wanted.
I was always trying to think what can i do? That’s the best for them.
How can i walk this out in a way that i can tell them? I walked it out this way.
I didn’t know if it was going to work at the end right because i didn’t you don’t know what you don’t know, but i thought: how can it be wrong if i’m doing the right thing and it felt right to be kind and loving and that’s weird? That’s when you really know within oneself, you know that content feeling that that comfort within that says.
You know this.
This looks hard.
This is tough.
People are, you know, maybe there’s family or friends that might even be forming opinions yeah, and you have to deal with all of that.
Yes, but but within your your mind there is a comfort place because of your gratitude right yeah.
I don’t.
I can’t really think of anybody who agreed with me.
I think there’s one couple that i knew out of all my friends that that that thought, what i was doing was okay and nobody else did nobody else.
Did you felt a little alone, i’m sure? Oh, i was alone for sure i was alone in so many ways, but yet the peace and the just knowing that it was the right thing, because my friends would say how in the world do you cook for him, he came home for lunch every day which, Since my kids sat in a high chair, he had come home every day for lunch, and so i wanted them to have that same thing.
I didn’t want their world to be turned upside down.
You know because of his choices and if he was willing to come eat, i was willing to feed him, and so um people said how did you? How did you cook for him? Why would you cook for him? I said i have the privilege to cook for him because he will walk back in my door because not everybody who’s going through a divorce going through a separation will the spouse walk back in the door absolutely, but because he did.
I had the opportunity to show him love and be kind or the reverse, that the other person doesn’t want them walking through the door.
It won’t.
Let you right right, true sure, and that’s usually the way it is right where you’re gone, you’re gone and don’t set foot back in here kind of thing.
So gratitude can help build social bonds, strengthen existing relationships, and i think you know it can also help to nourish new ones.
So how did you going through what you did where you had the social bonds with the friends you had, and i guess some some friendships strengthened some diminished um.
All the new relationships were formed.
Some got better.
Some got worse.
How did you, how did you deal with all of that? Well, so i didn’t lose any friendships.
They were just wondering what in the world i was doing.
I have great friends i have so so many great friends, so i didn’t lose any and it didn’t really strain any because i guess they were listening to what i was saying and they saw what was happening so, but it definitely deepens friendships and um because it Takes you to a whole new level of love just because the anger and the bitterness when that leaves it opens up a whole new, wonderful world for for me, and i think it would for anybody else, and i didn’t realize it, but being angry and bitter is Hard work – and i had no idea until that – stresses you out it’s very stressful and it you know what is so sad it it.
It hinders you from being a part of different things.
If i would have been angry and bitter to him and he would have stayed away, my children would have missed out on their dad being there now, whether he’s right or wrong he’s still their dad and he he wasn’t harming them.
He wasn’t harming us, he wasn’t making great choices, but he was coming home to see them and playing ball with them and eating lunch with them.
So um, it’s it just benefited in so many ways.
I don’t see a negative to it.
It it the more and the more i did it, the more relationships improved and the everything got better in so many ways.
So do you think you’re able to help others, including um people, who are doing you wrong, so to speak by being grateful um? Do i think i can i mean, do i think, do you think you can help others um, you know so so you were helping.
You were doing a lot of this for your children and for yourself, but you’re.
Also in the example that you’re, in the analogy that you’re sharing you know, your husband was still coming home for for lunches.
Are you helping others when you are displaying that type of gratitude, even during the difficult time? Yes, yes, i had friends that were walking through um affairs uh they weren’t walking through the affair their spouse was, but i was able to help them and kind of.
I don’t know if instruct is the right word encourage and they have great relationships today.
I have two in particular that um the spouses were having an affair and they didn’t want their marriage to end either, and i said i think i can help you.
I don’t know what your spouse will do, but if you can do some of these things, then i think i can help you, and today they have great marriages.
They were able to catch it before he walked out the door.
Absolutely so yes, so, okay! So then that brings us to to another important point: can gratitude help people cope with stress and trauma? Oh, i absolutely believe so i absolutely believe so.
You know um that wayne dyer has a quote and it says when you change the way you look at things.
The things you look at change, yeah and so in me changing the way i looked at him, whether he came home or didn’t come home.
It changed everything and it did change the way i looked at it, and so i yeah i definitely.
I definitely think if people could get a handle on this in the midst of a trauma or the midst of a bad situation and begin to change their thoughts toward it.
I absolutely believe things will change for the positive okay, so you now being an expert in this field.
Yes expressing gratitude, do you find that bolsters self-worth and self-esteem? Oh absolutely yeah it.
It just makes you feel me.
It made me feel so good and so peaceful um.
I remember telling my friend her husband was having an affair, and i thought i told her.
I said if i could bottle this up and bring it to you and inject you with it or let you drink it.
It’s worth everything yeah, and so so i it just made me feel so much better and i i did.
I did begin to realize what i had done and was wrong what i had done wrong in the relationship.
So it helped me to see myself and what i had done wrong and be able to begin to do different.
So do you think uh, okay? Well, i think there’s another thing that we we um when we initially met um or virtually um um.
We were talking about another adversity that you had to deal with in your life, and i i noticed you haven’t touched on that yet and i’m just wondering if that’s deliberate and maybe you can share with the audience what happened and how that you know may have Helped you to be even more grateful it did.
It did help me um, just real, quick um.
So when i went through this with my husband and learned what i learned, i have written a chapter in a book and so i’m now a best-selling author and uh, but in the book i tell about this story and uh and it it.
I i tell how devastating it was because it was so devastating.
I laid on my floor for months and months and cried and hurt so bad.
I heard so bad.
I didn’t think i could even keep living because i hurt so bad so anyway.
So i tell that story in the book, but then after at the end, i say this story pales in comparison to what i went through after so wow.
That brings me to the loss of my son, my third son uh, when he was 17.
He passed away from cancer yeah and i will say what i learned going through my with my husband, leaving most definitely helped me in the grieving process.
Now the grieving process is the grieving process.
There’s no getting around it over it under it and you don’t want to, but i think i did it better because of the tools that i had and so on those days when i did, i don’t want to lay around and and not get up and not Live my life i wanted to live for my other two children and i learned how to think different and how to be thankful for the days that we had colson and they weren’t enough for me for sure.
I had a whole lifetime planned with him right, but that’s not how long i had with him, and so i had to be.
I did learn to be thankful for the days that i did have with him wow so you’ve uh well, needless to say, um.
If anyone can write a chapter on gratitude, i think we’re speaking to the right person here and folks uh.
This is episode 78 of the read method, insider podcast, and we have our special guests here, all the way from louisiana, uh, northern louisiana and we’re discussing the magic of gratitude and uh.
Evie shaw here is a best-selling author, international best-selling, author and um, and why don’t you share with us the name of the book? Uh evie? Okay, so the name of the book is called awakened and it was actually um, 10 or 12 different authors that each each one wrote a different chapter.
So my chapter is called the magic of gratitude and um.
The authors that are listed on there are alan wade and cindy preston and so and they’re the main authors they’re, who put put the book together and so and i’m a co-author in it outstanding and uh.
I certainly have to listen to this story, would encourage anyone.
Um on the subject of gratitude and self-worth – and you know believing in oneself and certainly strength, inner strength to to pick up that book and uh, and definitely contact evie here and we’ll talk about that a little bit but but um so tell us every uh.
Is it evie or evie evie evie, so um, my name being everold, my first name right uh, you know i i get called heavy, all sorts of you know anyways.
We won’t even get into that i’ll, be called somebody i like sure or whatever yeah all right.
That’s it yeah um.
So if you were to sum this up into three i mean i’m sure you could provide 10 different takeaways.
But let me ask you a question before we get to some takeaways first, if you were to sum up your chapter in in the book, what would you say is the main message in the chapter on gratitude that the main theme is when you begin to be Thankful for everything, and especially things you’re, not so thankful for at first it will change your life.
It is transformational, there’s just no other way to say it.
It is that powerful.
It is that amazing and profound it will transform your life in so many ways.
Wow, and so with with that, what are three key takeaways like so, if you were to just like you, gave advice to your friends uh, who were going through some circumstances, um, if you were to have this conversation with a stranger like you, ran into that stranger Um, you know that lady who you talked to like what would you say, are three takeaways or key key elements of gratitude.
Um one.
I think i i you know you’ve mentioned a couple of times.
You know appreciating the things that you don’t even know that you normally wouldn’t right and um.
So what would you say are three takeaways for our audience and how would you wrap up this this episode on on gratitude wow, that’s so good um! So one of them you mentioned, if i can use that again or if i can have four, you can have four okay um.
So i think that being thankful for the things that you don’t necessarily like is so huge and it’s as simple as uh you, you lock your keys in the car and you’re late to work.
Well, what? If that’s a good thing? You know you can’t see it.
It seems like oh no, i did that, but if we’re thankful for it, we don’t know what we we’ve been protected from.
Yes, so um one of my takeaways that um that i think is huge and it’s not always easy in the midst of some issue.
To think of but uh i want to be known, for this is there’s a gift in every problem.
Look for the gift, and so when you’re, in the midst of a flat tire on the side of the road or lost your keys or your car breaks down or whatever the situation could be um.
I just try to always think that or tell my kids there’s a gift in every problem, look for the gift and so it it, and that goes back to when you change the way.
You look at things the things you look at change, so it’s kind of all wrapped up in that and um.
So definitely when something happens that you don’t love or you don’t like find a way to be thankful for some part of it.
So when my husband left, i wasn’t thankful that he was gone, but i was thankful that if he was supposed to be there he would, and so you just.
How can i encourage the person watching? What can you be thankful for about it? And so another thing you could be thankful for is so the woman with the husband with alcoholism.
Well, she wasn’t thankful that he was an alcoholic, but she was thankful for what could come from it, the good that could come from it, so that so definitely be thankful for the things that you’re not so thankful for initially and there’s a gift in every problem.
Look for the gift and when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change wow and you know that that is so.
That resonates uh.
Well with me, because there are times you know, like you say, the flat tire.
Let’s say you: have you got a flat tire? You forgot your keys or you lock the key.
Maybe that saved you from having an accident.
Maybe you know so, and i look.
I have a pretty good example.
I’ll share with you is in the audience.
I i’m a huge airplane enthusiast.
I i i know everything that happens in an airplane and so to the point where i study it exclusively intensely and – and i also fly recreationally, but it’s something that i wanted to do as a career from.
I was a very young young kid, but priorities changed and that did not occur and what i’m thankful for in the process is okay.
Well, maybe if it were to be a career, it would have been a career, and i say that all the time when i you know when i see an airplane and or i’m flying on one – and i know exactly what’s going on, i’m like damn, i should Be in the flight deck because you know i know exactly what’s going on right now and and then i step back and i go well be thankful because maybe for the last 30 years, if that’s what you were doing you were, you know.
Maybe something else would have happened or you may have had some other impact, so so i so i i’m thankful, like you say for for the place that i’m at that.
I can still do it recreationally from time to time, and maybe the lesson is that i’m in a different career, i’m in a different place, where i’m able to help other people in different ways that are also meaningful right right.
So i i can totally totally relate to you and i and i you know, you’ve got you’ve had and shared some very you know two of the biggest life um changing and impactful experiences that most people go through in their lives.
You know to lose a loved one and not only a loved one, but a child right.
That’s you know.
I think that takes you know, takes the top right and then to also i’ve gone through that without with you know, having lost your husband before because he left as well.
But here you are right here you are kicking butt, taking names, that’s right, uh becoming a best-selling author and and now offering advice, uh to others, meaningful usable advice, valuable advice to others, and – and i love this – you know um [, Music ].
I want to say right there.
If you don’t mind when i was laying in my floor when my husband left, i didn’t know if it would be okay yeah, i didn’t ever know that it would be okay.
I had no one to tell me that um i wasn’t running down everywhere, asking people either, because not you know it’s not something you go around, but when i was in that in my floor hurting so bad.
I thought if i ever get out of here and it’s okay, i want to tell people it can be okay, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
There is like, and it’s a dark tunnel.
It’s a dark tunnel losing your husband to an affair to a divorce whatever, and it’s a dark dark tunnel losing your child.
But there’s light at the end of the tunnel and one of my other things that i always say is whatever you look for.
You’ll find and that’s huge, so you can look for bad, you will find it or you can look for the good and you will find it and that’s what i’ve chosen to do with both of them.
So there’s a gift in every problem and it’s up to you to look for the gift, we’re there right well, this has been amazing, evie um.
Well folks.
This has been um episode, 78 of the read method, insider podcast, but before we go evie, why don’t you tell share the audience how they can get a hold of you all right? So i have a website um, it’s it’s up, but it’s still in progress, but it’s www ev.
com, yes, and i also have an email.
If someone would want to email me, which is liveyourdreameve gmail.
com, which is yeah so either which way and um.
If someone wants my chapter, i can um find a way to email them, my chapter.
If they want to get a hold of me – and we will have your links in the bio and the information, so this episode will be edited and up uh as an audio podcast.
And then we will also edit the video and have it up on our youtube channel, and so you can watch it again all nicely trimmed, not with all the tech issues we had at the beginning.
Right, um, you know the pretty stuff, that’s all wrapped in a bowl that nobody knows how it even started right pretty good, but this has just been a valuable episode and a valuable lesson on gratitude and uh.
You know respect, i mean, there’s a there’s so much in it uh in this in in the subject of gratitude and how you know to really appreciate what we have, and you know i i won’t forget this about.
You know in every problem.
There’s a gift and every problem, and you just got ta, look for that gift, so um.
So folks.
We certainly appreciate you your feedback.
We always love your feedback, all the people that, like and download the episodes of the read method, insider podcast, it’s available on all the major podcast apps uh spotify google play stitcher itunes, of course, soundcloud, and this episode will be there soon uh in about a week.
10 days, once it’s edited uh, it will be there for you to download and listen and uh.
We’ll also have uh contact information there as well, so you can always reach out to her, but i very much appreciate you evie for joining us all.
The way from northern louisiana and i’ve been to northern louisiana right at texarkana, okay, so working on both sides of the street one side you can drink and the other side.
You can’t that’s what i remember like what the hell you know over on the right.
You can drink and the other kind inside you can it’s a different state right, all right, okay! So what if i carry the bottle across the street, am i going to get a ticket? I think things have changed, probably since you’ve been here, okay, but that was true.
That’s too funny um, but um yeah folks, we we’ve had so many great uh guests on this show um les brown tom hopkins evie shaw today, uh next week, stay tuned for uh todd, sotomayer again he’s a three-time world series champion.
He was with the back-to-back toronto.
Blue jays, 9293 world champions and he’s also won a third world series with the arizona diamondback so he’s gon na be on uh on episode, 79.
Where we’ll be talking about the observer or becoming the observer uh, it’s the title of his new book, so stay tuned.
For that episode and uh again, we always love hearing from you so reach out email insiderthereadmethod.
com for any questions.
If you’d like to appear on the show – and we will take it from there and get you on so thank you very much evie, it’s been fun uh.
It’s been a pleasure.
I’ve learned a lot from you and i certainly look forward to having you back on the show: , you .
