9. Shaina Gadow - Learning how to love yourself

In this episode I'm chatting with Shaina Gadow.  Shaina is a Wild Woman Activator and healer, helping women to shed perfectionism, self-sacrifice, self-doubt, and limiting beliefs, so they can awaken to their own magnificence, embrace their authentic truth, and be guided by their own sacred heart and intuition.

It is her soul mission for all women to remember the truth of who they really are and fully embody the version of themselves who is confident, joyful, empowered, free, and wildly self-loving.

We're talking about Shaina's journey to truly loving herself, how your childhood can shape your body confidence, how friendships and relationships change as you change, and scraping the surface to do the deeper work. We also talk about that journey to loving yourself, tackling the inner critic, and how journaling, gratitude and a good morning routine can have a positive impact on your life.

Enjoy!

Find Shaina at https://www.shainagadow.com and on Instagram at https://instagram.com/shainagadow or @shainagadow


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Please note, this podcast is intended to be general information for entertainment purposes only. Please see a registered professional before adopting significant dietary or other lifestyle changes. Always seek professional support if you feel you are affected by any of the topics discussed in this podcast.

 
Related topics:

Intuitive Eating, HAES, Health At Every Size, Body Positivity, Body Confidence, Body Positive, Anti Diet, Non Diet, Diet Culture, Food Freedom, Fat Acceptance, Fat Liberation, Self Care, Weight Loss, Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Recovery, Disordered Eating, Nutritional Therapy, Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Cambridge Diet, Cambridge Plan, 121 Diet, Lighter Life, Noom, Coaching, Healing, Mirror Work, Journalling, Gratitude

Transcript

Terri: Welcome to the intuitive eating and body positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things, intuitive eating, body positivity and health at every size, and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies.

Hey, how are you? How's your week been? Mine's been great. Yeah, it's been a good positive week. Hope you're well. This week, I have had the most wonderful conversation with a lovely lady by the name of Shaina Gadow. Um, I will read out her bio because I couldn't possibly put what she does  into my own words. it's much better coming from her. 

So Shaina says that she is a wild woman activator (how awesome is that) and healer, helping women to shed perfectionism, self sacrifice, self self-doubt and limiting beliefs so that they can awaken to their own magnificence, embrace their authentic truth and be guided by their own sacred heart and intuition.

Oh, how amazing. She says it's her soul mission for all women to remember the truth of who they really are and fully embody the version of themselves who is confident, joyful, empowered, free, and wildly self loving. And this just, it was his out of her through talking to her. 

So I'm not going to waffle on today. I'm just going to dive straight in and give you our conversation. Enjoy. 

I am very excited to be talking to you today. Would you like to give yourself a bit of an introduction? 

Shaina: Yeah. I'm so excited to be here. I appreciate and feel honored to be talking with you today. So my name is Shaina and I am a, you know, my, my title sort of shifts and flows as I am feeling in the moment, but I like to call myself a wild woman activator and self-love mentor.

And my, my, the work that I do is really working with women to heal all of the stories, all of the programs, all of the things that they have learned that has taught them that who they are is not okay, and when we can heal that, we get to that's where we start to cultivate the self-love. And so, so that is the work that I do and I'm really really passionate about. 

And that is really what the wild woman energy is all about. It's about questioning what we've learned, what we've been taught. What we've been told is who we have to be or how we have to be in order to be loved and embracing all of us and loving all of us so that we can step into who we're meant to be and step into the world from an incredibly empowered and unconditionally loving space. 

Terri: That's so amazing. You've given me goosebumps talking about that, that I can feel the passion through it. Um, you're right. There's so much that holds us back. There's so much trauma. And even if we don't think it's trauma, even if we don't feel like at the time it's trauma, there is so much in our past that we suck up like sponges and we take it in and it shapes what we become and it shapes what we do as an adult. And it just has so much input into so many different aspects of life. 

Shaina: That's true. And I think it's, it's important to, to speak to the there's big T traumas, like real extreme abuse. And then there's all the little T traumas that we often brush aside, or we don't even remember like the little things of like, you know, your maybe as a young child, maybe you were, had a bit of a belly and your mom poked you in the belly is like, Ooh, what's that? And then in that moment, it seems like it's not a big deal, but it's the messaging that comes through of like, oh, there's something wrong with my belly and that sticks with us. And then we continue to have these messages or infiltrate that con that reinforces the belief that something's wrong with my body. So it's like a lot of times we think it's not trauma, unless it's like these extreme things, but there's a lot of these tiny little things that we experienced that massively affected the way we see ourselves and the way that we love ourselves.

Terri:  Yeah. There are things stemming right back to childhood I know for me that that are little, tiny little things, but at the time nobody would have thought anything of, and yeah, there's just as you go through life and then you remember, and you remember, and every now and again, something will, will come back to mind.

Yeah. It's um, and, but no parent ever means to do any damage with these little comments. So it's, it's not, it doesn't need to be outward abuse does it in order for it to be problematic? 

Shaina:  Yeah, I agree that. I mean, I, most parents don't right. I think some, but hopefully most of them it's, it's not intentional to be hurtful.

They're not thinking about it in the moment. And. Trying to be mean. Um, it just, they don't realize the impact that it has and it's, they've got it all in their own head right. It's coming from their own programming that they make any of those little comments at all. But yeah, I believe in for the most part, it's very unintentional.

Terri:  It is. Yeah. I grew up surrounded by. A mother who dieted constantly. The house was full of diets from a very young age. So she never, ever aimed any of it at me, but of course it all gets soaked in doesn't it. And, uh, and you absorb it, whether it's intended or not. 

Shaina:  There's so much about. How much will you absorb just the energy?

Right? We were learning by just seeing what the people around our parents or other people that really matter these sort of authority figure people what they are doing. So yeah, it doesn't even have to be geared towards you, but you look at your mom who is dieting all the time, and it's a messaging coming in that she doesn't love her body the way it is, I guess I shouldn't either, unless it looks a certain way, and so we very much get this messaging and learn these lessons just by observing those around us. It doesn't actually have to be geared towards that. You're right. Yeah. 

Terri:  Yeah. That's why it'd be nice to have more positive influences around us. I guess people like you who are just sharing this positive energy. It's amazing. So you, how did you get into it? What's your story? 

Shaina:  How did I get into the work that I doing? Yeah. I think there's many pieces to my story. Um, and I think where it really started for me is I was a, I was in my early thirties and I was caretaking for my daughter who was very young at the time. She was about three. My son had died at birth and my mother was terminally ill and I was caring for her while also simultaneously working and running the household. And I was just stretched so incredibly thin. And I, I took this moment of looking in the mirror and looking at myself and realizing, I don't even recognize who I am anymore. I have given all of myself away. I have given all of who I am. I've sacrificed everything for everybody else at the detriment of my own wellbeing at the detriment of my own joy and happiness. And it was in that moment that I made a commitment to myself that I was going to, to take care of me.

I was going to prioritize me. And that didn't mean that I stopped caring for my daughter or I stopped taking care of my mom, who I wanted to be there for, but there needed to be a balance. And I think that's so common for women and people in general, but mostly for women, we have been taught to be the caretakers.

And so we give all of our energy away and it's, I think eventually we all come to this place where we're like this isn't working anymore. And who am I? And, and what do I want from my life? Because we often are like, who, what, what does everybody else want? And how can I make that happen for them and not for ourselves?

And so. That was sort of my tipping point. And from that point, I got to rediscover who I was, and that was all parts of me. And that was about really getting curious and learning all these different beliefs and programs. And some of those were around. You know, this self sacrificing piece and like, I need to do this for everyone else in order to feel loved.

Some of it was around my body and like disliking, I'm a naturally a small person, but I'll be honest. I'm quite hairy person, and so disliking the hair on my belly and the hair on my legs and a hair that grew on my face. And the, and so learning to, to be able to look at myself and not criticize myself and love who I saw in my body.

But then also that takes us deeper. That always takes us to deeper levels of releasing the shame. And so I just went on this big journey of self-love and learning to love myself. And part of that was then prioritizing myself, shifting all the things in my life, opening up to the possibilities of what. I could have what I could do, who I could be.

And as I did that, it was so empowering. And so mind blowing to, to, to discover that when I started to do this deeper level work of really diving deep into the beliefs, into the programming and unraveling it and relearning. Everything in my life shift and it was incredible and it's amazing. And I'm so grateful.

And from that place, I naturally wanted to share it and to help others create that for themselves. 

Terri:  You took the words right out of my mouth. When you said we're, we're almost conditioned to be the caretaker as females we're expected, we will take care of the family. We will take care of the household. We will take care of any peripheral family that need us. You get dragged from pillar to post, but you will also have a job you'll also work and you'll also raise the children and, and you get pulled and pushed around naturally the whole self care that goes by the wayside. So I love that you were able to take the decision to, to reclaim that for yourself.

Was it a defining moment that did that, or did you just over time? Enough's enough. I need to change. 

Shaina:  It was just one day a big aha. And this is interesting that you're bringing that piece back at about the caretaking. So I had that moment where I looked in the mirror and was like, this is not working. My life is not working anymore.

And that was a big aha. And so I started to go down this journey of self discovery, but honestly, For a few years, I was doing that. And I was, you know, reading all the books and listening to the podcast and doing the yoga and the meditating and trying to like love myself and find joy and things started to shift.

And I was seeing things differently in my life and things were there was things happening and yet I still wasn't. I still wasn't feeling a lot of joy. Like I hadn't, I hadn't really discovered what brought me joy. I hadn't really made the bigger shifts that I was truly desiring and I realized I was still doing the surface level at that point.

And I was still catering. Like I will prioritize myself. Only to the point in which it didn't disrupt anybody else that I wasn't going to upset my partner or my children or my mom, or, you know, so, and I was like, oh, oh, oh, I'm, it's not nothing. The real change isn't going to happen. Not the kind that I'm desiring, unless I really allow myself to be a priority in my life. 

Plus I let things get uncomfortable until I start rocking the boat. And, uh, and that is when I started to create the deep change. And that's when I started doing the deeper, deeper healing work and not sort of the, the surface level work. And so I, it, it was both, I had like aha moments like these pivotal points, but it was also a journey of diving deeper and deeper and the deeper that I dived, the more things started to shift and open up in my life. 

Terri:  Yeah. Got it. That makes sense. That going deeper is scary. You scratch away at the surface a little bit and you think, okay, okay, I'm doing some work. And then you get a little bit deeper and you're like, oh, this is a bit uncomfortable and recoil away from it a little bit.

How did you push through that top level and go deeper? What, what was your process? What did 

Shaina:  you, what did, do you think that you're you're right. That it is really scary because forcing us. I don't like to use the word force, but it's, it requires us to look at our darkest pieces and that is incredibly scary and it's incredibly challenging and it's much easier to just stay status quo and like live our lives and not look too deep, but then we continue to not feel happy. 

We continue to not feel fulfilled and so for me, my desire to truly love myself, my desire to let go of worrying about what everyone else thought of me and letting that dictate how I was in the world and how I live my life.

My desire to open up to greater possibilities for myself was bigger than my fear was to do the deeper work and I think that's what has to be there, like a deep understanding of why you want to do this and what the changes are that you want to create. And so it's and, and having support. Honestly, I hired coaches. I went to women's circles. I created my own women circles is about that community support, that accountability, those people that can really see you and help you in your journey that also. Makes it possible when you try to do an isolated bubble, it's almost impossible to continue to do it. 

Terri:  Yeah. That's, that's the thing, isn't it. Sometimes you have, you go through life and you've got this group of people around you, and that group will change over time because friends will come and go and colleagues will come and go and even family comes and goes. But some point when you start to change yourself for the better, that makes those people around you a little bit uncomfortable sometimes.

And I don't know if this was your experience, but I know through going through my intuitive eating journey, there were people on the outskirts who I thought were close to me, who ended up being well, I don't know, you know, some people are a bit jealous. Some people want a taste of what you've got. Some people just don't like that you're changing. And suddenly this group of people around you shifts, did you find that? 

Shaina:  I did find that. Yeah. And, but one of the most painful journeys of my life has been around friendships and like really deep connection. And I've cha, I've been challenged to find that I've had like a core group, but I've been challenged to find that, especially as an adult and there was this it's interesting.

And I talk about this a lot in my own work of yeah. We, I definitely was somebody who fit in. I just wanted people to like me and that felt good. I wanted to have lots of people around me, even if it was superficial. And once I started to do this work, I knew that those would probably fall away. The more authentic I was, the more honest I was, the more that I lived by my own rules, by my own guidance, those that you aren't going to rock the boat and you are, there's going to be people that don't like you changing.

And I had a really good friend of mine who it upset a lot. And luckily we had a friendship where she could talk to me and was like, this makes me really uncomfortable and, but we were able to work through it. Some people, they just went to way, but the beautiful part about it was when we can really love ourselves and be authentic in who we are.

We open up to them. Finding people who are going to love us in that authenticity and love us for who we are and it, those relationships I have found are so much more enriching. There's so much more fulfilling. There's so much more depth to them. So yes, you will rock the boat initially, and you may lose some people, but you will find other incredibly beautiful relationship.

Terri:  Yes. Yes. I couldn't agree more. I agree. I find that the relationships I've got now, even if they were relationships that I had before are better now for, well, not really caring about fitting in because I mean now, and like you say, if you live authentically, you, you will attract the right people. The people that are not in tune with you will, will kind of drift away a little bit.

But it's a much more comfortable relationship when you're not trying to pretend to be somebody else. 

Shaina:  Yes, I a hundred percent agree. I've experienced that in my relationships too. And when we do that, when we drop into our authenticity, when we are love ourselves deep and fully, so that allows us to, to express ourselves authentically.

It gives others around us permission to do the same. So it might, it like rocks the boat at first. And some people are like, nah, I'm not sure if I like that, but then they started to notice, wow, you seem a lot happier. Wow. You're really seem to enjoy life. I do want a little piece of that. Maybe I can have that too.

And I have found that the most of my relationships, especially with my partner and my child, they have risen with me in which has been beautiful to see. 

Terri:  Yeah. Sometimes you just have to do a little bit of explaining along the way, I think. Yeah. I find that, um, I have to kind of explain why I'm happy now.

Yeah. So how did you go from you've obviously gone from finding, finding this out for yourself and going through this personal journey, how did that move into you actually working in this space? Well, 

Shaina: I went from a job, like an administrative job that I hated. I hated it felt so sucking to me. And not that that's like, it's a terrible job. It was a terrible job for me. And at the time when I was in really the exploration, the earlier stages of my spiritual journey, I could not even comprehend another option for me. I was like, this is just what I can do. And I don't, we need the money, all of these like pieces fit really well. And I can not see another possibility for me to create income and.

The further I went into the journey and the further than I started to question that about myself, like, is this true? This is the process of like, is it true that there's nothing else that I can do that I'm not smart enough that I'm not capable, that, you know, this is as good as it's going to get from me.

And we start, this is like the wild woman and energy as we start to get curious of stories we tell ourselves. And the more that I started to question that I heard this intuitive calling like this soul. That's like, you're meant to do more. You're meant to do something bigger. And this is the time where, I mean, Probably four years ignoring that voice because I just was like, I don't get it. Nope. I don't believe you now. 

And then I started questioning the like inner critic and like the one who told me I wasn't good enough or I wasn't smart enough. I started to be able to open up to that other voice more and it took again, it's the same thing that we were talking before of not. To moving beyond our fear, right?

That, that four years of them like, Nope, that's not possible. It's just my fear. But then when I S when I started to allow myself to just open up and be like, well, maybe I'll listen a little bit more. Maybe I'll get curious of what else is out there. It just started to come in of like, oh, these other things are, are possible.

And I got introduced to coaching. I am followed plenty of coaches and you know, all of the people that wrote the books that I had been reading for years in the podcast. And so many of them were coaches. Then I had never put two and two together. I was like, I didn't know that they were coaches. And then it just sort of dawned on me.

I don't know. And this is like, oh, maybe that's a possibility for me. And so I took another risk and, and I shared it with a few people, which was incredibly vulnerable. It'd be like, I think I want to do this. And they were very supportive, which was amazing. And then I went to my partner and was like, I think that I want to do this, but this means that I quit my job and we lose some income and can we make this work?

And, and he was incredibly supportive. Albeit skeptical and worried, but wanted some to me to follow the dream. And, and it's, I w I will be honest. It's not like a smooth ride. It, it has continued

 to have me work on deeper and deeper and deeper levels of my own fears and inner critic and shame and all of that stuff.

But ultimately it was about listening to my intuition, moving beyond my fear and taking a risk. 

Terri:  Sometimes people don't understand Ava. I think that there's a big thing about if people don't understand what you're doing. So in, in I'm an intuitive eating. Coach and people don't understand. So that makes them go, oh yeah.

Well, whatever kind of thing, that must, that must be the same and possibly more for you in your, in your work. I mean, I love it. I'm all on board with it. Um, but for some people it might be that I don't know what 

Shaina:  that is, right? Yeah. I think you're right. I definitely there's a lot of people in my world that were not familiar with coaching and that it gets to be our, like that's part of our work is to put our messaging out and show people a different possibility of how life can be.

And. They'll either resonate with it and want to learn more and get curious, or they're not there yet. Oh, no. 

Terri:  Yeah, yeah. Not yet. Yes. I like that. Not yet. Yeah. I liked what you said about you started listening. You started listening to this little voice. We spend so much time listening to the negative thoughts.

We listened to all those thoughts that tell us we're not good. We don't fit in. We can't do that. Whatever those messages are and the little bright voice that is talking to you and telling you, this is the way go do that. We, we kind of push it aside. Like I say, it must be, it must be the fear, but it's, it's a scary thing to push through that and start listening to those positives.

Shaina:  Yeah. I think part of it is that our brain is naturally like the survival part of our brain is naturally geared towards noticing the negatives. To keep us safe. It's like that primal part of our brain. So it's very natural and so it's part of the work that I do is not shaming that part of our brain. And, and yet being able to differentiate that from our deeper like soul voice.

And, and I think that, you know, you can call it the inner critic or the ego or whatever it is. It's truly just trying to keep us safe. And, but it does it in an incredibly toxic and terrible way. Um, and it's also a lot of bad, like with the clients that I work with when we start to get curious on that voice, it's often a voice of a parent or some sort of messaging that they got from a teacher or peers or something that's coming in.

So it's this voice that is. We've been programmed to listen to basically, and that's telling us all of the things that are wrong with us, and it's trying to keep us safe. It's trying to protect us and keep us in a little comfort zone and we get to decide, do I really want to keep listening to that. Do I want to attach so much to that truth?

We get to question like how true is that really? And can I choose to believe something else? Can I hear that voice and not attached to it? And the more that we do that, and the more that we can hear it and be aware and take a space to acknowledge it, but be like, I'm cool actually, and I'm actually of smart and I actually am beautiful and my body is beautiful just the way that it is or whatever it is, the messaging that you need to shift. Then we can start opening up to that other voice and start to hear that other voice that is always there too. But yes, it tends to be much quieter. Initially at least. 

Terri:  Hmm, gosh. Yeah. How, how do you, how'd you even start that with food and with body issues?

There's well, I know that's the case for a lot of things in life, but everything is so deep seated and so personal that, how do you start finding that, that voice? How'd you start finding that moment to convince yourself that that you're worthy of something.

Shaina:  I think so it's two different pieces. I think if we're talking about like, I feel like we, like when I was talking about my, my work and shifting gears, that was more of like a soul intuition sort of thing. And like, we connect to that through quiet, like being quiet and being still in. And there's lots of different ways to do it or meditation or walking on the beach, but it's about being really present.

But when, when with the question that you just asked, it's like, how do we cultivate a nicer voice to ourselves? That's a little bit different in what I teach and what has been so transformational for me and through the women that I work with is mirror work. Are you familiar with mirror work? 

Terri:  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, there is some mirror work in intuitive eating. 

Shaina:  Yeah. Yeah. And so looking in front of the mirror and first, what I do is like, get really clear on what the negative voice is saying. Like, what are those limiting beliefs? And if it's like, I can't eat that or I'll gain weight, and then people won't love me.

I mean, it basically all comes down to, I won't be lovable. I won't, I'm not good enough right. But what are the like, reasons why it's saying that? And then we get to mother ourselves. Like you think of it's like your inner child who is in there and just like, oh, somebody loved me, somebody tells me that I'm okay.

And we get to mother ourselves and tell ourselves what we really need to hear. What that little girl inside really needs to hear. And so that's where the mirror work is so powerful to just stand in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eyes and, and tell yourself like you are lovable. I love you. I love you.

No matter what your body looks like I love you. No matter your weight, I love you. No matter how much hair you have on your stomach and whatever it is, and the body image stuff is so invasive in our culture, in our society. It comes at us in every form and it gets seeped in, at such a young, young, young age.

And then it continues to infiltrate us in all areas as we grow. So it's deep. That is so deep for most women and so understanding that it is a process and that it can initially be really uncomfortable. And so when I work with women on this it's looking in the mirror and like just saying, I, I am choosing to love my body today, the best that I can.

And just every day saying those things in the mirror and having that sort of caveat is like the best that I can, or I love the part of me that is struggling to love my body right now. And it's just shifting that message and talking to ourselves in a new way. And the more that we do that, like if you can do that every day, even for just a little bit like a few minutes, It builds.

And it goes like you were saying, like how it can be so uncomfortable to do this work. Mirror work is like one of the most uncomfortable things to do and it's moving it like is one, it shows you where all of your resistance is, but it just moves you through the layers and layers. And if you can stand it, which I encourage every woman to try to work through the discomfort.

I honestly went from the point of where I would look in the mirror and I would cringe at doing this work and it was so uncomfortable. And then the more that I did it in, the more that I did it, I got to a point where I look in the mirror now and I tear up with joy and I'd smile at myself because I truly believe the words that are coming out of my mouth, that I am worthy of love and I'm worthy and deserving of love.

Accepting my body. However it is, and loving myself, no matter what the media tells me. And it's, it is one of the most powerful tools for cultivating self-love. Wow. 

Terri:  Yeah. Yeah. There's um, uh, the, the intuitive eating process talks about doing, doing that sort of work and, and making peace with who you are and what you look like and appreciating your body, even if you don't love what you're looking at, you can appreciate what it does for you. But I really, I hadn't heard before what you said about, even if you can't necessarily love everything, what you can do is love the part that is struggling to love is that, did I get that right? 

Shaina: You did. Yeah, and that's a piece where we don't like, that's where the inner critic comes in and it's like, yeah, but you actually hate yourself. So like you're a bad person. And so it's loving all of it. That's how we, we own all of who we are. It's like bringing back all of these pieces and taking the shame out of it.

Like that piece of you that still struggles to accept her body is still worthy of love, and so we get to love her too, while she works to accept and love her body. 

Terri: Oh, Shaina. Look how far you've come. Look how far you've come from that story you told me at the beginning to now you're just in this complete place of just loving, loving yourself.

That's what I want for everybody. That's the peace, is just to get that, to that point. I want that for everyone. 

Shaina:  We all deserve it. We, everybody deserves to love themselves deeply. 

Terri:  Yeah. I agree. When you're going through this process, how do you maintain that high level? I know I was watching your, um, your video on the matrix, the work, and it, it says about, you know, positive energy and maintaining a positive vibe.

How do you do that? Because there are peaks and troughs with everything aren't there. Do you still find that you have downtime and how would you put yourself up? Or what do you advise your clients if they are, you know, you're doing good work and you're doing good work and then all of a sudden you take a dip and you need a bit of pulling back out of it.

Shaina: Yeah. That's such a good question. Of course I have like low times we all do. Um, and so I think that's like, I don't subscribe to the, to the belief that we can always be at a hundred percent like bliss and joy and everything is great because we are human and we have human experiences and interactions.

And so they, we are going to um, experience pain. We are going to experience times where we come out of these states of feeling really good and like in a high frequency of, of love and joy. And so I think that it's more about how quickly we can come back versus not trying to, to try to not have any lows at all, and to not judge ourselves for having lows, because I think that it's very normal.

And so there's a piece where like, just recently I had a low where I was just feeling quite uninspired and wasn't just not feeling in the most um, empowered or fulfilling place. And what I understood was I just needed to allow myself to be in that sometimes I think we need to give, like, not try to hustle to get out of it because we think it's bad, but giving myself the space and the trust to know something is coming from this. Like I'm here because there's something bubbling up or there's deeper work to be done that I trusted going to two pop its head up and let me know, or when it's going to come and I'm going to bounce back, but not trying to force it, I guess, is what I'm saying.

And it's natural to have these waves and so of course there's also a balance of like not wanting to get stuck in it. So when, when we are, it's really about having intentionality in our every day. So for me, having a very devoted morning routine helps keep me in. It's I a hundred percent believe that how we start our day impacts the rest of our day.

And that of course impacts our whole life. And so being really intentional about how we start our day and doing things take care of us and fill us up is incredibly important. And so knowing that when we're feeling really good, it's easy to do those practices, and when we're in a feeling low, we can fall out of them, but to keep it it like a devoted practice will help you come back. And then of course, gratitude, gratitude is one of the most powerful practices that can help bring us back up when we are feeling low. 

Terri: Is that part of your morning routine or is cause I, I do the gratitude thing in the evening. So as I'm going to bed I have three things that I'm grateful for for that day.

So do you, do you do it then? Do you, do you want to give me a glimpse into your morning routine? 

Shaina: Yeah, you can do it in both. So one of the powerful with gratitude, what I have to say about this is that okay for it to really create a vibrational shift in, you you'll have to feel it. So it's not just like, oh, I'm grateful for my house.

And like not really giving yourself the time to feel into the gratitude of it. So yes, it has. I, my morning routine changed depending on how I'm feeling um, but I always have a morning routine and gratitude is absolutely been a part of that. And so it's a journaling practice for me often. Listing three to five things I'm grateful for and why.

And when we say the why, when we add the why, that's how we sort of can connect deeper into the feeling and like the meaning behind that. And so, yes, it can absolutely be a part of a morning routine. It's also a part of our dinner time routine with the family. As we sit down at dinner and list three things that we're grateful for from our day.

And so I think. Wonderful in the evening also to reflect back on the day and talk about like, what was good about our day today. 

Terri:  Yeah. Sitting down to have dinner with your family or with whoever you've lived with or whoever you want to spend that time with, really quite grounding I find cause my, my children are teens and well, actually my youngest child is a teen and you know, we are essentially a household of adults that are like ships in the night now. So just to sit down with them, And touch base with them and catch up a little bit is, it just works wonders for feeling good I think. I never got into journaling, but I am aware that if you commit something to pen and paper, it's so much better for embedding it into you, they say the best kind of way of learning if you write it, don't they, I believe that's the same with, with journaling. It's, it's almost feeding it back into you and .....

Shaina:  yeah, I agree. Journaling has been a big, big part of my process. I mean, it's good for processing, right? And you can start to like, see themes that come up for you and your journaling.

Uh, it's good for dreaming and creating your vision for yourself and feeling into that vision. So journaling has been, been very significant part of my journey, but I know that every, not everybody likes to write and I have had clients that voice memo journal, that's how they do it. And, um, I find, I mean, I do believe that writing it, there is something that has like, it's an integration piece that comes with the writing, but if that doesn't feel good, voicenoting works too.

Terri: I can't imagine listening back. I can imagine reading a journal back. I can't imagine just going through and really listening to all my voice, just repeating what happened and when, what I was thinking, but that's a good idea. I hadn't, I hadn't even thought of doing it that way. Yeah. 

Shaina: And I don't think you necessarily have to listen back to it, but it's about just verbalizing whatever's there in the moment. Yeah. 

Terri: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, you've given me some great, great ideas. Well you have given, given the listeners such great ideas. Yeah. The mirror work, the journaling, the gratitude, the morning routine. I can appreciate that. 

Um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for all of those. 

Shaina: Yeah. You're so welcome 

Terri:  before we say goodbye then just a couple of, couple of questions that I'm going to ask. You're my very first guest so, um, I'm going to start asking the guests these two questions at the end. 

So the first one is what food do you find most pleasurable? 

Shaina: Right now it's nectarines. My daughter and I are eating multiple nectarines a day. 

Terri:  Amazing, amazing. That good, good fruits. We get those in limited season here, I think.

Um, and then my second question is if you were to leave the listeners with one final thought, one last set of words of wisdom, what would you.....? Oh, if I put you on the spot, 

Shaina: wow. Yourself, like give yourself permission to do the deeper work. When you can shift those internal core negative beliefs, that is where you will see the most shifts in your life.

Terri:  Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Um, finally then tell everybody where we can find you, uh, give us your socials and the website. 

Shaina:  Yeah. So you can find me on my website, which is shainagadow.com and I am also on Instagram @shainagadow. 

Terri:  Amazing. Thank you. I'll put it all in the show notes anyway, but, um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for spending time talking to me. We had a bit of a Rocky start didn't we were the time mix up, but, um, it's been amazing. 

Shaina:  Such a pleasure. I'm so grateful to have been on. 

Terri:  Oh, thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, thank you very much. Thank you, 

Honestly, uh, how brilliant was that conversation? There are so many things that I took from that.

Um, I really hope that you enjoyed it, and I really hope that there were some things that she said in there that have resonated with you, and I hope there's things that you'll maybe take forward. Uh, that is it for this week. 

See, none of my waffle, none at all. Um, I will speak to you next week. Have a good one.

Bye .