S6 EP11: Ev's Story - Change Is Hard, But Worth It!

Ev Foster joins us this week for a wonderful and raw conversation about the power of change! Many of us think we have to settle for what we have in our relationships, our jobs, but most of us have a choice. Ev went through a tough divorce with 4 x children and soon after started a business, that she eventually walked away from, again, because she made a choice! It didn't feel right and was causing stress, anxiety, and debt! Below is Ev's website and details about her book too!

https://changestartswithchoice.co.uk/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Welcome to another episode of Well That Fucked Me Up. I am your host, Luke Colson, and today we're joined by Ev Foster. Hi Ev. Hi, how are you? I'm great. We were just discussing offline. You are calling in from Glasgow. Is that correct in Scotland?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I am. I am, yes. Sunny, sunny Glasgow today.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

You get you don't get the best of the weather up there, do you, in Glasgow? No, we do not.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

No, we do not.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah. Um thank you very much for coming on the show to talk to us. Every week we have a guest who comes on and we discuss surviving life-changing events and experiences. That can be anything from stuff you've gone through as a kid or in the middle of your life or now, or can be um physical, can be injury, can be emotional, can be to do with your job, relationships, really, you know, life's ups and downs, trials and tribulations. And then we like to focus on the journey, you know, how we got through it, where we are today, what's going on. So, Ev, with that, where would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Oh goodness. Um, well, probably all of the above has happened at some point in my life. Um, uh not as a child, I have to say, fairly comfortable, you know, upbringing, etc. Um, I guess probably the biggest blow-up was um going through divorce um with four young with four four young children, which um was quite hard work. And then kind of whilst going through that, losing my business. So that was a bit of a period in my life where it was kind of a double dunt of nastiness that had to be faced.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Well, let's I mean, it's funny this podcast, because it's like let's find the grossest part of your life and then let's talk about that. And because we're all here, right? We're all here, we've survived. Yeah, right. So this is pop this podcast is more about survival, but everyone, everyone I know is going through or gone through something, right? And some people go through multiple things, and really just we're just trying to talk about it because there's so many people suffering in silence, and so many people not realizing that you can ask for help, um, and also that it's gonna be okay. It's like when we're kids, like when I remember when I had my teenager, when I had my first heartbreak, you know, you're like you've that feeling is like, I don't think I'm gonna survive, and then you think maybe it's never gonna be as bad as that again, but then we get thrown things through our lives where that feeling comes back of like I feel absolutely horrible, like within every pore of my body, and we don't think we're gonna we don't think we're gonna get through it, but we do so. Tell us about the divorce. I'm divorced eight years ago now, with two two boys, and they were young at the time, but then they're teenagers now, and they're here, you know. So it's rough, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I mean, I think it's rough when I mean my situation was I had a very abundant lifestyle, you know, financially, kind of free. Um, as I said, four four of them, you know, they were kind of six to eleven at the time, and um, I felt really guilty about not being happy. That was my my first kind of challenge was why am I not happy? What what is wrong with me? Um, and you know, my my my husband, uh the kid's dad, was a good provider, etc. etc. But you know, I hit 40 and I kind of said, this is not for me. This is I just you know, I need something different, I need something more. And I mean, I never talk about the details of the marriage, that's not fair, but you know, but I then I had real guilt because you know, I I had these four kids that were looking at mum and dad, and there was no shouting, there was no, it was just it was uh a lot of it was on me, right? Um, and now, you know, what's that 14 years later, they um they can't remember their dad and I being together. Wow, so I had a real guilt about, yeah, it's just it's amazing. I had guilt about you know destroying their lives, never mind. So it was kind of like just put up and shut up, Pev. You know, that's just what you're gonna have to do, as a lot of people do. And um yeah, it it's so but now they they cannot in fact some of them are like, oh mum, we we we we understand why you didn't stay with dad, you know. Um, and you know, it's kind of it's quite funny now because they're they're all in their twenties, you know, and uh it's it's quite funny.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

It that's the other thing as well, like kids grow up, right? I went through, I was a child of divorced parents in my teens, and uh for me it was like thank god, you know, they were they were all that was awful. The last few years was really had a bad had an effect on me and my brother, and then for me, I've I had the same, I was going through some stuff mentally and had a drink and drug problem, and you know that I felt the shame and the guilt around that and wishing it could have been different. Now I realise that what I had to go through that, and the children are just you know what my their mum lives around the corner here, and the co-parenting is amazing, and we all hang out at times and have dinners, and and the children are happier for it, but at the time that feeling of again going back to that I don't want to put the kids through it. Well, the kids would have been worse off if we'd have all stayed together, and so it while it feels selfish, it isn't because we've all got we've got one life, haven't we? One shot.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

100% I couldn't agree more, and I think you know the the kids have seen me be to be become a much happier person um and kind of rediscover myself, I think, you know. Um I think I'm a big, big believer that change, I mean I wrote a book called Change Starts with Choice, you know, and I think sometimes we have to, you know, the the choices we make, if if we want change, we have to make difficult choices. And at the time, sometimes they don't make sense. Yeah. But if you know, if you absolutely deep down know within yourself that it's the right choice, then it will be the right choice because your intuition normally is really strong and and always right in those scenarios.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I I think, and we'll come to your we'll cut, I'd love to talk about your book as well, but um people are scared to make that choice, aren't they? I think we're ingrained, it feels like such a leap. I mean, I know people who are going through it now, divorce or separation, and and I know people that are together, they don't like each other. That they I mean, almost they despise each other, you know, and there's children in the in the middle of that, and those children are acting out, and you know, it's easy to say, oh, they're acting out because they're in a toxic environment. Now, you could happily you could be happily married and give your kids everything and they still act out, but I don't think you're giving anyone a chance from a child perspective by having them in the middle of that that toxic environment. It's not healthy, it's not healthy for the people in the relationship and it's not healthy for the kids that are seeing that relationship, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Well, I think it forms their their kind of expectation of relationships in the future. You know, if they're if they're growing up in that kind of environment and and thinking, you know, well, this is just what marriage is like. No, actually, it's not. You know, a happy marriage is not the toxic and should not be about bad energy or you know, it it you know, but kids soak that up because they don't know any better. Yeah, so you know, I think um definitely it it whilst hard at the time, it was it was absolutely I have no regrets about it from the kid from the kids' point, you know, from from I didn't ruin their lives, yeah. And uh we're all much happier um since for for doing it, you know. Like like you, we you know, we we get together for birthdays, and you know, we have um uh my ex is about to to get married again this year, and I'm getting married again, and you know, it's uh life is life is good. But at the time it was like you know, let me just crawl under a doo-view and disappear, and and you know, I don't want um anybody to know really. I mean, I hid it for about four years how unhappy I was because of expectation round about me, yeah, you know, and and um that kind of you know, this perfect life, um which it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, it's funny from the outside as well, and people think that that having money and luxury buys you should bring you the happiness, but every like we now know that happiness comes from within, right? And if you're happy in yourself, that you don't really need you don't really need much else. That's where like true true happiness comes from, you know. Um I hid it by drinking, and that was awful because I just was in turmoil, and I just I wasn't capable at that point in my life of understanding what was going on with me mentally and realizing that I felt trapped and I wanted to get the fuck out, but I didn't know how. So for me, it was just I'm self-medicating, and it just got all it just got terrible. So that's all behind us now. We've worked through that, and then tell us about the business because it sounds like that happened at the same time, and that's like a double header, isn't it? We just had a guest on who similarly had a diagnosis at the exact same time he lost his job, and these things seem to like just like punch you in the face on the left and then on the right, and then yeah, it's double trouble.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, it is, and I think it's you know, I'm I do I do believe and I do believe the universe doesn't give you any, you know, gives you things that you can cope with, even although they're hard at the time. But I had set up the business when my youngest went to school, and um, you know, I thought that was going to fix everything, of course. Um, the root of the problem was not the marriage or me, it was this that I was a little bit bored, etc. So I set up a ladies' gym um fitness, and it was great. Um, it was, you know, it helped a lot of people, but financially it wasn't really wasn't really serving me. So, of course, when divorce happened and I was then on my own, it was like, oh shit, this is not this is not paying me enough money per month to pay all the things I need to pay. Yeah, so um I kept it going for another three, four years and got myself into a huge amount of debt to keep everybody else's mortgage paid and rent paid. And again, it was that guilt of, and I didn't want anybody, particularly I guess my ex saying, I told you so, you shouldn't have done that, you know, blah blah blah. And um I kept it going far too long till one day it was like I can't, I can't, this pressure is just immense. By that point, that was probably four years after out the out the the marriage. That's like you know, I was happy, but then the business, it was just this weight on my shoulders, and you know, I think um you know, I use the acronym for crisis being circumstances requiring immediate shift in strategy. And at that point, it was crisis, it was complete crisis mode. So, what do you do? You have to shift your strategy, yeah. Um and that's what I did.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

That's like it's it's just two things, right? So, like with the marriage, it's like admitting, it's kind of like admitting defeat, and with the business, it's kind of like admitting defeat if you look at it that way. But the choice to stop and make a change is the thing that needs to happen because it becomes suffocating, right? And you think when you've got your own business, oh, this is the freedom I need, this is the thing that's gonna make make me happy again, and it turns out to be the biggest burden in the world, and you can't see a way out, right? So, how hard was that for you to make that decision?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

It it was really hard. Uh, it was um so it was it was a franchise kind of gym business I was in, so um it was very difficult for me to get out of it. Um, but I I I managed to. Um, and I actually passed the gym over to the girl who was managing the gym for me at the time, uh, thinking, you know, and I thought she can run with it, not the franchise costs, you know, etc. etc. One wage down, i.e. mine, you know. Um, and she did she did it for a year or so, but it just it just wasn't the right model to to make money for anybody. But so I had to go and find a job. So I had to find a job because I had to take out a loan to then pay off all the credit cards and the debt and things that I had.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I know how that feels. Debt debt is another thing, isn't it? We can talk about that in a minute, but that's that's a horrible thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, it was well, it was really hard. I mean, I think well, actually, the other the other thing I had to do at that point was because I'd four kids under 16, good old benefit system in Scotland, I actually would have qualified for a lot of benefits. So the day that I got the the offer of my job, I also got a benefits letter, and the two the salary and the benefits were the same amount.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So I was like, oh god, you know, like again, it's a choice, right? But for me, there was no choice because I didn't want my children seeing mum not working and uh having actually I didn't want to be mum with no purpose, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

No passion, nothing, you know, it just wasn't my personality. So I took the job. Um and it came with a company car and you know, different things, yeah, excuse me, and um yeah, it wow I I did it for a year, hated every minute of it, yeah, um, absolutely detested it, but it gave me enough to pay off the debts and clear my feet and then start again, again.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Oh, start again, again, yeah. I mean, that's tough, isn't it? It's like these these choices we make, and it's we don't know, do we? We don't know when we're embarking on these journeys how they're going to end. And I think for you being able to make like make that realization of like what's not making me happy, I'm gonna I'm gonna change it, I'm gonna fix it because I've spent same, I've spent so much of my life doing what I thought other people wanted me to do, or people pleasing, or this is the path I should be taking, or this is the optics that look the best outwardly. Who gives a shit now? I'm like, I don't give a crap what people think about me. What I'll make the decision for me, for my purposes, for the also for the benefit of my children, you know, they're their priority for me. And so, same. It's like this isn't making me happy, or this friendship isn't making me happy, or this relationship isn't making me happy, or this job isn't making me happy. I'm gonna make some changes. So let's talk about the book, because it sounds like all of this life experience went into you thinking, well, hold on a second, what I've learned can probably help some people here.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, I mean, people kept saying, you know, if I was helping somebody, because my business, you know, is sort of mentoring people in business, and you know, and and people would say to me, Oh my goodness, I didn't realise you'd gone through that, you know. Um, you should write a book. And this went on for a few years until I thought, do you want I actually I'm gonna write a book? But but with my stories in it, but with the the whole it follows the the the um transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. And I think some of the things that you've described and and I talk about is we all go through that chrysalis moment where we just want to be cocooned, we want to be absolutely cocooned in something. Um, and that's what we do before change happens, right? Yeah, so the book is kind of filled with stories of things that I've been through in these moments where I had to deconstruct to reconstruct, but just as a guide for people to know that it it you can change it, you can transform and it will get better. Um, but only if you take the action. Yes. If you sit in a situation where you're not happy and you realize you said friendship or job or relationship or something is not making you happy, it's never going to make you happy unless you make a change. So you either have to change your attitude to it or you have to change your circumstance. You have to take yourself out of that of that circumstance.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

100%. Sometimes changing your attitude is important is not impossible, nothing's impossible, right? But sometimes changing your perspective is like the hardest thing in the world because you're so used to being in the perspective that you're in. Do you know what I mean? So for me, if I'm not enjoying something, I've tried to change my outlook on it or change my perspective on it. But if something's got me, something's got me triggered to the point where I think this doesn't feel good, I rarely find the ability to get out of it. So my my go-to is like, well, that I'm I'm stopping that. This I need to change. Like this is this isn't working, or this thing that I thought I liked doing, I don't like it anymore. And I think that's fine, isn't it? It's like what we shouldn't be we shouldn't, especially us, you know, when we're not 30 years old anymore, right? Is the nice way of saying it. I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life doing things that I thought made me happy when when I'm doing them, I'm not happy. I'm gonna just not do them or I'm gonna change or I'm gonna find something else. You know, not talking necessarily about even the bigger pictures, like the jobs and the relationships, just in life. Like again, that for me that comes out of your people-pleasing thing as well. Like, I need to make decisions for me.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think there's certain things, like for example, I hate going to the gym, okay, but I love the way I feel once I've been to the gym. So for me, I I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go, ah, do you know what? I'm just not gonna go to the gym because I know how it makes me feel and I know that I need it to strengthen and and all the rest of it. So I think there's certain things that we have to do because because we then we like the way they make us feel, or we know that they they are for our benefit, right? But if you're in a situation, I mean I wouldn't stay in a relationship and and haven't uh until my current one, um that you know, kind of going, oh well, do you know it'll be okay if you know I'll or I'll be happy when dot dot dot or I'll be happy if he does this, or I'll be happy if he stops that. No, it's on you. Just you know, you either you either put up with whatever it is that's not making you happy and make that decision, or you change it and you move out and you you move on. And that sounds really harsh, but it just but I like that. Uh the older I get, the more I think no, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna waste another minute on on something that is not not making me happy.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Um and you know what is happy? This is the thing, it's a question that you know uh my happy now is changed from when I was 25.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Like, you know, um my happy now is I like my own company. I like to to take some time just to sit and do nothing. Um 25, I was, you know, your party girl. But you know, it was like every every party that you know, if I didn't get an invite, I'd be pissed off because you know, why why's I'm not getting an invite out every night? But no, that doesn't interest me anymore. Yeah. Um, and quite a lot of times I'll say no to invitations because I don't want to go. Yeah, and I don't feel the need to have to go.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Same. I don't feel the need to make excuses that you're not going. It's just like, oh, I'm not yeah, no, thanks for the invite. But yeah, that's so funny. I'm just gonna thanks, but no, I used to make the effort, I'd trek across town and I'd be like, oh, that person, you know, I owe them. You know, they were they were at my birthday party seven years ago or something. Uh people I haven't barely spoken to, you know. And I'll arrive there and no one else has arrived there on time. And I'm like, what am I doing here? Like, I don't want to be here. I had other things I'd rather be doing. I'd rather be at a movie watching, so I'd rather be at home watching TV. And now I'm what am I doing? So now, so it's certainly those like bigger social like uh invites. I'm like, oh no, you know, it's like someone's the other day said to me, Oh, I've joined this great club where you go out for dinner with people you've never met before. And I said, I would rather gouge my own eyes. I don't need any, I don't need any more. You know, I've got long-term girlfriend, like she's you know, but we've been together for seven years, six, seven years. She got two boys, my two boys are friends with her, two boys. You know, we have a great relationship. My I got two two solid, three solid guy friends. I have a great job that I love, and I love everyone that works there. And I've got my boys who are teenagers. I think you could meet Sandra and Phil.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah, but you know what? Some people might, some people might need that, and that's absolutely that's absolutely cool, right? I mean, I'm like you. I I I um have I I did say once to somebody, don't don't come and sit next to me and speak to me and because you're not gonna be my friend. Uh it was a school scenario. I said, because I have too many people in my life at the moment that I can't even be friends, I can't be friends with. Um so go go and speak to somebody else. I don't mean to be rude, but I am not going to be, I can't, I can't give you any more of my time. Oh my goodness, I get absolutely slated for it by my friends.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

And I said, I said, but you could can you not understand why I said it? You and I don't gotta spend enough time together. Why would I want somebody else in?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

It's funny, isn't it? You know what's some people love like just like that engagement and small talk with people, right? And I think I'm one of I don't mind a good sort of chit chat with people in the line at the security at the airport. But my girlfriend's like, why are you talking to those people? You know, or like we'll be on a sun lounge or on holiday, and you know, the person next to me would be like, Hey, hi, so how where are you from? And she'll just like kick me in the leg. Like, yeah, if you ignore them, they'll find some more people to be friends with, you know. And she's got a perfect point, but it's not what's what's to come of it? What was doing, what we're doing? We've gone on holiday to spend some nice time together, get some peace and quiet away from the four children. I don't want, you know, but nothing set in stone though. We went on one holiday and we actually met this couple who were brilliant fun, and we went out two or three evenings with them and got never saw them again, you know. But but that was fine. It was like a it was like a circumstantial, like you know, in the olden days, you'd go in the olden days, you go on holiday, and you'd some, you know, you'd make you make you meet these people, they would think they would be your friends for the rest of your life, right? You'd have bonds with people. It's like it's funny, but it's just that's fine too. Like change, change is okay. It's it's you have you have to realize that it's okay, change is okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, and you've got to be okay with change, and you've also got to be okay with sometimes feeling a bit uncomfortable because you know that's when you know that your things are changing and things are growing, you know. And I I think um, I mean, going back to the holiday thing, just it's you're making me laugh because when when um I always would say to my partner now, don't speak to anybody, because if somebody's coming to speak to us, it's probably because they're not getting on and they don't want to spend any time with each other and they want us, they want our energy. So don't give them our energy because we're happy to spend time together, you know. But some people it's not like that, but um, but yeah, no, I mean being uncomfortable um is okay because it is that kind of taking you you know your brains going, Oh, this doesn't feel safe, and this this, you know, I I want to go back to what what I know and what feels safe and what what you know I've done for so I know it's maybe not what I want, but it's just kind of what I know, and and yeah, yeah, change doesn't come um it doesn't come easy to some people because it's easier just staying stuck.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. So tell us just to wrap up, tell us about the book. How long did that take? How do you write a book? How does how does how did that happen? How did that come about?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Um, so it was in my head for for for a long time, and I think because I was writing about stories that that had happened, it becomes easier because you know they're just stories that you tell. But then as I was writing it, the the kind of butterfly, I love butterflies, and I've always loved the whole kind of transformation and you know, the whole kind of you know, caterpillar to butterfly. It it's it's a it's a privilege for a caterpillar to become a butterfly because not most of them don't survive. So I just kind of combined the two. It was a wee bit, I guess, of a a moment in quiet time, just thinking this could be the thing that pulls it together. And um, I dictated a lot of it because you know, like if I was driving, a thought came in my head, I would, you know, stick on my and and dictate it and then get it, you know, get it written later. So it took me about 14 months. Um, and then it was published last December. Wow. So it's um and and you know, in fact, today I get two messages from people um who who know me from social media saying that they they they they really got a lot from it. Um, you know, they hadn't realized what I'd been through, and um it really helped them, and that's all I wanted it for. You know, it wasn't to make loads of money from it, it wasn't anything, it was to just let people know the whole thing that make a choice and yeah, you know, change can happen. Amazing, and it's okay, you will be okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

And tell us the name of the book again and where we can find it.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Uh change starts with choice, and um, I've got a website of the same name, you can find it on Amazon. Um, in fact, Amazon in in the States, there's quite a few reviews about it because a lot of my business is done over there, so it's quite um, yeah, that's which is quite nice to see. But yeah, it's it's out there, um, and hopefully it will just help people change their life if that's what they choose to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

We'll make sure that we have the link in the show notes. So we'll uh if you're listening to the episode, go to the show notes and click on it, and we'll have your website on there as well. And then I think you said you were getting married again. When's that? When's the big day? What's happening there?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Um probably next year. Yeah. Um, we we we did have a venue booked, but we've changed our mind. We've made the choice.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Um you made the choice. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Oh, well, yeah. So, and again, it was one of those, you know, saying to my my lovely, lovely fiance, um, I'm not cancelling the marriage. I'm just can't wanting to cancel the venue and the wedding, not the marriage, you know. Um you know, he was kind of like, oh right, okay. Yeah, um, it just didn't sit, it just didn't sit.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

It just didn't sit with me. You had a bad feeling.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

I just had to just map my intuition. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

All right, amazing. Well, good luck, stay in touch, and thank you so much for coming on and sharing your uh wonderful story with us. This has been amazing, Eve.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Thank you so much, my pleasure. Thank you.