#171 In this episode, Guy talked with Sheila Vijeyarasa. Sheila discussed the journey of discovering and nurturing her spiritual gifts, transitioning from a corporate career to becoming an author and transformation mentor. She shared key moments from her spiritual awakening, the challenges of embracing her truth, and the profound impact of her book ‘Brave.’ The conversation covered the importance of courage, intuition, and the constant pursuit of authenticity in one’s life.
If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Living Life Fearlessly | Anita Moorjani
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About Sheila: Sheila has mastered the art of blending two diametrically opposite careers: she is a corporate leader as well as a spiritual teacher and mentor, medium and psychic reader. She holds an MBA and has fifteen years’ experience in publishing and media preceded by a foundation of eight years’ experience in chartered accounting and banking. She was also the CFO of a global publishing company.
Sheila is the founder of Empowering Intuition. Her natural mediumistic and psychic abilities were passed down through multiple generations in her family, and she cultivated those skills at the prestigious Arthur Findlay College. She immersed herself in learning reiki and multiple mindfulness techniques at Esalen with Dr Shauna Shapiro, and studied bhakti yoga and the Vedic teachings of Kripalu Maharaj. She was taught by world-renowned medium James Van Praagh at The Omega Institute and studied executive coaching and NLP with Tad James Co.
►Audio Version:
Key points with time stamp:
- (00:00) – Finance Director Turned Psychic Medium — I Hid My Truth Until It Nearly Destroyed Me!
- (00:45) – Republishing the Podcast: A New Beginning
- (01:26) – Meet Sheila: A Journey of Transformation
- (05:12) – Defining Mediumship: Connecting with the Other Side
- (09:26) – From Finance Director to Spiritual Awakening
- (12:22) – The Dark Night of Courage: Embracing Spirituality
- (19:59) – Discovering Mediumship: A New Path
- (23:27) – Arthur Finlay College: The Hogwarts of Mediumship
- (25:44) – Starting the Journey: Setting Up a Website
- (26:26) – First Steps into the Public Eye
- (27:17) – Embracing Psychic Abilities
- (29:05) – Developing Intuition and Psychic Skills
- (34:02) – Writing and Publishing a Book
- (41:44) – Morning Routines and Personal Insights
- (44:58) – Final Thoughts and Future Plans
How to Contact Sheila Vijeyarasa:
www.sheilav.co
About me:
My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en
My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co
TRANSCRIPT
Sheila: [00:00:00] I didn’t even realize how miserable I was because we’ve become addicted to misery and pain. We find ways to be passionate about things that we aren’t as a coping mechanism. We can scale up big mountains and and do really big adventures physically. Yet it takes real courage to speak of truth and to live your truth. There’s another type of mediumship that we don’t really talk about, and this is affects a lot more people, especially with the awakening. That the planet’s gone through since 2012, and that’s being a medium where you connect with high vibrational entities and beings, and you might be a channel for wisdom, and that kind of mediumship is where people start to speak Inspirationally.
Guy: The episode you’re about to watch has been republished. My podcast channel reaches a lot more people now and there’s certain episodes that have slipped under the radar and I wanted to bring them up for your attention ’cause I truly feel they are worth listening to. [00:01:00] So please be sure, let me know where you think of this episode in the comments below.
And of course, let’s continue to connect. Let me know where you are in the world and where you’re listening and tuning in from. Uh, I love reading it. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that we can do this. And the other thing I wanna say as well is find out where we are. If you wanna put your spiritual boots on and come and join us at one of our five day retreats or one day events around the world, links are below as well. If you wanna find out more what we’re up to. Much love from me. Enjoy.
Guy: Sheila, welcome to the podcast.
Sheila: Thank you. God, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Guy: I’m, I’m genuinely very excited for this conversation today and just to put a little bit of context into how this come about for people listening as well. ’cause I have your book right here, brave. And, uh, and judging by the color is, honestly, it’s not the book I would pick up initially as a man. Okay. But having met you and had a conversation and you gifted the book to me to check it out, and we were just chatting and I just [00:02:00] knew you were coming on the podcast as soon as I met you, I dunno what it was and everything you do anyway, long story short. Um, my wife clocked the book that was sitting on the coffee table, so she would start picking it up and she’s like, oh, this looks great.
What’s this? And then she started reading it to Ava every evening and, and I would be sitting there. So I was hearing the stories coming out as each chapter went by and we were about a third of the way through, but I just wanted to let you know that. So it’s actually had a real impact on our household. So I was very excited to have this conversation today ’cause you’ve been on one hell of a journey and, uh. I have no doubt you’re gonna inspire many people. So before we get into the book anyway, I always ask everyone right now, if you were at a intimate dinner party and you sat next to a stranger and they asked you what you did for a living right now, what would you say?
Sheila: Right now, I’d say I’m an author ’cause I’m just become an author. I’m an author, I’m a transformation mentor, and I’m a medium. [00:03:00] And how I do that. You know, I think I’m a bit of a magician sometimes because I do really stand for transforming people’s lives.
Guy: Mm-hmm.
Sheila: Because I was stuck in mine for so long and I was miserable, and I didn’t even realize how miserable I was because we’ve become addicted to misery and pain. We don’t realize it. I didn’t anyway. And so, yeah, that’s what I do. I’m, I’m, I’m a real advocate, passionate about transforming people’s lives into the life they want. Into the, into the life they dream for.
Guy: Yeah. And it, it’s definitely a courageous step to, to take that to, to, I guess start owning it and moving forward. I’m always intrigued as well, because I’m sure you’d get different reactions depending on the person sitting next to you when you say something like that. Especially the last word you mentioned, which was medium and. I’m, I’m like, I’m, I’m, I’m open as like, I, I love this work. I love exploring this, but what kind of reactions do you get, get from that when you say that now? Because I’m, [00:04:00] I’m sure there’s a part in your life where you weren’t saying that and now you are. So you’ve been on this transition yourself.
Sheila: There was a part of my life, I was completely hiding this part of myself. And I think there’s a lot of, maybe listeners here who have these abilities that are scared to talk about it, to own up to having them, um, to, to confused by them. So I had all those feelings for many years, and then I had my awakening. And so to answer your question, how do people react? Some people are just so intrigued by it because they believe in the other side. They may have had their own, um, experiences with, um, paranormal experiences or just experiences with spirits or ancestors, you know, or signs and synchronicity from the universe.
So they’re like, oh, there’s someone I can talk to about this, who’s not gonna think I’m crazy. There’s some people that, um, are interested but probably sit on the fence and, and it just. Ask questions more pragmatically, and there are nonbelievers and, and, and the nonbelievers. You know, [00:05:00] I’m okay with nonbelievers. My dad’s a nonbeliever, so that’s okay to be a nonbeliever. I, I, I always think, just ask questions and get curious, and then at least you can have a good standpoint on something.
Guy: Yeah. Beautiful. And how would you define mediumship just to get clarity on it while we’re on this class?
Sheila: You know, I, I’m a medium who speaks to souls on the other side who have passed over who had a human ex incarnation, um, you know, for my clients. So, so they, these, these souls I speak to that have, that have passed over, um, have had a human form. That’s one form of mediumship. And when I tune into that dimensional realm, it’s a heavier realm as a medium. And we call ourself evidential mediums. ’cause when you speak to the soul on the other side, you need evidence to prove, are you grandmother, grandfather?
A name. What did you love? Describe your relationship with the client sitting in front of me. So it’s called evidential mediumship, but there’s another type, [00:06:00] type of mediumship that we don’t really talk about, and this is affects a lot more people, especially with the awakening that the planet’s gone through since 2012. And, and we’ve, a lot of people have had spiritual awakening since COVID, and that’s being a medium where you connect with high vibrational. Uh, entities and beings, and you might be a channel for wisdom. And that kind of mediumship is where people start to speak inspirationally. They start to like do podcasts, they start to write books, they start to do, um, you know, posts on Facebook and, and, and you might have the experience of inspiration.
So you, in spirit, you’re connected to a spirit of a high vibration. So that kind of mediumship is just a high vibrational type of mediumship from a very high dimension. And there’s a lot of angels. High vibrational light beings, interstellar beings. I’m getting a little weird now, so hopefully you, you, you’re, you’re that, that’s okay. It’s a conversation.
Guy: We can all nod our head in
Sheila: agreement or not. We, you know, I used to be a finance director. We’ll come to [00:07:00] this. So I’ve had a very incredible part of my life. So, um, it hasn’t always been woo woo, uh, and so this type of mediumship, a lot more people have access to, and a word you could use for it as being an oracle. Wow, you’re being an oracle for higher wisdom and guidance and that we shouldn’t shun from that. That is true service and a lot of mentors and coaches, healers are, are oracles from, from high vibrational, um, um, beings.
Guy: That’s, yeah, that’s something else. Now I’m curious as well, and I, I think back in my own life as well, but did you have insight? Your whole life with this and just suppressed it, or is this something true? ’cause you mentioned awakening as well that just started to come online from an awakening. What happened?
Sheila: So, I, I have a, I have one vivid memory when I was very young and I was crying, I was inconsolable. And the only reason why I remember this memory is because my dad didn’t really, [00:08:00] uh, h hug us or hold our hands. And I have a memory where my mother and father were holding my, each hold held a hand, my left hand, and my right hand, and they were walking me around the house and I couldn’t stop crying. It, it went for a long period of time, and for, and my, my memory of that is I saw something in my room, I saw a spirit and I just, I was in overwhelm and I was so scared.
And it’s a really common experience with a lot of the teachers, a lot of the students I teach that they shut down after an experience like that. And so I shut down from my strong clairvoyance and, and seeing spirits from, from the age of about three or four, however. I believe intuition always gets through the cracks, and so I had, it’s in my book, a couple of experiences I share where I’ve had such strong knowings, I’ve had premonitions in dreams and it’s got stronger as I’ve gotten older and, and I’ve trusted it more.
So the psychic, if you wanna call it, or intuitive [00:09:00] experiences I’ve had, have always been there. It comes through perhaps in times of crisis. It comes through in times of emotion, elevated emotional states, deep grief, sadness, or euphoria, because I think in those states we’re very present. When we’re, when we are very present, the in we, we can speak to our higher self, we can speak to our spirit guides. So I think intuition’s always there. It just, we vacillate in and out of that state.
Guy: Yeah. And you mentioned finance, did, did you say finance director?
Sheila: Yeah. Yep.
Guy: Right, so.
Sheila: Very rational and logical, uh, part of my mind exists too, right?
Guy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what, because if I’m not mistaken, Sri Lankan’s your background. Is that correct? And did, were you born in Sri Lanka or, or elsewhere? No,
Sheila: I was born in Sydney. My parents were born in Malaysia and they hadn’t arranged marriage. And my dad migrated to Australia in 1975. So my dad’s a, a doctor, and my mother comes from a very intuitive line of women. So I feel like [00:10:00] I’m a true product of two very different people.
Guy: Ah, wow, amazing. And do you think, how much affected you? So when you, when you became a finance director, and I only saw this, ’cause obviously I work with a lot of people and, and we get a lot of people getting to that point in their life, especially late thirties, early forties. Like, oh my God, what have I done with my life?
I’ve been down going this career path and it’s not serving me. You know, and, and everything starts to break down. When you were a finance director, was that, did that. At one point feel like you’re calling and you and you were actually loving it, or was there always a push to get you in that direction or expectation from other people? I don’t know.
Sheila: Truthfully, it didn’t feel like a calling, but it served me. Okay. And I know it wasn’t a calling because I wasn’t passionate about it. Uh, and a lot of women, and this is why I wrote my book, ’cause we find ways to be passionate about things that we aren’t as, as a coping mechanism. So I convinced myself the money was important, the job title was important.[00:11:00] I found an industry that I was aligned with, but fundamentally. Following this path, and I did an MBA and I got to the C-suite as a finance director. And fundamentally I was walking Wow. My, my father’s path or, or a path conditioned by my culture, which was, you don’t, you don’t enjoy your career. You, you just become very successful.
And, you know, I chose a career where I got a scholarship to university. I didn’t. And, and because I got a scholarship, I just chose that degree. I didn’t think, gosh, what does, what would make my heart sing? Mm-hmm. What would I love to do? And the only reason. Even if I ask myself those questions all those years ago, guy, I don’t even think I could have answered it. And I think it’s a real failing of that education system so many years ago was that I didn’t know myself. And so I love what I’m seeing now with the youthful generation coming through. Raised by conscious parents that are helping the children find their way home to themselves. ’cause I didn’t have that.
So for me, I had a career path that was not my own path. I walked my culture’s path, my family’s path, [00:12:00] society, my, my friends around me were all very successful. You know, when you’re successful, you surround yourself by other successful people. And before you know it, this group think you’re all thinking the same. Right. And there’s an abandoning of yourself in that process just to belong. We all wanna belong.
Guy: Mm.
Sheila: And so I belonged with these different tribes for many years, and then I got lost. And I talk about it in my book in this, in the um, chapter called The Dark Night of Courage, because I personally believe when we lose ourself enough, the universe does a big course correction and it manifests as a crisis.
Guy: Yeah, I agree. I absolutely agree with that. So who, who are you were a finance director for? ’cause you mentioned that you were, you were kind of in alignment, but not in the roles you were
Sheila: doing. Yes. So I found an industry I loved, I worked in publishing for many years, so I was a finance director at Simon and Schuster, and then I was a deputy finance director for a different publishing house. So the universe helped me along. To bring me slowly in alignment with where I was going, which would be eventually to write a [00:13:00] book. You know, I was a, a bit of a shadow artist. I was surrounded by all these authors wishing I could be one myself secretly. So it’s, it, it’s, I, I, and I write about it in the second chapter of my book that quite often, all the crumbs in our life.
Add up to make sense later. And so we kind of, you, you might ask me, was I doing my calling? Perhaps in some way I was being guided to finally end up doing work that was very much in line with my purpose and perhaps for many years I was just training.
Guy: Wow. There’s a lot to be said about that, isn’t it? I always remember, uh, reading Richard Branson’s original autobiography when I was going through my own transition. ’cause he was such a, he’s such a great guy. But he always talked about as well, and I think Tony Robbins, but proximity and being in the areas. 11, not necessarily. Um, doing the very thing, but that proximity itself is, is gonna have major impact over time, you know, which sounds like is happening. So for you then, [00:14:00] if you’re in that proximity, you’re, you’re kind of in alignment.
When did the cracks start appearing go in and the soul, your soul self wanting to come through more or you knew that the, the changes were coming?
Sheila: Yeah, so the changes happened far before the actual, I think, formal awakening and, you know, I was a perfectionist, so. Mm-hmm. Whatever the thing you are that doesn’t serve you, that will be the source of the, the crisis. So I was a perfectionist and I opened my, my book with this chapter where I was working in a publishing house and 50 Shades of Gray was being published. This was a book that had great visibility. It was a book that globally was in the media every day. Uh, for weeks on end, we sold 120 million copies.
Guy: That’s
Sheila: insane. One of the best selling books of all time. And I was working at Random House Publishing at that time and I was responsible for stock management. Huh. So we, we, you know, this is something we don’t wanna get wrong, you know, and, and for some reason in Australia, we were really selling a lot of copies of this book, um, per capita.[00:15:00]
Um, and so we couldn’t afford to run outta stock. It would take two months to get stock to a port in Sydney from overseas. And so we were working, working on very difficult lead times. And I remember sitting with the sales director trying to forecast something that was an outlier. It was a freak of nature, right? And we forecasted to bring in a significant quantity on a ship. A week later, we’d get the sales data through to indicate to us what the trends were, and a week later, I opened this file and the cells are stopped dead. They just slowed down to kind of a halt because we’d saturated the whole Australian market with this book.
Guy: Wow.
Sheila: Right. So I’m a perfectionist, and I was like, what? How did I get this wrong? This is humiliating. I don’t make mistakes. What will everyone think? And it began the journey of [00:16:00] shame, humiliation, anxiety, depression. And that was for me, a big crisis point where I’d invested everything into my career. At that point, I’d just finished my MBA and my job title and my status meant so much to me and I’d abandoned myself, my personal life, romantic relationships, the things that I loved. And so my career started to dismantle the one thing I held up as very important, and this was the beginning of my spiritual awakening.
Guy: Wow. And were you getting a hard time from the company as well, or were you just giving yourself a hard time?
Sheila: It’s, it’s, it’s reasonable that a company in that situation would ask difficult questions. Right? But when you don’t have, and I didn’t have a balanced mindset about myself, so I saw everything as a crisis. I saw every question and email as I’m terrible person. I’m bad. I had that kind of very linear line of thinking. So definitely there was, [00:17:00] you know, questions we, we, an error had been made. But what’s wrong with errors?
What’s wrong with mistakes? Totally. Even if, even if they’re big. Right? But when you’re a perfectionist, it takes you out of life. So I then had to go on a journey to get myself out of that, of self-inquiry, you know? And then the universe created some big changes in my life. Job changes, job losses, relationships ending, you know, and then very shortly after that, I actually started, I guess I’d already been on my spiritual path for a couple of years studying Buddhism, but I, I have found a guru in India and had a guru for two years after that moment.
Um, wow. Where I started to teach. Yeah. I started to learn Vedic philosophy. Um, the, the mind, you know, the, the goodness of the mind. I started to learn. What the art of detachment is, you know, uh, the karmic impact of our thoughts. It was, it was an initiation into spirituality and I was forced into it. I went searching, went searching for answers.
Guy: Yeah, [00:18:00] totally. So I. How long did that period start to happen? So you said the, the, the straw broke the camel’s back with that, that maneuver. And I remember, I remember, uh, Linda reading that part out loud in the book. I was like, wow, that’s in, that’s incredible. You know, even the whole experience with 50 Shades of Gray. ’cause like you said, it’s such a anomaly. Like how, how
Sheila: it was so visible. Yeah. The world was celebrating the success of this book and yet I, behind Closed Doors was having a crisis about it. Yeah, it was a real polarity of experiences.
Guy: Yeah. So once that started to happen and you start to do, fall into these places, depression, anxiety, and, and these, this, the shame. I mean, there’s such a, such a. Uh, strong and awful. Not, I shouldn’t say awful, but it’s an emotion that’s difficult to deal with when it, when it’s happening, you know, was your perfectionist brain at that time, which is, I’m curious about, like, oh, right, I’ve gotta figure out a way to make this happen. Or were you willing to then slowly just start to, to let go [00:19:00] of the control of what. You pro sounded like you’d been governing in your life to that stage?
Sheila: No, I mean, I needed assistance ’cause the same mind that got me into this problem wasn’t able to get me out. I needed a whole set of new tools like mindset and mastery tools, emotional resilience tools, spiritual tools to allow me to connect back to myself. Source and into intuition. So it wasn’t a quick process. It was a process where I started to work with a therapist, counselors, mentors. Right, right. Yeah. I started to literally go in and start read spiritual books, Ika tole, you know, the Power of Now, like they all became my teachers in a very short space of time.
I did leave that job. And it was the right thing to do to be exited from that job. And that gained another painful experience. But looking back now, it was all perfect because all of these experiences that I was in were no longer in alignment with where I was going.
Guy: It’s incredible, eh, when you know to have that wisdom looking back and. What [00:20:00] I, what I’m curious about as well is when did the mediumship aspect start to, to come into, to play with all this?
Sheila: So it was, it was several years later and by that stage I was in a romantic relationship and I think this resonates with a lot of, a lot of women and men too, where you, I’d self-sacrifice myself so much in this relationship. This was a relationship where my partner at that time had a guru in India, so he was following the guru and I was running after him. So it was one of those kind of comical, he was running after the guru and I was running after him, and it’s like, who’s running after me? So, um, and this story is in the book too.
Uh, that relationship ended because it was not serving me and that, uh, because of that relationship ending i’d, I’d. Become part of all his spiritual groups. You know, I’d, I’d self-sacrifice all of my thoughts and got so into his world where I abandoned myself. So after that breakup, I started to do a whole lot of workshops, um, and I started to seek and search again.
I did a workshop on [00:21:00] intuition and in that workshop. I had my, probably my first formal spiritual experience where the teacher took us into a meditation and I’m naturally very psychic. I come from a very psychic family. So in the first workshop I gave a reading for the lady and she’s like, oh my God, all of this is true. And then I said, I think I’ve got someone here. I think it’s an uncle. He was in the Navy. She’s like, that’s my uncle. So I described him very accurately. And then I didn’t realize there was a difference between being a psychic and a medium. So I came into all this knowledge very quickly. It felt like a spontaneous awakening.
However, it’s just I had a teacher show me how to use these gifts, these abilities. Uh, I had them all the time. And I recall in that moment when, uh, I found, she said to me, you’re a medium and, and you have these abilities. Guy. There was this feeling of I’ve arrived. This is the thing I was looking for my whole life and it, and, and I thought I arrived at the, the end. It was, that was actually the beginning of I’d arrived at the beginning of a new path, [00:22:00] but it was a very, it become the big path that I had to step into.
Guy: Amazing. And when you realized you arrived and, and I can speak on my own and slightly experience here because I’m, I’m always curious then with, with everyone’s journey because there was a moment where I was still in my old world, which was my last company, one 18 nutrition, and I was gonna bed every single night.
’cause I was doing this work more and more and more, having more and more awakenings and there was this massive pull to be doing what I’m doing now. Now with the hindsight of. Five years, looking back when I was in that soup, um, I can see it, but at the time I couldn’t see it. I’m like, how the hell am I gonna get this work out there or this? And I, and I was, there was this huge resistance, but it just kept getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Is that what was happening for you and did you resist when you went, shit, I’ve arrived. Was it a moment like. Oh, fuck, I, I’m gonna put myself out there like this now. Or did you just run with it and
Sheila: No, I hid, I hid from the world for another [00:23:00] three or four years. There you go. Okay. Then my dark, then another Strong dark, and that’s when the Dark Night of Courage, which is in the book happened because, um, oh, we haven’t got to the
Guy: Dark Night of courage
Sheila: yet. We haven’t even got to the dark night. Definitely been crisis, but the dark night is a proper, you know, there’s this Shades of the Dark Night. There’s 50 shades of the Dark Night, if we can describe it that way. I immersed myself in every workshop that I could get my hands on to study psychic development, intuitive development. Wow. And I, I went to the Arthur Finlay College three times in 18 months. And the Arthur Philide College is the college in, in the uk dedicated to the pursuit of the studies of mediumship. It was, it was, uh, founded by John Arthur Finlay and for, it’s, it’s week long courses and you go there and from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM you are channeling dead people. It’s a structured course. Wow. I remember arriving in London. It was cold at night. It was cold, and I ran up with my suitcases with like a cobbled on the cobbled stones and I burst open the doors and I said, is this [00:24:00] the college?
I’m here? And these two prim, proper English lady says, yes, you’re here. Can you close the door? Because I couldn’t believe that I finally made it to this magical, mystical place. It, it, a lot of us call it Hogwarts because it is like Hogwarts college and we sit in, in rooms and, and all, it’s a big castle and we literally do exercises with the tutors and it’s different levels. You get put in a class ranked by your ability, and I went there three times. Because you know it, it is such an immersive learning boot camp experience. Boot camp. Yeah. It’s like bootcamp. I just finished an MBA. I was like, I need to find where the MBAs of the mediumship world are, and this is the college for it.
So I studied, studied, studied, and after the first time I came back from the college, I got back to my job at that time and I said a mantra every day and I was manifesting. And when I got back to Sydney. I’d sit at my computer, I’d turn on my computer, and I’d say to myself, I hate this job. I wish I didn’t have it. I hate this job. I wish I [00:25:00] didn’t have it. And so five weeks later, uh, I was exited from that job. That’s not the whole dark night of courage story, but I’m managed. I’m.
Guy: Were you devastated when they exited you from that job?
Sheila: You know, by that stage I’d had a couple of spiritual mentors where I was Oh, absolutely. My ego was crushed.
Guy: Oh, okay.
Sheila: I was back into this like terror, but not like the other times. This time I was conscious and I knew I was being saved, and I knew it was a sign from the universe. And so with my spiritual teacher, she goes, you’re ready to work now. It’s time to start working as a medium. So the universe took the job away. I had no desire to return at that point in time to my corporate job. And I got, I got busy. I set a website up. I mean, this is way before social media. It’s years ago. Um, I set a website up and I, Facebook was around, but I just started to do little posts. It isn’t, Instagram wasn’t around back then, and it was, I literally just started to say and, and come.
That was the first time I [00:26:00] came out of this. Spiritual closet. And I remember doing a post on Facebook and I went to bed and I thought, I’m gonna wake up. And I, and I couldn’t sleep that night because I thought I’d get trolled. I thought, ’cause no one knew about this part of me. I just finished my MBA. I was a financing person. I was, I had, I’d hidden this a hundred percent and the universe was like, no more hiding, no more. Wow.
Guy: Wow.
Sheila: So I had to start to work. That was the beginning.
Guy: That was the beginning. And at, at what point on that journey were you like a hundred percent in, you know, like you feel comfortable in, in every ’cause meeting you now you’re just ooze this stuff. Like you would never know this journey in a million years that you’ve been on. ’cause it’s just you when I met you. Like it’s just. You know, beaming out of every poor four of you, like, you know, so at what point do you think on that journey then, could you really own it?
Sheila: You know, I dunno if there’s any points there. There’s, there’s a lot of books that are called becoming like even, um, Michelle Obama, I’m pretty sure a book’s called Becoming, [00:27:00] I became this and so every step of the way, I just became more of this version of me and less of the old version of me. So, you know, after I got, uh, lost my job.
Guy: Mm.
Sheila: And set up this, uh, business to work as a medium. My first mentor reached out to me and she said, I think you’re ready to go on psychic tv. To do live readings on Australian television. Wow. And I thought, you are mad. There’s no way I’m doing it. She goes, no, you’re ready and you’d be perfect. So I said, okay, you know, put me forward thinking. They’d say no, or it’s six months away.
And then she messaged me back and said, you’re on in two weeks on Saturday night. So I was like, what are you talking about? So, you know, I went away. I panicked. Yes. I also said yes, with her strong mentor, encouragement. Then I found I got prepared, right? So Fi can hold us back, but fi can also be a sign of where we’re not ready.
And I was like, I’m not ready to appear on television. So I went to a, I hired I, [00:28:00] I, I found a lady who could train me how to speak to camera. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to channel on live television that the red light might throw me. So I said to her, she, she, she told me the price to train with her and I said, I can’t afford that. But I said, how about this? I’ll pay you half the price and I’ll give you free readings to you and everyone in your office. You just gotta tell me if I’m accurate or not. And she said to me, that’s an unusual offer, but I’m gonna take it. Right? So you gotta get innovative. And two weeks later I was there in the studio.
Was I, was I nervous? Yes. Did I feel more prepared? ’cause I’d put myself forward and been proactive. Yes. And then at that point there was more of me becoming a public medium on television. That was the next step. And then after that, so many other doors have opened where I’ve just become more and more. Me, I’ve become more and more, uh, into my, um, power as a medium, as a psychic, as a transformation coach. Even being an author that was becoming, I’d never written a blog post and I quit my job to write [00:29:00] a book.
Guy: Yeah, yeah.
Sheila: So incredible.
Guy: Do it. Do we all all have this ability to become. Psychic medium, do you think?
Sheila: I think we absolutely all have the ability to, to, we all have psychic ability and psychics a, a strong word and quite charged because of the history of psychics. Right. And, and, and the religious, um, uh, incompatibilities perhaps around that word. So I like to use the word intuition, which is literally just another form of it.
Guy: Yeah.
Sheila: And we absolutely all have intuition and we absolutely all have an ability to channel from higher source. And we, we can all do that once we just clear out our limiting beliefs and we just, and, and when I work with clients, it’s, we clear the beliefs and then we literally change our life. So it starts, we start for, you know, heading and facing a new direction. I won’t say the right direction. It’s just a new direction. And the directions is in [00:30:00] alignment with our intuition.
Guy: Yeah, no, it’s massive, isn’t it? And um, from, from what I can see, feel, and see then as well, and I’m just thinking of the listener at this moment, ’cause I think of the bootcamp that you went back three times in that, so it’s obviously a skill as well. Once you, once you clear the limiting beliefs, then that there needs to be a practice around it to allow our skills to develop. So we, we, we. Tune in more.
Sheila: Yeah, absolutely. So I teach this. So, uh, there’s different types of Claire’s. Claire is a French word for clear, and Clair voyance is clear seeing, so clear seeing through the third eye, and there’s hearing, feeling, and just the knowing. And then you have taste and smell as well, right? Psychic intuitive skills. So I dissect down these abilities and take people through practices where they can supercharge. How they use this. So I run a course on that. However, if you are at home and you are like, you just wanna get a little bit more psychic, having a daily meditation practice is essential, sitting in the [00:31:00] same place and meditating every day also creates more of a portal and supercharges that space.
So when you come into that, it’s a still space. And so it amplifies the, the practice it magnifies. It’s like when you go into a church or a temple or a monastery, it feels still, doesn’t it? Just feel still. You don’t know why. ’cause everyone sits there every day in stillness. And that’s why when you gonna the city, you’re like, oh, I just feel so, um, thrown or I, I, I just feel tired because in the city everyone’s busy and thinking, so you gotta create a space consciously.
Journal writing every morning after you meditate is connecting with something higher than yourself. You just do that practice every day with sounds around you. Sounds clear, the air, high vibrational music. And these days, years ago, you couldn’t, you could not Google high vibrational music. It just wouldn’t have, nothing would’ve come up when I first started meditating.
But now in [00:32:00] Spotify, Google high vibrational music, Google the frequencies and herd that will activate the gamma brainwaves. Take you out of, you know, the, the, the, the, the frenetic busyness. There’s so many tools. Now, I, my my counsel is don’t be concerned about, um, being psychic. Be more interested in being still and clearing and cleaning yourself. And the, and the last thing I say is connect to nature as frequently as you can. Dip yourself in the ocean to cleanse your ORIC field, sit and have lunch in nature if you can, you know, have your breaks in nature. Um, and, and those tools in inevitably will lead you to your intuition.
Guy: Yeah, massive. No, that’s great.
Thank you for sharing all that. And, uh, just something occurred to me, but, you know, when you are out and about and you know, you, you’re developing these skills, are you like just. Tuning into people all the time, unconsciously and, and sort of getting a, uh, getting a beat straight away or, or is this something you, you know, you, you [00:33:00] set yourself in. How much of it is interplaying in your life now on a, on a, on a daily basis?
Sheila: Yeah. I, I teach this as well ’cause boundaries is really important. You can get psychically hit by so many things around you. So I don’t open myself to, to do readings or to, to psychically read someone because I think there’s a boundary that everyone has. I don’t think everyone wants. To be, to be read. Not everyone wants psychic guidance or advice, so I don’t personally do that. However, as someone who’s quite sensitive and open, I find I get feelings about people and I think most people get feelings. Mm. And you know, guy, you had a feeling about me when we met at that ice bath all those weeks ago.
You were like, be my podcast. So your intuition was saying something to you, right? Yeah. So you got a hit. And we all get hits. Um, when someone’s in, um, grief or someone’s got a big personality or a big oral energy, I’m, I’m more conscious to not, um, feel into their energy and respect, respectfully come to understand who they are through, you know, conversation, being [00:34:00] interested in them.
Guy: Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Now, regarding your book, brave, which I’ve got here courageously of your truth, what, at what moment did you decide to go, you know what, I’ve gotta get a book out and. Why the framework of this book? I know. ’cause it, it’s a, it’s a little bit different as well. ’cause you collectively draw different women’s experiences in. So what was the thinking behind it and the inspiration?
Sheila: Yeah. Look, you know, and I think that’s where our life makes sense. Only years later. So I worked in publishing for many years and I read. So many books, so many improvement, self-improvement books, and there’s so many of the teachers in these books Help me in life. And I, and I thought, how do I make this book, that kind of book for the reader where there’s so much wisdom and that’s why there’s a lot of quotes and each, each chapter begins with a quote. Because I wanted, I wanted the vibration of that teacher in the book too. ’cause books have a vibration. So I wanted to take the reader on a path.
So, and I want, I wanted to take the reader, uh, [00:35:00] through difficulty into triumph. I’ve interviewed 19 other women for the book because I knew my own story wasn’t everyone’s experience. Not everyone can get what it’s like to be a medium or psychic, but they get what it’s like to not feel like you don’t belong. Mm-hmm.
Sheila: Right. So there was relatability to my story. A lot of corporate women are having awakening, so I thought that that’s relatable. But there’s 19 other women that are moms. You know, that, that are, that are much older than me, that are much younger than me, that have had different experiences. So it’s packed with a lot of wisdom because I wanted, I wanted people to walk away and go, yes, I know what to do now I, I know how to step forward.
And, uh, you know, I, I converted my whole. Uh, and any writers out there, you’ll be converting one room to a writing den. I had walls covered in post-it notes. My floor was stream with paper, and I think this is really common, right? I’ve, I’ve spoken to so many authors at book launches over the years, and it’s just so messy before [00:36:00] it becomes clear. And that’s why respect when people make it to the end of a book because we can all start writing and then we can all write a chapter or two. But at that point, that’s when that’s when the heat hits. And you’re like, what exactly, what exactly am I trying to do? How am I doing it and why? And I had to really a answer these questions.
And so I got an editor. I started to work early on with an editor ’cause I had no skills. So like all the coaches say, find someone that knows more about this process than you. So I quickly was like, I need a really good editor. And I was very lucky. The universe delivers, you know, the right person. My editor had done a PhD in, um, I think it was Mythical Studies or something, so she was also interested in spirituality and was a book editor.
So we talked for hours on end about, you know, what am I trying to say? How do I say it? How do I make my message relatable? So I learned so much from the process and you know, I wrote the book for myself [00:37:00] 10 years ago, which this is the book I needed when I was having my spiritual awakening. Okay. And my crisis. Yeah. You know, we write, we write the book for ourself. It’s the medicine for ourself before it is for the world.
Guy: And how long did it, if you think back now from first concept to when is it being released? Is it out now?
Sheila: It’s out now. It’s in all good book bookstores now. It’s being pub, it’s published in May in the uk, the end of May, and in, uh, the US and September.
Guy: Congrats. That’s huge. Uh, it’s amazing. Like how long did that concept take then from start of finish?
Sheila: You know, I started writing this in at the end of 2017, so I was writing, I was one of those part-time writers that wrote after I got home from work and on the weekends and where I could get a, you know, a bit of time here and there. And then, like you say, guy, the calling got stronger and stronger. And then I was like, I need to really dedicate time. So I stopped doing as much client work. And then finally, like, I quit my corporate job the year before COVID and I, I had COVID before everyone had COVID. I bunkered down in my [00:38:00] apartment alone and just wrote this book for like six, seven months. Um, I still had client work, but I, I spent long days just sitting, looking out the window, just, uh, being a writer.
Guy: Yeah. Amazing, amazing. All I can say is congratulations. I, I’ve had many, as you can imagine, many authors I’ve spoken to over the years that come on the show, and I’m always just, um, yeah. Just, it, it just blows me away that putting the book together. ’cause there’s something, I know I’ve spoken to you about in my, my own journey about at one stage in my life, putting it together. But when before starting it, I always feel so huge. It’s like, whoa. You know, and, and, and getting clear and taking the steps to do that. I guess anything in life, it’s, it’s a great lesson and, and being followed through one question Got you.
With a book and ’cause. Was it a moment of where you, you ever thought you were never gonna complete it? Because quite often we’re in projects or in, in that transformative change, sometimes there’s a, there’s a [00:39:00] willingness, there’s a part of us that starts to kick in and go, you know, I just, I’m gonna give this up, or whatever that might be.
Sheila: Oh, absolutely. There was a part, dunno if it wasn’t, I wasn’t gonna finish it. I, I, yeah. There, there was a moment of, I dunno if I can, I’ve got what it takes to. Complete this project in the way I won, and then when I did all the chops and finally gave it to the publisher, then the, probably the bigger thought for me was, is this, is this the best I can do?
Is, is this actually what I want out there? So for me, the first they, they say, get your first draft done fast. And I give this council to anyone I mentor, just get your first draft done. ’cause then, then, then you’ve written a book. And for me, the really hard work began when I went to do the, I did about five or six edits.
And then I had to reread, and I’ve written 72,000 words. You’ve gotta read 72,000 words five or six times with a critical eye. Yeah. You know? Wow. And really, and really under, and you write things, you go, why did I [00:40:00] write that? That doesn’t even make sense. Or Why did I write that? I don’t quite agree. Or, why did I write that? There’s actually another opinion I’ve left out. So it’s like, uh, I said, remember working with Clay, you’ve gotta then massage it after. And that’s, that’s the work.
Guy: And, and last question on the book, the title for Brave. Love it. Right? One word, boom. And you know exactly what it’s about. Wa was that something you wrote around or did the w did the title come towards the end?
Sheila: It’s interesting with book titles, because I worked in publishing for so long, if you don’t get, they, we spent a lot of time in the publishing industry nailing the, the title and nailing the cover. ’cause that’s gotta communicate so much to the reader that they pick it up. Originally it was called Be Courageously You. It was called Be Courageously You. And I was very wedded to the title and the publisher, and I thought about it for a long time and the publisher said, we are gonna decide the title and you have to be okay with that. Leave it with me. So I didn’t hear back from them for two weeks. And I checked my [00:41:00] emails every day going, then they thought of the title and she came back with Brave Heart.
And I still, I just thought, oh, don’t, it didn’t resonate. And then we ca, we ca and then I thought, no, it’s actually just brave. It’s just, just one, you know. So it was actually, again, it was, um, it was the collective group that. Came up with that word and uh, and looking back now, maybe it’s like when you name a child, you go that, that name’s perfect for the child. Yeah, totally. It’s like this name’s perfect for the book, you know?
Guy: Yeah. It must feel like that. Totally. Yeah. I can think about that with Ava. Actually look back. No. Yeah, it worked actually. It is learned. But before it was like a zillion names that came through on the whole thing. Yeah. Look, um, I ask everyone questions on the show, and I’m always curious to get a different angle on you and. The first question is, with all this work that you do now, do you have any rituals or morning routines or things in place that keep you, uh. Honest, sharp.
Sheila: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. [00:42:00] There’s a great book called The Miracle Mourning by Hal Elrod, and I recommend everyone read that. ’cause if, if you have a miracle Mour, then you create a miracle life. And for me it’s still a work in progress. Um, I think for everyone, because we’re always in transition, right? So right now I try and connect with the ocean daily, you know? Mm-hmm. And if I’m, when discipline’s really strong, I’ll wake up and I will go for an ocean. I’ll go for a run on the beach and have a dip in the ocean.
I, I meditate in the mornings. I start my morning with lemon water or a green juice, and I love just to sit in silence, um, and write, and there’s many different ways you can write. I’ve got a friend that calls it morning pages and he just writes three pages and he says, it doesn’t matter what I write, I just make sure I get three pages out every morning. So sometimes I’ll just do that. Sometimes I’ll, I’ll do a gratitude. Like 10 gratitudes. So I’m, I’m quite a dynamic person, so I don’t actually have, I don’t start my, my day the same way every day, [00:43:00] but I have probably a bit of a rhythm through seven days.
Guy: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I know that feeling. Um, what’s one thing most people wouldn’t know about you?
Sheila: Gosh, I’m such an open book. That’s a great question. You’re, I’m such an, I don’t, oh, I’ll tell you this one. Yeah. This, I, I, I can be very introverted and, and hermit.
Guy: Okay.
Sheila: PE people don’t realize I’m actually, and even in, um, human design, I’m, I’m a a a a line too, so I, I, I, I hide from the world for, for days and hours and, and even a week if I could, and, and I’d like no one to talk to me. Yeah. And, and, and that wouldn’t be obvious to people. That’s not, yeah.
Guy: Yeah. Fair enough. If you, if you were gonna have dinner with anyone from any timeframe, anywhere in the world, who do you think it would be and why? Is anyone burning you’d like to have met or meet?
Sheila: It’s like, I’d love Nina Simone. You know, I, [00:44:00] I’d love, I like to have conversations with really. People that have been through a lot, you know, as a black woman, she’s a, you know, a singer. She was so accomplished, you know, she was actually a highly accomplished musician. Um, she wasn’t, she was trained like classical piano. You know, she lives in a very, um, white world, um, and a black woman that wasn’t accepted and yet rose to different types of fame, and she lost a fortune and made it. She hated men and loved men, and I just think women like that, you know? Um, Maya Angelou’s, another one just. Just to sit and to hear them tell stories.
Guy: Yeah.
Sheila: I don’t even know if I’d say much. I’d just be like, tell me stories after stories of your life and maybe the stories that you never wrote about are the ones you wish you did.
Guy: Totally. Yeah. No, brilliant. And uh, last question, with everything we’ve covered today, um, what would you like to leave the listeners to ponder on?
Sheila: Just, you know, the message from my [00:45:00] book, which is Courageously Live Your Truth. You know, and I get emotional as I even talk about this because, you know, we can scale up big mountains and and do really big adventures physically, yet it takes real courage to speak your truth and to live your truth, and it’s a very simple concept.
So simple that we sometimes don’t even stop to think about it yet. It’s probably one of the most difficult things you can do, is to constantly live your life in integrity to yourself. So my my message to you is, how can you do that today for yourself? What’s one thought and action you can take today to just bring you a little bit more in alignment with, with you what you love, who you wanna be, what you are creating for your future? So that, yeah, that’s what I’d love to, to leave a listener with.
Guy: Yeah. Beautiful. That’s so true. And what, what’s next for you? What’s coming up? I mean, you’ve released a book, is, is it now? What happens from here?
Sheila: Look, [00:46:00] it’s been a crazy wild ride for anyone that’s ever, I, I walked into Big W and they had them all stacked up and I’m about to go into dims and, and, and check out, you know, when you see I, I walked in during the week and my dim, my book was above Eckhart Toe’s book, and I was like, no way. I am on the bookshelf above him. So what’s next? I, I think riding this crazy wild ride, I’m riding an an affirmation deck. For my publishers asked me for, they said we want another proposal, which is fantastic. So I’m gonna do an affirmation Oracle deck, and I’m, I’m pondering and I, I’m gonna have to spend some time in nature ’cause I’d like to write a second book and I’m just not sure what that is.
And, and truthfully go, I’m a little hesitant because I know I’m gonna have to live the book to write it. Yeah. So I’m just like, what do I wanna live? Like, do you know, it might be about love, it might be about, you know, high, you know, I wouldn’t call it high performance, but it’s just like a, what is really. What is living the most expanded version of yourself look like? What, what are the tools? And so I, I think I’m gonna write a [00:47:00] book that I wanna learn. I, I wanna learn something first and then write about it. I think So that’s, that’s what’s on the cards.
Guy: There’s, there’s no stopping you. This is amazing. That’s amazing. And, uh, look, congratulations, Sheila, and I wish you nothing but the best for this book. Um, it’s, it’s been awesome. What, what we’ve read so far. And I’m a man saying that, and I know with a pink cover you’re kind of targeting women, but still I was, I was, I was drawn straight in. So, um, yeah, I have no doubt it’s gonna be a huge success. And yeah, thank you for all that you do and, uh, living your truth and being on the show. Thank you guys.
Sheila: Thank you for having me on.
Guy: You’re very welcome. Thank you.