In this episode of the Celeste Vault podcast, host Tanya Stanly welcomes Sheila Vijayarasa, a life coach and spiritual guide, to discuss her transformative journey from a successful corporate career to embracing her spiritual gifts. Sheila shares her insights on the importance of recognizing and developing spiritual gifts, the concept of the 'dark night of the soul,' and how everyone has access to their higher self and spirit guides. The conversation explores the awakening of consciousness in corporate settings and the growing acceptance of spirituality in the workplace. In this enlightening conversation, Sheila Vijeyarasa shares her transformative journey from a successful CFO to a spiritual mentor and author. She discusses the courage it takes to pivot in life, the importance of listening to one's higher self, and the challenges of financial transitions. Sheila emphasizes the significance of mindset, especially in the context of IVF, and the necessity of healing for spiritual growth. She also explores the evolution of relationships through self-love, the pioneering spirit of women today, and the profound lessons learned through motherhood. Additionally, Sheila highlights the essence of brave leadership in modern workplaces and the empowerment of women through mentorship, culminating in her upcoming book, 'The Power of Little Steps.'
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Sheila Vijayarasa
01:12 Sheila's Journey from Corporate to Spirituality
04:50 Understanding Spiritual Gifts and Dark Nights
09:26 Sheila's Personal Dark Night Experience
13:34 The Role of Higher Self and Intuition
17:51 Connecting with Spirit Guides
22:08 Exploring the Concept of Higher Self
27:25 Awakening Consciousness in Corporate Settings
29:42 The Courage to Pivot: A New Path
32:13 Listening to Your Higher Self
34:40 Navigating Financial Transitions
36:08 The Role of Mindset in IVF
39:38 Healing and Spiritual Growth
42:53 Quantum Leaps in Manifestation
45:46 Transforming Relationships Through Self-Love
50:29 Pioneering Women: Breaking Societal Norms
52:27 The Journey of Motherhood
54:06 Brave Leadership in Modern Times
58:47 Empowering Women Through Mentorship
01:02:05 The Power of Little Steps
Takeaways
Sheila's journey from corporate to spiritual was unexpected.
Spiritual gifts often emerge during personal crises.
The 'dark night of the soul' is a catalyst for awakening.
Everyone has spirit guides and a higher self.
Bravery is essential for spiritual growth and manifestation.
Connecting with higher self can provide guidance and reassurance.
Meditation is key to accessing higher self and spirit guides.
Corporate environments are becoming more open to spirituality.
Awakening consciousness can lead to personal and professional transformation.
Spiritual practices are increasingly accepted in corporate wellness programs. Courage is essential when pivoting careers.
Listening to your higher self can guide your decisions.
Financial planning is crucial when transitioning to a new path.
Mindset plays a significant role in navigating IVF challenges.
Healing is necessary for spiritual growth and self-love.
Quantum leaps in manifestation occur when inner realities change.
Relationships transform when self-love is prioritized.
Women today are pioneering new paths in life and career.
Motherhood brings profound lessons and personal growth.
Brave leadership requires vulnerability and authenticity.
Useful Links:
Celestevolve IG: https://www.instagram.com/celestevolve/
Host Tania Stanly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladynirvaanah/
Guest Sheila Vijeyarsa Website: https://www.sheilav.co/about-sheila
Guest Sheila Vijeyarsa Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheila_v__/?hl=en
Guest Sheila Vijeyarsa YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCESid7u4dLaY7iNkH6QbqbA
Guest Sheila Vijeyarsa Books: https://www.sheilav.co/brave-order
Guest Sheila Vijeyarsa Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheila.vijeyarasa/
🌟 Listen to the podcast on Apple: ➡️ https://celestevolve.com/apple
🌟 Listen to the podcast on Spotify: ➡️ https://celestevolve.com/spotify
Taniastanly (00:07.009)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Celeste Vault podcast. Today I'm super excited to be welcoming Sheila Vijayarasa into the Celeste Vault podcast. Sheila is a Life Path One, which means she leads bravely and pioneer new ideas. She's also a manifestor in human design, which means she creates opportunities for herself and her clients. Sheila holds a degree in MBA. She's also executive coaching degrees, NLP master trained, trauma informed facilitator, inner guide.
therapist and she's also studied internationally in spiritual colleges. She also does channel readings and teaches people how to channel their higher self and spirit guides. She also talks about high performance tactics for highly intuitive individuals, married the love of her life at the age of 45 and had her first child through IVF at 47. And she's been open about her journey on season one and two of channel nine's docu series, Big Miracles. She's also the author of bestselling book,
Brave. Wow. I'm super excited, Sheila, to have you on the Celestival podcast. Welcome.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:12.098)
Thank you Tanya, it is fabulous to be here. I'm so excited to speak about spirituality, to speak about being brave around our message in life, to speak about coming out of the spiritual closet, to speak about being a corporate woman who embraced the spiritual gifts. And I know you're a woman that's done that. So I think it's a meeting of two minds today.
Taniastanly (01:31.489)
Sheila, you had such an incredible journey, right? Obviously, it didn't start this way that you're at right now. So can you share a bit about your journey and what made you choose the path that you're on right
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:48.642)
I love that question because I get asked it quite often. It's like, how did I jump from this corporate type of job into the spiritual path? So I'll start by saying I came from a very successful kind of family. I still do. My dad's a retired doctor. You know, my family placed a very high value in education and degrees of being Southeast Asian born in Australia. And so I never really considered spirituality. I never considered anything but a very secure job that earned good money.
had a good job title and constantly climbing this corporate ladder. I never thought I would ever learn how to channel spirit guides. I never thought I'd ever work as a medium. I never thought I'd write a book about spiritual awakening. were never things I ever thought I would ever be taken seriously for. It was, it started out as a little bit of a side hustle, you know, something I did on the weekends. I studied Buddhism. I studied Krishna.
I studied Oracle Cards, Tarot, I studied with many spiritual teachers around the world. And I think our path chooses us Tanya. I think we are called. And our job, especially in 2024 with the consciousness where it is, is to constantly listen to the callings. And for women like you, like me, it's challenging because we need to reduce the size of these larger...
Taniastanly (02:55.457)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (03:13.358)
know, louder voices outside of ourself, our mothers, our fathers, our culture that are saying, you can't do that. You're crazy. You know, that's something you might do on the weekend, but that's not going to be your real job. And what I found is, you know, it can create a real inner conflict and inner turmoil. So I became a chartered accountant.
I did an MBA and I ended up becoming a chief financial officer in a major large publishing house in Australia. So I was managing finance and operations. It was a job with large responsibility. I did love my job. However, as the years went on, I realized there's something else waiting for me. there's a bit of mastery of life is knowing when to jump curves, when to jump from one.
career curve to the next. And I studied this in my MBA and I knew logically this is okay to do, but the career curves were so different because it was a career curve that meant, I had to, you know, you know, follow my spiritual path. I needed to, you know, you know, start to step into my gifts. I needed to work with my gifts. And so it was a challenging time. I won't lie.
Taniastanly (04:29.093)
I'm sure that would have been super challenging when you talk about your spiritual gifts, right? Or the fact that you, I mean, your dad was a doctor, so he must have been the logical minded person. So how was it for you? Like, when did you realize that you have these gifts? What are these gifts? Do everyone have these gifts? Can you elaborate on that one?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (04:50.262)
Yeah, look I found our gifts come online when we have a spiritual crisis, when we have a dark night. So some people just expect their psychic gifts, their ability to channel, their ability to start perceiving spirits and energies around us just to come online. My theory is we have a dark night and when we have our dark night our
Taniastanly (04:57.173)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (05:14.017)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (05:14.862)
crisis, we start removing anything from our life that is not authentically aligned to us. That's jobs, relationships, family members where we have no boundaries, ways we eat, things we consume, anything that lowers our frequency. So anything that lowers our frequency starts to disappear or need to be removed from our life. The dark night will either force us to do this or we will choose to make this change when we're having our crisis.
Crisis can be divorce, can be loss of job, it can be an illness like cancer or an autoimmune disease. It could be losing a best friend, just saying, don't want to be your friend anymore. It could be moving cities and being very lonely. There's so many ways we experience our dark night. But when our frequency takes a quantum leap and jumps up, what happens is because our frequency has jumped up, we start to sense and perceive energies.
Taniastanly (05:42.721)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (06:12.043)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (06:12.134)
subtle energies that are around us that we could not perceive before and we didn't perceive them before because we were low frequency. So we start to perceive these frequencies now and when we perceive them we start to hear things, have vivid dreams, psychically start to feel overwhelmed by environments, we start to feel incongruence with things around us. Quite often that's our job.
We might be lawyers, accountants, engineers, love our roles and suddenly we're like this doesn't feel as connected in my heart. So the awakening I found tends to be born of a crisis and then we start to reach out and read books, listen to podcasts like this. We consume all this spiritual knowledge but we've yet to have our first initiation which is finding our first spiritual teacher. That's kind of the first workshop you do.
Taniastanly (06:37.227)
Mm.
Taniastanly (07:06.059)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (07:06.338)
The first time you enroll in a course, you have your first teacher. We all remember who our first teachers are because they hold us as we start to discover all of this new spiritual knowledge.
Taniastanly (07:17.217)
So what was it for you then? I I had recently got Tom Cronin, who is also from Australia. And you know him? Right. So he spoke about Rashi. And I find a lot of people, by the way, coming from Australia, who are very awakened and very spiritually inclined. So he talks about this crisis point as the Rashi. And I found it fascinating to hear him talk about these Indian words, right?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (07:23.298)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, Tom and I are good friends.
Taniastanly (07:44.389)
And he spoke about Rashi. So what was your Rashi and what was, do you remember that exact moment when your gifts came alive? What was it like?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (07:53.794)
Yeah, yeah, so my Dark Knight, my Rushy was, it was a cluster of events. So I've written about this in my book Brave, and I talk about how our Dark Knight is really just one event, it's a cluster that brings us to our knees. So for me, was, I broke my toe on a summer's day in Sydney walking on a street.
Taniastanly (07:59.585)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (08:07.137)
Mmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (08:16.15)
I just broke my toe walking and because of that I needed to be put in a boot and the universe was saying slow down you're not listening to any of the signs. The next thing that happened I was four weeks later I was marching to my boss's office and I was fired from my job.
Taniastanly (08:33.515)
Sheila Vijeyarasa (08:33.741)
So now I had a broken foot and I was fired from my job. I'm sitting in my apartment alone a week later and my apartment floods because was leaking emotions. So my apartment started to mirror back to me, leaky emotions. Because my apartment flooded so badly, I had to move out. And I had to move out with a broken foot and no job. So I'm here in an Airbnb.
Taniastanly (08:38.336)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (08:45.449)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (08:53.118)
Okay.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (08:58.12)
no apartment, broken foot, no job. And then the guys dating at the time broke up with me. So that was my proper dark night. It was like the university, we're going to clear everything out. You are so out of alignment in so many ways in your life. That's why it's so vivid because I remember it was a proper rock bottom. And your life doesn't have to be a rock bottom. For me, I was not listening to all the signs. So that when we don't listen to the signs, the dark night is worse. That's my experience.
Taniastanly (09:04.193)
perfect, yeah.
Taniastanly (09:26.432)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (09:26.574)
And then was about a month later when I just sort of got my life's patched it together. I enrolled in intuitive workshop because I had all this time now. I didn't have a job to go to. I became someone who was seeking guidance, seeking a community. I felt really alone. And then I did this one intuitive workshop and then a beautiful teacher just took us all into a meditation in pairs and asked us just to read the energy we could see. And I think this is where I
Taniastanly (09:34.539)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (09:38.507)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (09:53.622)
I'm a spiritual teacher now and I teach people how to awaken to their abilities. I got brave with what I saw and that's half the challenge when we get psychic downloads. We discard them very quickly or we doubt them immediately and I didn't doubt anything I never have. That's kind of why I'm quite a good reader because I get psychic downloads and I give them immediately and I trust what I get.
because I trust that it's coming from the highest place. And when we do that, your readings will come from the highest place. So in this workshop, I just started to read for the person next to me. I remember it was her daughter had thick glasses and I said to the mother, your daughter is gonna ride a bike one day. Now the reason why this message was so powerful, her daughter was one and had a disability.
Taniastanly (10:18.465)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (10:32.865)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (10:41.823)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (10:42.166)
and had impaired high sight and they were like worried is my daughter going to have a normal life? But I could see and I didn't even know the daughter had a disability. I just got the download. I said she's going to ride a bike one day. Don't worry. And I didn't know why I got that download. But it was in that moment I thought there's something larger than me I'm dealing with here. And it's very powerful. It gives people the ability to have insights, comfort and heal.
And there's such an energy of guidance around us. that was my first entry into mediumship, psychic abilities, channeling. And from there, my teacher took me from strength to strength.
Taniastanly (11:23.509)
Wow. You know when you said that you had the broken toe and then the apartment flooded and then you got fired and all of that? Do you remember what you were asking the universe for right before all of these events started? Like, did you ask him?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (11:28.803)
Yep.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (11:38.934)
I love that question because I was asking for the dark night. We actually don't realize we're asking for a dark night, you know, because I said, yeah, bring me my soulmate. I really want to be doing work that I'm passionate about. You know, I really want to like feel strong and resilient and everything I've created in my life was the antithesis of that. And the universe said you, we have to remove all of this and years later, you know, everything was created, but I do call it a leveling, a flattening out.
Taniastanly (11:42.394)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (11:50.003)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (11:57.119)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (12:06.508)
the awakening is like the awakening of dissolving of everything that our ego was attached to that no longer serves us. And everything comes in that is alignment for us, but we need to take, I call it the quantum leap jump in our frequency.
Taniastanly (12:22.665)
Yeah, you why I asked that? Because right before my life was going very nice and smooth and everything seemed pretty fine. And then one day was sitting in my car and I had just watched this movie called Rockstar by Ranbir Kapoor. And he was talking about how he went, he was this rockstar and he was not a rockstar yet, but he had some talents. And then he went through so many struggles and finally he became a rockstar. So I'm sitting and I'm like, you know, can you give me some problems in life so I can be like successful?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (12:35.725)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (12:52.545)
I don't know. After that, I got married so fast. I got divorced so fast. Everything happened so fast. So that's why I asked that question. So the universe is like listening all the time. And it's so brave of you to actually tell the person that your child is going to ride a bike. Cause like you said, trust is the number one thing, right? We seem to disregard the kind of information that we get through and we still try to use our mind all the time.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (12:52.948)
no, really? Wow.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (13:00.494)
you
Sheila Vijeyarasa (13:22.828)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (13:22.921)
When you talk about this, is it possible for you to explain what is this higher self or what is this intuition? Is it something that everybody has or is it only the gifted people?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (13:34.958)
No, absolutely everyone has it. We have spirit guides that are with us from conception all the way through to death. We have one guide called a Master Guide. This guide is with us to ensure we fulfill our soul contract. Now we're fulfilling our soul, what we get back into alignment with our soul contract after the Dark Knight.
Taniastanly (13:46.977)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (13:52.878)
We're not doing the job that's alignment with you were married to the wrong person where breach of boundaries with his family, you know, where we're not eating well. And so the master guide kind of comes in and as a guide helps us through the dark nights. We have way more than one guide with way more than 10 to 15 guides. have hundreds and thousands of guides around us. I teach this in my course and I teach people how to connect with more and more guides, but energetically you'll find there's just a few guides around.
us, working with us, they communicate to us in our sleep state while we're traveling on the astral plane. Well also if you learn, especially when people start having an awakening, I get them to do a one card reading every day. You buy an oracle card, you shuffle a deck, you ask a question every day, you pull one card and then you write the feelings, thoughts, knowings that come through for the next 10 minutes about that card and about the question you ask.
Taniastanly (14:24.491)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (14:38.081)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (14:53.038)
Practicing like this will help you start to connect to spirits around you. Start to connect to the guidance. Sometimes you need an external oracle card so you can see, sense, perceive things from the card to start channeling what's inside. Now our spirit guides are an intermediary between us and our higher self. Our higher self is connected to divine consciousness so we are one. But the reason why we need spirit guides around us is because
Taniastanly (15:09.184)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (15:14.113)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (15:22.538)
they are an aspect that we can relate to.
So they come forward maybe as a warrior or as a goddess or as a teacher because we archetypally will relate to our guides through a lens that makes sense to us. Ancestor guides are very powerful when I do reading for clients. I can feel ancestors on either the mother or the father side of the family and there's two reasons why ancestor spirit guides will come through. The first is to help break intergenerational trauma.
Taniastanly (15:27.169)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (15:53.854)
stop the trauma from being passed down to the family and you might be a cycle breaker in your family. You might be the first one brave enough to get a divorce. You were the first one to not be a doctor in a family of doctors. You're the first one to honor your spiritual gifts and the ancestors through the lines are so excited because you are doing the thing they couldn't do.
You are being brave in a way they couldn't and so they come into your energy field, they start giving you guidance. They also enact the law of miracles. They start helping miraculous situations happen. Whatever you start wanting starts manifesting much quicker when you start working with your ancestors. So they help break intergenerational trauma and they help you amplify your intergenerational gifts. It could be spiritual gifts, they could be the gifts of intelligence, creativity.
Taniastanly (16:15.137)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (16:42.87)
the gifts of sporting talents, the gifts of motivation, of creativity, whatever it is, these gifts sometimes, especially through the women and the women's line of the family, where women have been subjugated and not allowed to be visible or speak.
Taniastanly (16:53.078)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (16:59.424)
or be brave and walk a different path. I find female ancestors come through and they're like warrior-like and they come through to my clients and they're like, yep, just tell them to keep going. I get very powerful, inspiring messages. So there are many reasons why guides come through, but we must all know that there are so many guides around us. They are connecting to us in many different ways.
And what I find we tend to do is we go and see mediums for a period of time. And the medium is the intermediary between the other consciousness and this realm, fifth dimension and third dimension. The medium channels through and that tends to happen until we find teachers that teach us how to do this for ourselves.
Taniastanly (17:29.878)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (17:44.383)
Hmm, that's interesting. So when you say you get these messages, right? How does it come through?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (17:51.882)
feel like the energy it comes through in many different ways for many different people but I'll tell you how I work. I find the energy will run from my crown all the way to my heart and belly.
Now there's different ways we receive information. Firstly, I'm clear, cognizant, highly cognizant. So I will know things about Tanya. I'll know things about you. I'll know you're ambitious. I know you've got a quirky sense of humor. know that you, I know I can see your nose in books. I know you read and consume a lot of information. So there's knowings about who you are, right? And then I hear a message. So I might hear a grandfather around from the father side. I'm kind of giving you reading now. So I can hear a grandfather.
and the father side of the family around is saying in my ear, how proud he is of you. He's saying you are tough. People don't realize how tough you are and how resilient you are. Could you come across quite feminine, quite flowy and people don't really see that alongside resilience. So I think people underestimate you.
Taniastanly (18:51.989)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (18:54.74)
So you know, you can hear, I get a feeling around you, you're very loving, very loving. And I think anyone you give your heart to must value your heart. Cause I think you love big and I don't think everyone loves big. And then I can see things around you. So I'm not, don't think, I think you can be a little bit messy sometimes in some rooms, like I'm seeing sneakers and socks and things in the hallway. So do you sometimes not always put your things away?
Taniastanly (19:20.882)
That is correct. You must be channeling my mother from the other side.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (19:22.675)
Because right now you're looking so clearly tired.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (19:31.741)
So I can see snog, socks and sneakers and just things in the hallway. And I think you clean up eventually, but I think you kind of throw things kind of over your shoulder. what I'm, so that's how I've, so I always use all the clairs and I teach this in my programs. You've got to use all of them. You'll have some dominant. My knowing is very strong and it runs like an energy dam through from my crown all the way through to my belly.
Taniastanly (19:35.233)
you
Taniastanly (19:51.361)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (19:54.55)
and then I feel like spirits consciousness will blend with mine. My consciousness shifts to the side and I start to have another thought in my head that's not my own, that's how it feels.
Taniastanly (20:06.805)
You know what happened just when you started channeling? My AirPods are connected to the Bluetooth, right? So it started picking up some other voice from some other phone. And I'm like.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (20:19.234)
And you're like, I'm shadowing something else.
Taniastanly (20:22.881)
I'm gonna try
Sheila Vijeyarasa (20:24.11)
That's kind of common spiritual interference. I kid you not. It doesn't surprise me.
Taniastanly (20:29.857)
Okay, yeah, so that just happened and I got freaked out for a second. I'm like, who's this voice in my head? And then I saw that it was another phone that had picked up. So that was just funny. So you were just saying that my grandfather came through and I'm from my father's side, right? And I'm not actually that close to my, yeah, I'm not usually that close to my father's side because he's kind of like my father.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (20:36.558)
you
Sheila Vijeyarasa (20:41.966)
you
Sheila Vijeyarasa (20:50.002)
Yeah, it feels like a father's son.
Taniastanly (20:56.705)
They are not that expressive, but they are very observant. And that's like a beautiful message. Last weekend, had Laurie Spania who had come through and she channeled my higher self. And when I think about higher self, I consider it's just probably like a version of me who is devoid of any unconscious bias. That's just how I think about it. But when she channeled my higher self,
Sheila Vijeyarasa (21:00.642)
Yes.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (21:09.698)
Mm.
Taniastanly (21:24.031)
The higher self came through and spoke things that I didn't know. Like they were talking about blue radiations and then the radiations and the reptilians and things like that. And I don't know these kind of things. I'm not, I'm not like, it's new to me. So then I started thinking about who is this higher self. And then there was a video that popped up of Sarah Bresk Cosme. I think that's how her name is pronounced. And she was having, doing this past life regression where someone was saying that it's, it's this, there's a light.
right above our crown chakra, which is connected to the higher self, I mean, connected to the source. And it's just a splinter over here. Can you try to explain to me what is this higher self? Why did it sound so different from me? Isn't it me? What is that?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (22:08.116)
No, when we incarnate on earth, we come through egoically with an ego. We come through with an identity and we believe like say you've got dark skin, I've got dark skin. So we come through with I'm dark skin, I'm female and these are I statements. Higher self is a we-us energy. Higher self is connected into universal energy and it's limitless in terms of its potential.
Taniastanly (22:28.309)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (22:36.972)
and in terms of where you can channel from. And that's why when this lady channeled from your higher self, she brought through information that your higher self wants you to know about that you already know, but she's hoping to open you up so you can get access to this at any point in time. when we channel from a channeling from a higher self, I believe should be a daily practice. It's something you do in the miracle hour of the morning when the vibration on the earth is very high. You do it in the window when you wake up.
Taniastanly (22:43.873)
Mm.
Taniastanly (22:55.777)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (23:06.87)
Now I know this is not always realistic. I have a seven month old son and I know it's very hard to wake up and channel after you haven't slept all night. But I do like the idea of finding a period within hours of waking up where you set up the vibration of the day the best place possible. And when you connect in with your higher self, you'll get instructions about the day ahead. You'll get reassurance about things being okay. You'll get instructions or guidance connecting you to your purpose.
Taniastanly (23:28.865)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (23:36.438)
It's connecting to higher self is done through a meditation Where you go into a place of high frequency a temple a palace? You meet this the guides working with you right now and they will give you an instruction They might give you a word a phrase and once you've been doing this for a little while you can open your eyes while the meditation is playing or A piece of music is playing and you'll start to find an energy runs through your crown
Taniastanly (24:01.046)
Mm-hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (24:06.028)
down your hand and you'll start to write. And it will feel like you, but it will also feel not like you. And the words coming through will actually feel very comforting. It'll feel very true. It'll feel very, it can feel instructional. It can feel calming. And if you do this enough, you will start to have more mastery of higher self connection. Does that make sense? Does that help you?
Taniastanly (24:14.369)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (24:33.705)
Yeah, I have tried to do the same thing and I know that it is a different voice and I think that I do connect with my higher self. But the way the information came through this other person, that was just mind blowing. Like, does the higher self mean, would a higher self come from another, like a much higher dimension? Like, let's say we are supposed to, is it, right?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (24:54.786)
Yeah, 100%. Yes. Yeah. So the highest, the highest self is oneness, which is the highest frequency you get. It's the highest. It's like the connection to universe, creator, God. God means grand organized designs. You're connecting into oneness consciousness. Any guides you connect to are an intermediary between higher self and our lower self.
Now some people say why connect to spirit guides? Why not just connect to your higher self? Because sometimes our frequency is low. When you were going through a divorce, it was very hard for you to wake up and constantly connect to your higher self. So what happens is the guides drop their frequency to meet you.
Taniastanly (25:24.937)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (25:34.922)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (25:34.958)
And there's still higher vibration than you are. They're still connected to higher self. And that's why you're saying it sounded like a different voice. It's because that consciousness will have a different sound feel and it's just how the energy presents. But what I like about what you're describing Tanya is you know it's different from you. It feels different and sounds different and it will feel like an energy near you, but it's not of you.
Taniastanly (25:56.576)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (26:03.477)
Yeah, that's true. sounded like someone that I would really look up to and that I would be like, fanstruck by this person. That's how that person sounded like. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like me, because that's not how I am vibrating at the moment. So it sounded, that person sounded amazing and powerful.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (26:15.094)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (26:24.81)
Well, that that high self connection quite quite often is a future version of ourself. It's a future version of ourself or an aspect of a future version of ourself. It's also a highest potential. So that person you're looking up to is someone you would look up to. It'd be it's the future version of you when you fully stepped into your power. You fully stepped into your life purpose. You fully stepped into the largest you know version of you that is what
Taniastanly (26:31.873)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (26:54.722)
That is what the high self is.
Taniastanly (26:57.301)
That's amazing. So why I've seen you get invited to corporate events and you you don't talk about like in my work when I started tried talking about psychic things and stuff like that. You just put me as this weirdo, know, comes as another person talking about energy. You know, that's how it's it's not easy to talk about it, but you are getting invited to these amazing corporate events where successful women are coming through.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (27:03.118)
Mm.
Taniastanly (27:25.259)
to listen to you. Women and men and women have seen both. How is that possible? What exactly is happening to the consciousness of the planet?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (27:32.63)
Look, I think the consciousness right now is opening up and they're ready and they want to hear about how we can change our frequency. So when I do my keynotes, I speak about David Hawkins, Scale of Consciousness. if you, you David Hawkins wrote an amazing book called Power versus Force. And in that book, he wrote about how bravery as an emotion dissolves negative emotions. Bravery is ranked at a high energy level and it's the, it's the light, it's the emotion right before neutral. Now,
Taniastanly (27:54.357)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (28:01.078)
As a first principle, when we awaken, we must start to understand the spiritual laws of frequency. Because we start to understand we are energy. And if we are energy, we can expand our energy and contract our energy. And we start connecting our emotions to our ability to expand and contract. Now we expand our emotional state, we start manifesting.
Taniastanly (28:24.097)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (28:24.11)
we can track their emotional state, we manifest things that are problematic. So where I'm going into corporations, I'm starting to speak about consciousness, I'm starting to speak about energy, I'm starting to speak about high vibrational thoughts, how our thoughts create reality. And it's an exciting time because I think many years ago, I think people would have been reticent to hear about this body of work. But when I first started doing meditation and even yoga 20 years ago,
Taniastanly (28:52.149)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (28:53.506)
People thought yoga was weird. People thought meditation was really crazy. And now it's in all the wellbeing programs in companies. I mean, that's just a given. They're the basic things, yoga, meditation.
Taniastanly (28:55.477)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (29:03.326)
So I think it's only a matter of time before sound healing, sound baths, ice baths become more commonplace before we have, you facilitators taking people into a guided meditation where you can visualize things and whatever they visualize might be an ancestor. It might be a future version of themselves, right? It might be an instruction from a spirit guide. As we start to get more conscious, you need to be open to this. And I think
Taniastanly (29:18.677)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (29:33.108)
when you have more people awakened in corporate world because you spend so much time with your corporate peers, it's inevitable you'll start to awaken too.
Taniastanly (29:38.817)
Hmm.
That makes sense. And you were a very successful CFO. And then from there, you pivoted your path completely at age of 41. What was that moment when you decided that, like, what gave you the courage to do that? That's like completely changing from what you were doing and what you're known, what you loved, right? What was that moment?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (30:03.308)
Yeah, look, and it was courage because I left my executive job with my executive salary. I had a little bit of savings. I think that our calling calls us and our calling gets louder and louder and louder. And I think it's a time when you can't ignore it. And I think if we ignore our calling, we start to get sick.
Taniastanly (30:14.497)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (30:24.012)
We start to get physically sick. We start to get mentally sick. And I started to get mentally unwell. I started to suffer from real bouts of anxiety and depression. I found it deeply challenging to go into work and to concentrate and bring the best version of myself. I'm the kind of person who wants to always be the best version of me. I'm a high performing person. So I just knew in my heart I had to write this book.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. I think if any listener now listening in and thinking about do I study Reiki? Do I quit my job? Do I start my side hustle? If you can't stop thinking about it, is your higher self's consciousness there bumping up against your ego saying how do I earn money? What will my parents think? I can't tell anyone. People will laugh at me. Your higher self is starting to edge into your mind and your consciousness.
Taniastanly (30:56.193)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (31:16.46)
and it's starting to take up more real estate in your head. And that's when we tip into bravery, when we listen to that voice, despite what the lower egoic voice is telling us. And the lower egoic voice tends to be the voice of a childhood authority. It's a child, it's a mother, a father, a teacher, someone we're worried we're gonna disappoint or will get angry at us or will stop loving us we perceive. That's the voice.
And until we love ourself, what we do is we love ourself. Once we tip from loving them more than loving ourself, we tip into loving ourself more, we start listening to that higher self. We then start to potentially work with a coach and mentor or making a plan so that we don't regress back into the older versions of ourself. We have accountability, we have a vision. You have a of a community and a team around you cheering you on saying you can do this. So that's kind of one of the big
Taniastanly (31:49.056)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (32:01.665)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (32:13.782)
transitional spaces of our spiritual awakening is not only learning about spirituality but serving with it. And Tanya you probably had that voice before you started this podcast you kind of well like I just got to do it I just got to do it and you're worried about what everyone would think you know the judgment who's gonna listen to it yeah
Taniastanly (32:31.265)
100%.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (32:33.486)
You negotiate with the universe. How can I put it out and make sure they don't listen to it, but only they do? And that's kind of a test. The universe is saying, you really up for the big game of your life? And I think in some ways we need to say, yes, I am.
Taniastanly (32:46.305)
No, you're right. mean, when the podcast started, I had no idea anything about spirituality. I just know that this just sounds like a whole bunch of whatever, know, like weird stuff. And then I'm starting a podcast where I don't understand what I'm doing. But then at that time in Feb, it's like I just kept getting these visions of starting a podcast, start a podcast, start a podcast. It just kept coming to me over and over again. And then I started and I had no idea anyone would even say yes to me because I don't talk about spirituality stuff and I'm inviting people to come.
That was amazing. You said that you had an executive salary and then you quit and you got into this, right? How was the transition financially? Cause that's something that's always at the back of my mind. The podcast is, you know, doesn't pay and then you have a job and then I'm, you're always like, okay, you know, how can I switch? What if it doesn't work out? How did you deal with these kinds of questions?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (33:41.42)
Look, I was so committed to the change. I thought I'm going to figure out how to work this out. There were about three or four really lean years. The first year or two I made a loss. So if anyone quits this side hustle, know, quits their job for a side hustle, I always say have a year or two saving. Figure out what it costs you to live. Live frugally, but what does it cost you to live? Save that as a salary, save that as savings, and you will live off that for the first year. In your first year, you will be building out your products.
Taniastanly (33:58.529)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (34:11.63)
So, and I do business, spiritual business mentoring. So you've got a podcast, Tanya, you possibly have learned a lot from this that you could start doing coaching and mentoring programs. You you probably would write some like mini courses. People that are having their awakening will want to come to you to understand how can Tanya help me with the awakening and you start to build a community around you. So you start with some low price products, middle size, and then some people are going to want one-on-one mentoring with you. That might be a higher price product.
You know, I think me doing my MBA really helped prepare me for running a business. I always thought I'd be a CEO of a publishing house. I never thought I'd be the CEO of my own business, but I have multiple sources of income. You know, I keynote speak. I'm an author. run coaching programs of how to get your wellness, spiritual business, holistic business up and running. I also do trauma coaching. I do readings. I do so many different things. I do corporate coaching. I go into companies and coach. I think
Taniastanly (34:45.557)
Mm-hmm.
Taniastanly (34:51.713)
Wow.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (35:10.144)
Over time, and we've got to be patient, you start building out your programs. But every single year that I've done a program, I've done something that I love. Like I was on the television show in Australia on a free to air television station. The show was called Big Miracles and they followed my IVF journey for three years. Well, I never thought I would be a coach to people going through fertility struggles because I was in so much shame for so many years about not having family.
Taniastanly (35:20.673)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (35:36.447)
Mmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (35:40.088)
freezing my eggs. So that in itself was another spiritual awakening. So right now I'm writing a mindset program around embarking on IVF. Cause I don't think many people have written a mindset program. write, people have written programs about falling pregnant naturally. But I didn't, I fell pregnant and I had a donor child. So I bought eggs from the US. So you need a really resilient mindset to embark on IVF and then keep on pivoting.
Taniastanly (35:49.737)
Wow.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (36:08.738)
through the fertility struggles. So that's part of my spiritual path. I see it all part of my spiritual path.
Taniastanly (36:16.021)
You know, that is amazing because I didn't think that there would be like a coaching program for women seeking IVF. And then when you say that it is for the mindset, that makes all the more sense because a lot of the times it's the mindset that women struggle with. you know, how do you more than the other physical things, it's the mindset, right? So that's so brilliant.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (36:30.786)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (36:36.076)
Yeah, the shame. Yeah, like getting divorced. The shame of getting divorced, the shame of doing IVF. Some cultures more so than others. But what I've found universal with IVF, it doesn't matter what culture you belong to. I don't know anyone that's done IVF that's not had shame come up. Shame that their bodies let them down, their wombs let them down, they've let down their partner, you know. So how do we navigate that?
Taniastanly (36:53.845)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (37:05.078)
And yeah, so like I said, I've just kept on pivoting and adapting and creating content and programs that I love that have helped me. And if we create programs that help ourself, it's inevitable they'll help others.
Taniastanly (37:18.699)
You know, there's a lot of shame for me around pivoting itself because I've pivoted so many times based on what I do. So I was just recently going through my old pictures and I've also done this sort of I was in this media, then I was in modeling, then I was in these recruitment and then engineering. Then I did coaching as well. Like I was a digital coach for some time. Then I'm into aliens and Jesus. So I have pivoted so many times and there's a lot of shame around that as well.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (37:43.146)
Thank
Sheila Vijeyarasa (37:47.758)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (37:47.989)
So when you say you've pivoted and you've done these different things, I think there's a lot of bravery and courage in that as well.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (37:56.264)
completely. you know something, there is some mastery and you probably have this tenure where you just turn down the loud voices. Shame is only where we perceive to be judged in a negative way by an audience. You can't experience shame when you're alone. Like you can't feel shame.
Taniastanly (38:12.097)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (38:14.7)
you know, when you don't have someone to shame you. So when you're alone doing your podcast, you feel like a million dollars. It's maybe when you go to one of those family gatherings and there's someone in the room that goes, how's that podcast of yours? You know, has it made any money? And you're thinking right now that's not why I'm doing it. Yet they found your Achilles, the shameful statement. And if we buy into that belief, we feel shame because a part of us goes, why isn't it making money?
Taniastanly (38:17.631)
Yeah, that's right.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (38:41.608)
you know and so if we just keep on and another part of coaching and with our spiritual awakening once we awaken we have to do healing work people think that's a different path your spiritual awakening will mean you have to look at trauma beliefs that don't serve us our shadow work integrating the shadow masculine and feminine aspects of ourselves we have to do the healing work
Taniastanly (38:52.033)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (39:08.916)
I found if we don't do the healing work, we hit a ceiling. We hit a ceiling of our spiritual growth. There's a term I've coined, it's called spiritual self-esteem. Your spiritual self-esteem will continue to expand the more healing we do. The more healing we do, the more self-love, self-worth we have. The more self-love and self-worth we have, the more authentic our decisions become. More in line we go with making choices that always feel true and congruent.
That's mastery of the path and that's listening to higher self the whole time.
Taniastanly (39:39.137)
Hmm.
Taniastanly (39:44.245)
You have done inner child therapy as well, right? And then you talk about healing. How can someone know that they have healing to do?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (39:53.966)
You know you've got healing to do if you are triggered in a disproportionately high way, or you have a higher reaction to an event. So if someone makes a comment about someone's, your weight or income or if you're still single or you know you're getting a divorce, whatever it might be. If we get triggered by an external factor, it's an indication that we need to do inner child work.
Taniastanly (40:02.593)
Mmm.
Taniastanly (40:23.093)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (40:23.254)
It's a disproportionate reaction to a situation. That's one of the first indicators.
Taniastanly (40:31.145)
And how can someone, can we heal our trauma on our own?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (40:35.756)
It's quite hard to heal your trauma on your own because we have so many blind spots. I think once I had my awakening, I became obsessed with trauma about eight years after my awakening because I hit a ceiling of my spiritual development. And I realized it didn't matter how many psychic readings I had about meeting my soulmate. I got to the point a psychic would say, you're going to meet your soulmate. But in my heart, I was like, I know I'm still manifesting the same problems.
Taniastanly (40:55.617)
you
Sheila Vijeyarasa (41:02.72)
I'm anxious avoidant in my attachment style. I keep on attaching, you know, attracting and trying to hold on to avoidant man that didn't want to marry me or have children with me. still
putting all my energy into being a workaholic in my career. And I was like, something has to give and it's not just another psychic mediumship reading. So I started to invest a lot of time into trauma. And I realized how many little younger versions of me were in so much pain. And I started to do, I studied this modality.
It's called inner child therapy, but there's many different, I guess, levels of inner child therapy. I did that. I did ayahuasca with shamans in Peru. So I sat and I did big energetic work. I did Bufo with another shaman. I did breath work. I studied breath work. I studied ice bath therapy. I became obsessed with moving energy in my body, bringing the energy home, like soul retrieval.
and letting go of lower dark energy that didn't work for me. And when I did that, my whole spiritual dimensions grew. I quantum leaped into another version of myself.
Taniastanly (42:13.963)
How do you know you quantum leaped? Do you know that? Do you know that instant when that happened?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (42:18.464)
Yes, because everything I started to manifest was different from what I wanted. You know you've quantum leaped where the life you've always wanted starts to appear around you.
Everything you wanted to manifest starts to appear in a physical form. Husband, the house, the baby, all this stuff. Yet every, you know, years prior, was like, when will this happen? Like a real big yearning, wanting, it felt like a real big chasm between where I was. And so now my manifestations are very fast, you know, like client contracts, know, cash flow, time with my husband, you know.
You know, even the next child, just, can manifest very quickly because I know what that feels like. And also know my only job is to keep on working on healing myself. Accepting me as who I am, integrating all the parts of me, loving my shadow, loving that the parts of me that are very uncomfortable. I keep on working on my frequency when I'm a little low in frequency, having compassion when I've dropped in frequency and then thinking, okay, what, can I do now?
Taniastanly (43:04.481)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (43:23.362)
You know, mindset, know, mindset and emotional mastery is so important.
Taniastanly (43:29.185)
Can you remember any instant where you were feeling low and then you changed it and then something happened?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (43:39.264)
I find, yeah, the probably the easiest thing is probably when attracting clients or a corporate coaching deal and because money is energy. So I've been in a low vibrational state and I was lacking gratitude. I was feeling annoyed or irritated. And I remember having a chat to my husband and he's, know, in same field of work as me. And he said, you know, how can you flip it?
Taniastanly (43:45.643)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (44:03.468)
And I said, well, I started to list all the reasons that I should be grateful for what I have in my life right now. And then the next thing I did was I switched, I've got to, to I get to. So I switched, I've got to do IVF, to I get to do IVF. You know, I've got to sit at my desk and work all day, to I get to sit and do what I love all day.
Taniastanly (44:16.801)
you
Sheila Vijeyarasa (44:25.014)
And then when I did that, I walked out the house, went down and had a coffee and I came back and like three emails in my inbox for like, I want to meet you to discuss your programs. So that's the quickest way, shifting the energy, walk away from my computer, come back and there's like emails in there randomly, you know, and it's not random. It's the law of reflection, reflecting back to me, my new reality, because I've changed my inner reality.
Taniastanly (44:42.805)
Ha ha ha.
Taniastanly (44:53.493)
Wow. You speak about, okay, let's talk about relationships, right? You must have had a different mindset about relationship in your 30s, I mean, before your awakening, and then you have a completely different outlook on relationships right now. What do you think is the purpose of romantic relationships? Is it even necessary?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (44:58.936)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (45:16.354)
Well, okay, well, firstly, I'll just expand what you said. I didn't have quite a different look at relationships in my 30s to 40s. I had a different view of myself within relationships. So I went from someone thinking I'm not lovable, I'm not good enough, I've got to, you know, be smart. I've got to try and be pretty. I've got to, you know, do what they do, whatever it was. So when I got to my 40s, it was like, this is who I am and you either love me or you don't, or you like me and I don't.
Taniastanly (45:27.777)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (45:46.134)
So that the flip wasn't the relationship was like how I relate to the relationship changed. And then I was very much an island. I didn't allow men near me. I didn't allow intimacy into my life. It felt scary. It felt like a loss of control. I felt happier when I single.
Taniastanly (45:46.667)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (46:05.782)
you know, succeeding in my corporate job. That was when I felt the best about myself, but it was also when I was the loneliest and I was also when I didn't really have a full life. My life felt very looking back now, vacuous because people are like, what do you do? And I wouldn't have go, I've got a partner and he does this or she does this and then kids and it was like, I've got this job that I'm really good at. And that's all I could talk about.
Taniastanly (46:17.857)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (46:31.5)
So I started to realize that, you know, my life just didn't feel full. I don't think we need to have a romantic relationship, but I think life is wonderful when you do and you found the right person. And I feel like so much has expanded since meeting my husband, Tyson. And it was my primary thing on my manifestation list. The person I brings in supports me, hopefully, with my life purpose. It was my top thing.
And about a month ago, we have a seven month old baby. He would have been six months, six months old a month ago. I went to Sedona and I ran a retreat, a three day retreat for women in Sedona, Arizona in the USA. And my husband was there. I got him a little like an inn down the road. It was like a minute walk so we could be in each other. He brought my son so I could see my son every day for lunch. And yet I was able to run this retreat.
And I've got an amazing husband that sees what I do in the world and sees it as important. But mostly he sees it as important to me. So I think beautiful, expansive relationships add to our life. They don't take away. Compromise is about just the ebbs and flows of life. You never have to compromise the big things.
Taniastanly (47:49.842)
By the way, your son is very cute and I love his name, Phoenix. It's amazing. And I saw your husband with your son doing the hiking. They're so cute.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (47:55.69)
It's me. Yes.
My husband loves hiking and they're like little soulmates and we're all soulmates to one another. But I love seeing my husband as a dad. That's been one wonderful thing that's happened since having him. We've got, you know, he sees me as a mother. I see him as a dad. We're richer people for the experience. And yes, I became a mother for the first time at 47. I bought donor eggs. He's named Phoenix from the World Egg Bank where we bought the eggs from in Phoenix, Arizona. And our donor is from Phoenix, Arizona too.
Taniastanly (48:28.691)
Sheila Vijeyarasa (48:32.256)
And so, yeah, I don't believe in ever giving up on our dreams. Yes, I wanted a child a certain way, but I never gave up my dream on having a family and a son. It happened just a lot later. And it happened later because I needed to do a certain amount of healing to get to the vibration to bring in the vision I wanted for myself. But I knew if I did the healing, I would get there. I think we've got to trust the process.
Taniastanly (48:59.137)
You know, when I see your story, your life, it's so inspiring. And I wish there were people who made movies about it. Because the kind of movies that come out now, the kind of series that come out now is about, you know, getting married, finding the love of your life at the age of 21, getting married by 25, then having your children at the age of, you know, before 30s. And then, you you have buy a house and everything is perfect. But then.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (49:03.15)
Mm.
Taniastanly (49:24.831)
The reality right now, the one that I see around me is different. It's where marriages break at the age of 20s or in 30s. And then there is no movies, there's no stories, there's nobody to look up to. You don't know what's happening next. So when I look at your story, where you did not give up on your dream, and you still said you had the courage to think about, you I still need a child. I want to be a mother.
I want to have the love of my life and you manifested all of it. I think that's deeply inspiring.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (49:56.524)
Yeah.
Thank you, Tanya. That means a lot that you say that. Look, Tanya, I think you might be making a movie. That's maybe your next job as a film director. But you know, I think we're part of a group of women who may not have had, have a template ahead of us of women that have done what we want to do. Right? We didn't see our mothers get divorced and, you know, pioneer in the ways that we are. Society didn't support them to it. It's not like they couldn't. Economically, they were not given the same opportunities.
Taniastanly (50:13.557)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (50:29.309)
There were no structures in our society to allow them to divorce easily, get back on their feet, right? So I think we have to see ourselves as pioneering women. We have to see ourselves as women. I got to the board level. I was one of the only women as a finance director. The other finance directors in the industry were men. I was the only woman of color. I'm the only woman at 47, you know, in my family that I know of that's had a baby.
I was brave enough to buy eggs from USA and fly them in, regardless of what everyone's opinion was. I think we've got to be so strong in our conviction for what makes us happy. And we need to follow that. Knowing that if we don't, we're not going to get to a happy state. It'll always be a compromised life.
Taniastanly (51:18.559)
If you could go back in time and speak to the 25 year old Sheila, what would you tell her?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (51:25.966)
it doesn't matter what I tell her I know she wouldn't listen to me. I know me. She'd be like no old lady. look I tell her hey I know she would have listened to me so I'd tell her something different because I know she's about to make a hell of a lot of mistakes and she's going to learn from them so I'd say to her you are about to make some real questionable choices in your life but just keep on getting up.
Taniastanly (51:43.316)
Okay.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (51:54.83)
keep on getting up, don't stay down for too long. So I couldn't tell her, I wouldn't be me if I didn't have the 25 to 47 kind of path I had. So I wouldn't tell her to change it. I know I couldn't get her to change it. She was so stubborn. She still kind of is. But I'd say to her, you are gonna get there. Don't give up on your dreams.
Taniastanly (52:19.241)
I love that. Now that you are a mum, how has your perspective on life changed after becoming a mother?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (52:27.01)
You know, so many things change and so many things don't. I think I'm very lucky. I found my life path before I had my son. So I feel like I've got two purposes. I do feel like my coaching and speaking and empowering women is one big life path. But I have this beautiful juicy path called being a mother.
and I play a lot more. I didn't think I was very good at playing before and so I slow down in the morning with hugs and kisses and we roll around and giggle together and I think my son is my biggest teacher. I feel like he's going to constantly teach me for the rest of my life and I think, you know, I think we've got a whole journey together. I think it's, I don't think it's permanently changed me now. I think it's going to keep on changing me in ways.
that will surprise me and I think I'll teach from that place as well. I've already started to help women that are working moms like how do you deal with mother's guilt? How do you manage time? How do we function on considerably less sleep? So I think we're always learning. So yeah my son is you know one of my great teachers, one of my great loves as well though.
Taniastanly (53:41.35)
I'm sure, think having your child opens your heart up. It explodes your heart open having a daughter or having a child and then completely changes you as a person. Can you tell us a little bit about brave leadership? What brave leadership does and who are the people who should come for brave leadership?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (53:56.174)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (54:06.508)
I think that's a, I like that question. You know, I think, I think we all need to be brave leaders. So firstly, I'll say it's not about being in a position of leadership. Brave leadership is both in the corporate context and it's also how bravely we lead our own lives. Brave leadership is about unraveling everything about ourselves that does not belong at the table anymore. It's about looking at where we react.
where we're complying or protecting ourself, keeping a distance, where we're controlling people around us. It's about letting go those parts of ourself. And brave leadership is about sometimes making decisions that may not always feel popular, but feel very much in alignment with where the company's going and where you've heard what the needs are of staff and people around you. It's about creating a congruence. I think the modern brave leadership is about being very conscious.
Taniastanly (54:45.707)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (54:59.084)
about being vulnerable, about knowing as a leader when you need to apologize to your team, if you put them under stress, or knowing when to slow down and take care of their mental health. I think leadership in 2024 requires bravery because what was working many years ago just doesn't work now. Or you've got staff around you that aren't going to work weekends. They want more balance.
Taniastanly (55:23.393)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (55:25.454)
Their mental health is paramount. They will protect it. Years ago when I was in the workplace, all those things were very secondary. Being successful, earning money, pleasing your boss were the important things. think brave leadership now is completely different set of qualities. Authenticity, vulnerability, deep listening, deep rest, taking care of the collective. These are qualities of a brave leader.
Taniastanly (55:54.689)
You know, that makes sense, by the way, because I work in a multinational company, but although I work with the team from Switzerland, I am situated in Dubai. So the kind of leadership that's in Dubai is not the spiritually awakened style. It's more like the policing style, right? You work over time or you don't talk about your family and you take care of your family and your meditation and all is like completely, you know, it's for nut cases. So that's the kind of leadership that happens over here.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (56:12.322)
Yes.
Taniastanly (56:24.043)
But I recently had to go to Switzerland where our headquarters were. And I saw what it was. It was just the way you explained where they prioritized deep conversations. The women were given a voice to speak. It didn't matter. The women did not care how they looked like because in Dubai, the women, they're judged a lot based on how they look like. And the promotions and leadership positions are given based on how they dress up as well. But I saw over there, it was more about
Sheila Vijeyarasa (56:33.464)
Mm.
Mm.
Taniastanly (56:53.729)
how you behave with the other people. you know, they had a lot more deep conversation with their managers. I usually wouldn't speak about my actual problems in life with my manager, but then when I was there, they wanted me to speak about it because they wanted to get to know me. And this is in line with what you spoke about, brave leadership. It's completely, it's a different set. It's a different ball game, a hundred percent. It's more, do you think it's more like awakening your feminine side?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (57:15.374)
Bye.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (57:24.236)
Yeah, 100%. And it's about tapping into our emotions in a healthy way, in a safe way. It's allowing whatever is in the space to be there, not always being task focused, but being way more relationship focused and finding the balance between getting everyone to a goal versus just trying to get there with one or two people.
It's as to be a brave leader in 2024 is to be highly adaptable. know, the landscape's changing with AI, you know, depending on what state your economy is in, you know, depending on what employment rates are, we need to as a collective take care of each other. And so brave leadership is no longer about me trying to get promoted and trying to make more money. It's about how can we all
find way more fulfillment and purpose in our jobs and fulfill the profit motives of the company at the same time and doing that dance between both.
Taniastanly (58:29.139)
I love that. So you do retreats. I saw the retreat that you did in Sedona. It looks amazing. And then you also do one on one mentorship. You do courses, coaching, et cetera. Can you tell us about what you do, about the work that you do and how you're able to help the collective?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (58:33.634)
Yes. Yes.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (58:47.192)
So I do spiritual mentorship coaching around getting your spiritual wellness coaching business started. Most people don't know how to start. So I have a program around that. For one-on-one readings, if you just want to get to know me and you want to get to know my style as a reader, I can teach you how to do that. I have my awakening program, which is an accreditation to become a channel and intuitive guide. And then I do corporate work. I do corporate coaching. I do corporate keynotes.
I have a program called the Brave Woman, which I run individually and also run in corporates. My Brave Woman program is really transformational. Women have loved it, especially all the women come together in a company and every month or every quarter we meet, they can see a transformation in every aspect of their life within 12 months. So yeah, I do many things.
Taniastanly (59:38.837)
Wow, I love that. So Brave Women is a quarterly thing where the corporate companies invite you to do the mentorship. That's what it is.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (59:46.187)
Yeah, it's monthly or quarterly. There's an online program and I also run live Zoom calls for the group. And there's something that's very powerful when a group of women come together. I've noticed women are very vulnerable. It's not always just about the job. It's how they feel about themselves. Overcoming imposter syndrome, perfectionism, burnout, putting boundaries in place. These are some of the topics that we explore together.
And we also troubleshoot. The problem shoot, we come up with really tangible strategies around how they can change how they're showing up for themselves in the corporate work or whether they're an entrepreneur in business.
Taniastanly (01:00:24.617)
Is there a reason why there's not a lot of men coming in? you see why that's happening?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:00:31.786)
In the corporate, I do training for men as well. But I think right now women are running the lead in the awakening process. think because it's, you know, when we find it easier to be in touch with our emotions, you know, we're, physiologically built for that. But I've also found a lot of men and conscious men are awakening. So I don't, I don't think it's as disparate as we think it is. think women are just louder, more vocal, more visible with our awakening, men less so.
Taniastanly (01:01:01.121)
I have begun to see that men want to know about it. They're curious to know about it, but they want like a logical side to it and they don't want to be judged by the other men. That's what I started seeing it. They want to do it, but probably in secret, you know.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:01:10.574)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Alexa, they're not posting crystals on a Instagram post the way women are. The way I know the consciousness of men is lifted is my experience spending time with millennial dads. So my husband's 49 and we've spent time with dads who are in their 30s and they're spending way more time with their children. They're way more attentive, way more physically affectionate, but probably our peers.
Taniastanly (01:01:19.073)
Yeah.
Taniastanly (01:01:34.433)
Hmm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:01:42.082)
that had children 15 years ago. And so we're noticing a difference in how they're raising their children. And that's just a product of the consciousness now of men. So there is a, you can see a change, yeah.
Taniastanly (01:01:52.627)
It's a wonderful time to be in, because everybody wants to do it. So I can see the same thing, You spoke about your new book. Can you tell us about your new book, when it's coming out?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:02:00.2)
Yeah.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:02:05.198)
My new book is called The Power of Little Steps, Creating the Life of Your Wildest Dreams. It's out next May. It's very much my journey of how I was brave in IVF fertility, how I was brave leaving my corporate job to follow my spiritual gifts. How, I've interviewed, there are 15 women I've interviewed, clients, colleagues, peers in the book.
they share this story of resilience. And there's very much a pathway I take the reader on and the phrase is a little brave acts. I talk about the power of little brave acts every single day. I'm brave, I've taken a little brave acts. When I coach clients to take little brave acts, they change their life.
Taniastanly (01:02:49.865)
I love that. I'm super excited for the book to come out, And can you tell us where we can find you?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:02:56.726)
You can find my website, sheelav.co. Find me on Instagram, sheela.v. Underscore, underscore, reach out to me on Facebook. And you can go to my website and download my Brave Woman toolkit for free.
Taniastanly (01:03:13.129)
That's amazing. So I usually wrap up the podcast with something called the Cosmic Close where I ask two questions that I ask everybody. It's inspired by Rupert Spira. The first question is, how may we enjoy lasting peace and happiness?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:03:20.002)
Mm.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:03:28.908)
We enjoy lasting in peace and happiness by finding that within ourselves. And when we find that within ourselves, it's easy to create that around us.
Taniastanly (01:03:37.171)
I love that. Can you tell us the second question is what is the nature of our reality?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:03:45.154)
The nature of our reality is whatever we create internally. And we can create a new reality immediately by changing our inner reality. We change our inner reality by changing our thoughts and then experiencing different emotions with those thoughts. So we all have a fundamentally different reality based on our inner compass, how much we can regulate our inner world.
Taniastanly (01:04:14.217)
I love that. Do you have any final message for us?
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:04:18.776)
Go out there and be brave in every aspect of your life to create the life of your wildest dreams.
Taniastanly (01:04:26.603)
Thank you so much, Sheila. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and speaking to us. You have been so phenomenal. You've been such an even like an inspiring person that all of us as women, girls look up to. Please continue doing your work and thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you.
Sheila Vijeyarasa (01:04:44.312)
Thank you, Tanya. It's been amazing to be here. You too. You don't stop being your amazing self.