Women Who Inspire Me: Sheetal Story
For as long as I could remember, as a little girl, I would sit for hours listening to the stories of the women around me.
When I close my eyes, I can still picture myself sitting cross-legged across from my grandma. Sipping on a Diet Coke, as she told me little snippets about her life. I would go to bed that night and go over every detail of her stories, fascinated by her life, and dream up what my life would look like when I grew up.
That’s never changed.
Decades later, and I still sit for hours, listening, absorbing and being a listening ear to the women who inspire me.
I smile from ear to ear when I hear about all the amazing accomplishments and in between moments. Whether it’s that they just started their dream business, or they found their joy again, dancing in the kitchen with their kids.
I shed a tear when they shared with me that they lost themselves in the shoulds and coulds. Striving for unattainable perfection that they felt they had to reach to experience success and live happily.
Now I have the opportunity to share the stories of the women who inspire me.
I invite you on this journey, as we together listen and absorb the nuggets of wisdom from the women who have walked the path before us, sharing their stories.
They have voices and talents that deserve to be heard. It’s in getting quiet and listening to what isn’t often talked about that changes everything. Inspiring other women to go after their dream life and showing the next generation what absolute magic is available to them.
Together, let’s lift each other up. Let’s share what’s on our hearts. Maybe it’s the things that we only think about in our heads when we’re about to fall asleep, and it’s our dreams for what life could look like when we step into our courage to live an unimaginable life, and to create more ‘pinch me, this can’t be happening right now’ moments.
I would like to share an experience that changed the way I viewed building community as a woman in business. Where I went from thinking “I want to find my people”, to being able to exhale from holding my breath. A breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.
This past year, I had the opportunity to attend a life-changing women in business conference hosted by the one and only Selina Gray. I had the most beautiful, raw and open experience.
I went into this conference not knowing what to expect. I didn’t know a single person when I walked into that room, and I remember, as I was about to walk into the conference space, repeating to myself, “I got myself here,” and I walked into that room with an open mind and heart, and was welcomed instantly.
Feeling nothing but safety and support in a room full of women going after their big dreams, too.
I said yes without knowing what to expect. I invested in my business, in me, and it changed everything.
That night, as I was tucking my boys into bed, I told them, “You won’t believe what mommy did today?! With their eyes wide, I went on to tell them how I played with fire, danced while money rained down on my head and made over 100 new friends.” I am so grateful I said yes to this experience because it ignited within me the desire to share women’s stories.
When people think of Simply by Katie, I want them to know that it’s the go-to web design studio where women’s voices and talents are amplified. Where they are celebrated when they choose it’s time to elevate their online presence, and be seen. This series is dedicated to the women who are redefining what it means to be a woman in business and modern matriarch.
This is where I would like to introduce you to the incredibly inspiring Sheetal Story, and alllllll the amazing ways she empowers women to come back to themselves and listen to their intuition.
Sheetal was at the same women's business conference, and she led a powerful inner child meditation for the room. A meditation I keep coming back to as I level up to reach bigger goals, and has been a launch point for me to explore more of Sheetal’s world on my journey of radical self-love.
Now Sheetal is one of those women who is unforgettable when you meet her. Dressed in her signature red, you can feel her passion for helping women when you hear her speak. So when Sheetal said yes to being a part of this beautiful project, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Sheetal is a Psychic Medium, Professional Astrologer, Grief Counsellor, Law of Attraction Coach, Speaker, Podcaster, Mom and Wife who works with women to develop their intuition and work through grief and trauma to manifest their biggest dreams and create an aligned life.
What I admire so much about Sheetal is her gift to create a safe space for women to listen to their intuition and move in alignment.
As Sheetal and I spoke, she reflected back to me so many things that were on my heart. She gave me encouragement and direction as I move forward on my own healing journey. I will forever hold onto the wisdom within this conversation because in so many moments, I saw myself in her story. I saw what’s possible for me as I create the life of my dreams. I hope you experience something similar as you read.
This is Sheetal’s story.
Can you share a bit about your journey, the path that led you to where you are today, and the moment that really changed things for you?
Before becoming the psychic medium I am known for today, I lived a relatively normal life. I grew up surrounded by a community of friends. I graduated from university with a business degree, and met the love of my life working in restaurants.
After my husband and I got married, we moved to Vancouver, where we had our first son, who experienced a lot of medical issues. We decided to move back to Edmonton, where we would have our family's support.
My background is in corporate, where I worked for 20 years in supply chain sales and marketing. I've always had this heart of service, where I just wanted to help humanity and help people. Whenever I tried to work in a nonprofit or something in the humanities/activism space, it just never worked out for me.
I could see spirit as a child, and because I come from a very spiritual family, I grew up with it being a normal part of my life.
I remember as a child, being a first-generation Canadian, in a predominantly white neighbourhood in West Edmonton, and having this desire to suppress those gifts because I just wanted to be a kid at that time.
There was a time when my mom told me, “You can just be a kid. Just close the little trap door at the top of your head and just imagine that spirit can't touch you, or talk to you at all.”
So, I did that, and I had a great life.
It wasn’t until I had my second child that all my gifts started to come back in. And I remember thinking to myself, “What is happening??” I really thought I was crazy.
I went to see a psychologist.
I was seeing aura everywhere, and went to see an eye doctor.
I was getting terrible headaches, and I went to a neurologist.
It wasn’t until I went to a psychic fair and had a reading that I discovered my gifts were coming in and I needed to spend time developing them.
The lady who did my reading was so fun; she was an older lady who really put me in my place. I remember when she first told me that my gifts were coming in, my first reaction was, “You're not lying to me, are you?”
I'm a Virgo, and a huge skeptic. So you've got to prove it to me in order for me to believe it.
I remember thinking, “I don't know about this.” But she was adamant, and so I asked her what I needed to do to start developing my gifts. She told me that I needed to get my mind in order and start with meditation.
This is where my journey started. I took up meditation, and I actually took it twice and got to level two.
I ended up joining a local meditation group, not realizing it at the time, that the meditation teacher was a cult leader's right-hand guy in Edmonton.
One day in the meditation group, we were celebrating the meditation teacher’s birthday, and I had taken a picture and sent it to my mom, who was visiting Malaysia at the time.
As soon as I hit send on the message, she immediately called me back on WhatsApp.
I answered the call, to her adamantly saying that I needed to go outside to talk to her. Once I was outside, it was then that she told me that I needed to leave immediately. When I asked her what I was missing, she told me to look back at the photo I sent her.
So, I pulled up the photo on my phone and saw it immediately… the meditation teacher’s eyes were all black. How could I have missed that? After seeing the photo, I hung up the phone and left immediately, saying to the group that I needed to go pick up my son from daycare.
After that experience, I found my mediumship teachers, and I started to really excel.
I was at a point, though, where although my gifts were coming in and I was excelling, I felt like I didn’t know what was happening in my life. I had been talking to a friend of mine, and she recommended that I see an astrologer in Edmonton that she goes to when she is looking for direction or is having a hard time figuring out what to do next.
I looked up the astrologer and found that she was on all the astrology boards around the world, had proctored exams in Canada, the U.S. and China, and had written 10 books. Somewhat convinced, I booked my reading.
The astrologer was 82 when I met her, still sharp as a whip, an Aquarian woman. She was this little wee woman, four foot two, and she opened the door and ushered me into her study. It was full of all these books and papers.
She had my chart open on the table, and she started by asking me, “What do you say you do?”
I replied, “I'm a sales rep in the food industry.”
She responded with, “No, no, what do you actually do?”
“I see dead people… I think.” was my answer back, and she's like, “Yep, that makes sense, and here's why.”
She started reading my chart, which, to me, looked like hieroglyphics on the page. She explained, “Here's this and then here's what happened in your childhood. You just push and push and push to get what you want, which is really good in business, but not good for your health.”
She suddenly asked me, “You get headaches and stomach aches, don't you?”
“Yes, I do. How do you know that?” I answered her in response.
She proceeded to show me the chart. I looked at it and hadn’t a clue what any of it meant, or how she knew about my stomach aches.
She went on to tell me, “You definitely are destined to do things. You can go as big as you want. Not just in your community, but you can go as wide as the world if you desire. You have no oppositions in your chart, so nothing is holding you back except you.”
I left there thinking to myself, I need to learn this.
From there, I took six years to certify with ISAR (the International Society for Astrological Research). The hardest test to be certified under to become a professional astrologer.
I then went on to obtain my certification in coaching and my master's in coaching. I am also certified in human design (It's in my chart that I really like certifications.)
I had to pass tests to say that I see dead people, and I was tested very heavily to become certified as a medium.
I was hoping that the certifications would lend themselves to legitimacy in an area that is not very legitimate or is often seen as very scammy. In the end, I realized that it was doing it all for me because no one has ever asked to see my credentials, my certificates or has looked up my references.
Fast forward to now, my community and my clients have grown through word of mouth more than anything. When I learned my human design, I realized that's actually the way I'm designed to grow, through community.
This made sense to me because I love community. I've always been an extrovert, even as a child, I just loved being around people.
I’ve always wanted to take care of things and to be in connection with other people. As an entrepreneur, I attend retreats and conferences, like Trailblazer. It really is my love language.
Selina, who hosts Trailblazer, cultivates the most amazing community. She really does attract the best women into her world.
You’ll find that if you're not ready to uplevel or be in community, you are repelled by her. Which, for me, I just loved, and I now feel like I'm within her inner sphere of clients.
I met Selina in 2019 when she did a She’s A Money Boss Live Event. It was a money trauma conference for women who wanted to step into their money story and own it. This was something I was interested in because I have a history of money trauma in my family and life.
These sorts of events, ones that bring women together in community, are more important now more than ever. With more women being pulled into entrepreneurship. The world feels very unstable. Working a 9-to-5 job is now not as stable as it used to be. Companies are letting people go at an accelerated rate.
So creating your own business, with your own expertise, and your own mission from your own heart changes everything.
What’s something you’ve learned along the way that you wish every woman knew, or a mindset, tool, or practice that’s helped you step into your full potential?
I’d say the number one tool for women in entrepreneurship that will guarantee your success is listening to your intuition and following alignment above everything else.
Women, as entrepreneurs, have a very special set of skills. Those skills, though, can sometimes make us impatient. Where we're pushing past clarity and alignment without fully understanding what alignment means.
And for me, alignment means that your goals, your values, your actions, and all the breadcrumbs from the universe are coming together to make the next step feel easy.
Where everything comes together at the right time, in the perfect way, and makes it a hell yes.
For example, I've had clients who left their jobs early because they felt it was the right time to make their business work. What ended up happening is they couldn't, and they didn't have enough money to pay their bills.
Their nervous system was then activated into desperation energy. Where they were repelling clients instead of attracting aligned clients and filling their books. Having to then go back and find a job. This experience of misalignment left them feeling like entrepreneurship isn't for them.
And it's actually not true. It's for you. You just misread the cues.
Instead, you have a great opportunity to go deeper into creating your side hustle while still in your job. So that when your side hustle was making enough money, or your job let you go, you could then step into your side hustle full-time.
That's what happened to me. I was side hustling with my mediumship and readings for 10 years. I would do readings on the side, seeing people in the evenings, on weekends and on holidays. It lit my soul up, and I didn't feel burnt out by doing both.
When COVID hit, I was let go from my job, and that’s when my calendar just started to fill.
I've never looked back since.
Our business is growing year over year, and we're doubling our profit every year, too. I'm continuing to follow alignment and offering the things that are on my heart, and that I know my clients need.
For me, that’s why your intuition is such a powerful tool, because when your mind, your nervous system, your body, and the universe all come together to show you that this is the perfect and right time. It becomes the guiding light for everything you do.
When you’re trying to push forward, you're going into the masculine of only focusing on finding the right tools, tactics and strategies, and it isn’t going to work for you. Or if you try to follow someone else’s strategy, you will find that it may work for you, but you are meant to follow your own design and aligned strategies. You will find out the hard way, my friends, that path is not going to lead you where you want to go.
Unless you are in your fullness and you have healed your grief, you are going to keep coming up against these little blocks. These blocks are your inner child saying, “No, I'm not safe here.”
You've got to meet those moments in therapy, with a counsellor, or with a coach that's trained, so that you can unlock that next level in your life.
When women read your story, what do you hope they walk away feeling or believing about themselves?
It's a very scary thing, entrepreneurship. People don't realize how it is a very unique experience. I always say entrepreneurship is the fastest path to personal development because your business will always reflect you.
Which is why I love doing what I do, because you can have the strategies, you can have the copywriter, you can have the website, but you're not selling anything if you're not clear about being seen and being able to walk that path into your dreams.
As soon as you embody the energy of who you truly are, you become magnetic.
That’s why I love Astrology and human design, because as soon as you step into your authentic design and be who you are meant to be, without needing to please, you become your magnetic inner child.
That’s when everything starts to come in. Your books will fill, and then your bank account will fill, and you will be able to serve from an overflowing heart.
Part of this journey into becoming your inner magnetic self is participating in grief counselling, because it’s in grief where you begin to transform and where your evolution is unlocked.
When you've hit a plateau, you reach a point where you can't take everything with you. Your next evolution requires you to start getting rid of the things that no longer serve you to become the new identity that you’re creating.
That’s a hard thing to do, because the mind doesn’t want new; it wants to stay with the old and familiar, and grief doesn't have the capacity to hold a lot.
In entrepreneurship, this manifests as being overwhelmed and burnt out. A rite of passage, to be honest, because that burnout tells us, “Okay, I need to raise my prices, I need to be more choosy with working with the right and aligned kinds of clients.”
As you start to raise your standards and raise the bar in your business, you release the clients that no longer fit, to welcome in the clients you love to work with.
I like to call it the waterfall effect of entrepreneurship. When you release people that no longer fit, you're actually filling the bank accounts and buckets of the people below you, and then you're also ready to catch the new ones that are coming in.
It becomes an abundance cycle where everyone benefits.
What would you say to the women who are balancing both motherhood and entrepreneurship?
If you choose to be a mother and an entrepreneur, again, it’s the next level of evolution as a woman. Everything has to be put aside when your kids need you because being a mom is your priority as a soul.
In my life, it's been interesting to have one child who has comprehensive medical issues, where we're constantly in the emergency department or at doctors' appointments.
Then my other son, who's trans, who has gone through bullying, therapy and who’s a big activist now in the Alberta Student Association, lobbying for the teachers who don't have a voice.
So, so proud of both of them, and I find myself holding all these missions: their mission, my mission, my husband’s, who is the COO of a company as well.
There's just so much to hold as women entrepreneurs.
I love that you're highlighting this, because there's room for everybody here.
Let's bring in all the women and have them feel safe in a space that is typically male-dominated, and do it our own way.
That's really my mission. To help women express their soul in a way where they are living their purpose in the most aligned and joyful way, while still meeting every new block of evolution that's coming. This is why I love working with entrepreneurial women. When they know something, they shift quickly, and then the whole timeline changes.
Thank you, Sheetal, for sharing your story. It’s an honour to have you as a part of this project! To connect with Sheetal, you can visit her links below:
Website|Instagram|Facebook|YouTube|Podcast
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