Sky Sheridan on Pursuing Your Dreams

Since some of our listening audience may not yet know who you are, would you please tell us a bit about yourself?

At age four I was electrocuted. The near-death experience left me scarred for life with the feelings of being both scared and sacred. Scared of the fragility of life, and yet wanting to know more deeply about the sacredness of being alive. Eventually, these two dueling beliefs gave way to the wisdom that fear was only supportive if it allowed me to discover more love.
Since then, I’ve survived my mother’s schizophrenia, drug addiction and eight-year battle with AIDS, the death of the rest of my entire family, physical and sexual abuse in foster care, discovering and then leaving the Mormon faith, my own struggle with sexual identity, a successful international modeling career, weight-management issues and finally, financial turmoil brought on by a trust-fund battle.

Although my life sounds tumultuous, it wouldn’t be fulfilling had I not realized that I didn’t just have to survive, but that I could actually thrive. My shift in perspective came about five years ago when I finally grasped that I wasn’t a trapped victim, but a powerful creator, free to do things my way. (A simple shift inside can make a monumental difference outside.)

You are a great success. Because of what you've accomplished and where you are in life, what would you tell others to Inspire them today, regardless of where they are in their life?

"Make Belief." This is a concept that I am working on in my book, Skylight: Illuminating Our Infinite Possibilities. We all have so many beliefs we hold, many of them passed down to us through parents, governments, society, science and religion. Most do not serve our overall well-being or joy.
Let us take a moment to see what we are creating in our lives as a reflection of our beliefs and do like little children do naturally, imagine new ones. The beauty about belief is it always can be changed. (As your belief has in the past, it will in the future, too.) Belief is as simple as knowing that it is just a thought and feeling, but belief is as serious as understanding that beliefs make things real. Change your belief and you can change your experience. Change your experience and you change the whole world.

We all know that inspiration can change lives. Can you share a personal story of someone who inspired you and made a difference in your life or a defining moment or experience that inspired you or changed your life?

A defining moment for me was facing death. Not only my own, but that of those closest to me. Loss, at first, is the illusion that we are separated from something, and I believe comes from the original concept of separation from source, or God. By being willing to dance with that which scares us the most, such as death, our vision expands and deepens.
Suddenly, we realize nothing of ours was ever lost, just transformed into something new. All endings are only beginnings. This inspires me to the very core. To know all this energy that we are, everything our senses can register, is composed of a conscious, intelligent and loving force. We are on a journey to experience what has never been experienced before and it's up to us to decide if we are lost or found, whether we are alone or all one.

You make it look easy, but I'm guessing you've experienced challenges in your life. Can you share with our listeners how that has strengthened you to reach success? In other words, how do you overcome adversity?

Overcoming adversity is the old paradigm. I’ve come to a place in my life where I have made friends with my enemies. That is to say instead of fighting so hard against adversity and giving my power over to it, I can embrace it as the teacher it is. The paradox of challenge is that it's only a challenge when we allow it to be. So I trust my choice to perceive every experience through the eyes of fear or love. Whether I think adversity is good or bad, I’m right.

We all have ideas on how to improve our lives, whether it be a new job, moving to a new city, or finding love, but change can be a bit scary sometimes. Can you please share an experience with us where you "stepped off the ledge" with only faith, and took a big risk, based only on your belief that you would succeed?

These last two years of developing my advertising evolution Called2Create was so far outside of what I thought was possible for not just me, but the world, it required tremendous amounts of trust. The doubt of thinking that advertising could ideally empower people is the response that I have to deal with everyday.
But the beauty of my belief was founded in seeing so many others in this world make the perceived “impossible” possible. For example, all we have to do is see that Martin Luther King had a dream that came true forty years later with President Obama to know the divine power contained within each and everyone of us. Doubt and fear are my friends to help me know where more love and trust is required.

How can others do what you did?

Take one step. My journey presents incontrovertible proof that there is a force within our system of living, whether it is synchronicity, consciousness, or mere coincidence. This force arranges everything we need, if we can only allow it. All that is necessary for us to do, is just to be. Trust that the step you are taking right now is absolutely in divine accordance. My motto is, “Right Time, Right Place, RIGHT NOW.”

What process, steps or exercises do you recommend that our listeners could do right now and each morning, to improve the quality of their lives?

Nothing is a more joyful blessing than waking up each morning, taking my first breath with awareness and appreciation of the power and beauty of who I am. I once heard it said, “to love yourself is to love and thank all of existence.” Everyday, I find it within me to move some of my investment and belief in the dense, small spectrum of energy contained in my outer material world to profit from the inner broader connection I have to all-that-is. “The kingdom of heaven is within you."

What's the greatest joy in your life?

Expansion. Even though it is scary, and involves a lot of change, letting go of the old experiences—embracing each experience with love and being acutely aware of the now—expansion has its roots in eternal joy. Our joy expresses why we are here, where we came from, and where we are going.

If you had to wrap up the wisdom of your life to leave as your legacy—call it YOUR BRILLIANCE—what important things that you've learned would you want to pass on to others?

Love is the highest vibration and the fundamental tone. Love is what holds the atoms of the worlds together. It is both the cosmos and the cell. Love is the light stretching out eagerly from each star informing all with its creative life. Love is unconditional and multi-denominational. Plus, it is who, what, why, when and how we are, it IS THE ONLY BRILLIANCE WE LEAVE BEHIND.

If you had just one more thing that you could accomplish in your lifetime, what would it be?

To open fully and consistently to the natural state of well-being and joy that constantly flows to and through me in which to create more of those things in this world.