Ep. 42 Sheila Yasmin Mariker

I am joined by author and journalist Sheila Yasmin Mariker. Her debut novel, The Goddess Effect, was released October 1st. The Goddess Effect is a tongue and cheek look at the wellness industry. It follows 30-something Anita on a journey to find just how far she is willing to go to become her best self. 

Her work has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Economist, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, Vogue, and many other publications.  Sheila began her career at ABC News. A native of New Jersey, she is a graduate of Cornellt University, where she studied history. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband. 

We talk about how different it was to step into the role of author after years of being a journalist. We talk about the wellness industry and why it was the perfect backdrop for Anita's experience. Anita, as well as a lot of other people didn't have her life figured out by the magic age we often associate with adulthood. We talk about societal pressures put on women and how we can change the narrative. 

Sheila Yasmin Marikar | Author & Journalist
Sheila Yasmin Marikar (@sheilaym) • Instagram photos and videos
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Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Filled Up Cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource. One that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks, and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences, and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:32

I am so excited today. I have Sheila Yasmin Mariker joining me. She is the author of the goddess effect, which comes out this October. She's also a contributor for the New York times and the new Yorker magazine. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Sheila: 0:48

Thank you for having me, Ashley, I'm really excited to be on.

Ashley: 0:52

I love that your book is a satire look of the wellness industry. I find that, especially in 2022, that self-care has almost become like this annoying buzzword and it kind of has a lot of toxic positivity attached to it. Can you tell me why you decided to write this book as a satire about the wellness industry?

Sheila: 1:16

It actually started out as a book about a very diverse group of people who lived in a house. That house is the gig where my main character, Anita ends up taking up a room after she leaves New York for LA. I'm thinking back to when I was in the first stages of drafting and I was going to a west Hollywood dance cardio class in Los Angeles where I had recently moved and it ended up taking up this pretty big space in my life more than I anticipated when I first joined. that workout in addition to a lot of other workouts Inspired what became the goddess effect. I thought it could be a cool way for my main character who was kind of finding her feed and didn't really know what it was that she wanted to do to meet someone. She would sort of look at as a role model and to be around women who were a little bit more established than her and seemed to have their acts together more than she did. It went from there to, as you said, the toxic positivity that is reinforced by a lot of the wellness industry has only kind of escalated up since I started writing this book back in 2015. It just felt like there are times where the wellness industry takes itself. So seriously that. It sort of begs to be parodied. And as a woman just living in the world right now, you really can't help, but be inundated with advertisements and companies and self called gurus who are trying to tell you to buy their product. And maybe this will make you feel better. I think there's certainly something inherently kind. of wrong in that you have to spend money to help them build their business. And somehow in that process, maybe you'll feel better. Maybe you won't, maybe you'll just get hooked to this thing that ends up ruling your life more than you thought it would.

Ashley: 3:07

That is so true. We're constantly being told that we need to change and that this, magic potion or this,$15 class workout or all of these things are gonna make us feel better about ourselves. The idea for a lot of cases, we don't need to change or do anything different. We really just have to look within ourselves to have all of the answers as like simple and cliche, as that sounds that it is really funny how much women especially are inundated. Things to, stop us from aging or to change our hair or to lighten our darken, our skin or all of these different things that it's, you really do almost have to stop and listen to the messaging and wonder, does this benefit me or does this benefit them?

Sheila: 3:51

Absolutely. And what you said about looking within yourself to find that answer? Not to sound too. Woo woo. But that really is kind of the only way, because if you compare yourself to other people or other things outside of yourself, you really know, never know what's going on in, in anyone else's head. It's very difficult to. Find fulfillment from anything on the outside. That doesn't mean that we should all become monks and just meditate every day. but yes increasingly I'm coming to the same conclusion that validation and that sense of self-worth is just not something that you can buy it doesn't come in a package deal for sure.

Ashley: 4:32

Now thinking about the wellness industry, I'm sure that you had to kind of do different things to maybe dip your toe in to being able to write about it. What's one positive place or experience that you've had with a wellness brand or service. And what's a negative one that you've had.

Sheila: 4:50

That's a great question. You know, I have to say and when I think about wellness brands, my initial thought goes to boutique fitness classes just because I've tried so many and they've been part of my life for a very long time now I will say that every class and kind of modality that I've done has done something positive for me in the sense that it has made me sort of prioritize movement or at least work it into my day. For example, when I was living in New York in my twenties and early thirties, I started going to Barry's bootcamp, pretty religiously. It was getting me out of bed at, you know, six or six 30 in the morning. I'd get to the studio by seven and I'd have an hour to. Whatever the workout was just kind of focus on moving and focus on that being my physical meditation before diving into the Workday and going to the office. It was a great way to get into a routine of, okay, I'm gonna do something positive for myself before the whole world comes at me in terms of a negative. Ooh, it's tough. I mean, I've tried so many supplements and kind of, you know, diet in a box type programs that kind of promised a rejuvenation in me that didn't really pan out, turned out to a diarrhea. Yeah, or just like, okay, you do this diet for a few days, and then you resume your normal life and you're back to where you started from after not too long. But yeah, I think a lot of that is the sort of silver bullet. Fallacy of the wellness industry where it's like buy this thing and you'll be better. Sometimes that works, but a lot of times it just doesn't. And then you feel like you wasted money and you're suddenly on a subscription plan, you're spending a hundred dollars a month for supplements that you don't even know are working.

Ashley: 6:44

That gets tied into so much shame, it's the shame of why didn't work for me, or then almost like the embarrassment of having to cancel or having to have that conversation with brands. I do love what you were saying though, about having that me time, whether it is a fitness class or whatever that looks like for the person listening, but I love the idea of taking time out of your day, every single day. Whether it is an hour fitness class, or whether it's like 10 minutes of just not scrolling and like being centered. But I think that part is so important, cuz I think that now more than ever, we've had to be so accessible to people that it is really hard to just turn everything off and just focus for yourself.

Sheila: 7:28

Yeah, it is really hard to turn everything off. I do remember when I was going to Barry's bootcamp, I was working at a news network and returning emails within a minute or two of receiving them was really drilled into us by our bosses, or at least was drilled into me by mine. I would often be on the treadmill with my Blackberry or iPhone or whatever, right there in the cup holder next to me. Sort of like bracing on edge waiting for that light or that notification to come on. It took a very long time and many sort of changes in jobs and where I lived to sort of. Say okay. The phone's gonna go over there. And even if I'm doing some, Peloton or some kind of connected fitness thing, like you're not gonna look at your text messages. You're not gonna look at Instagram email. None of it. This is just for you to get lost in the class and your own thoughts. And you're not responding to anyone for the next, however long the workout is

Ashley: 8:27

It is funny because it is really hard to not. When you see the notification come up to not look at it I think collectively that shift does seem to be changing a little bit now where if it does take an hour to respond like that's okay, you don't have to be everything to everybody. again, it's so much easier said than done because I don't know about you, but like every single time the notifications, I need to not necessarily read them all, but I need them to disappear. Otherwise I won't be able to say like active in the moment and I'll constantly be looking at something else. Is important for everybody to kind of work towards the fact that you don't have to be everything to everybody in the moment. And it's okay to take that time

Sheila: 9:07

absolutely. And that's actually an evolution that Anita in the goddess effect really goes through where she's sort of when the book starts out, you see her sort of frantically emailing this head of HR at Gonzo, the network where she wants to get hired. She's just. Constantly refreshing her email, wondering why hasn't this person gotten back to me? What on earth is going on? This is completely unacceptable behavior. When people text her, they DM her. She sort of feels like, okay, immediately, I need to get back to this. I need to, to sort of respond and feel seen in that way. The journey that she goes through of sort of loosening her grip, physically and figuratively on her phone and on responding to the external world's demands is definitely something that I myself in a continual battle with. But I'd like to think that I'm a little bit better about it now than I was you know, 10 years ago.

Ashley: 10:02

For Anita. Do you think that it will be sort of a one book journey, or do you think that you'll write more books about it?

Sheila: 10:09

That's a great question. You know, I left it open towards the end. and certainly without giving anything away, there's certainly a future that Anita could have in another novel at the moment I'm not. Writing anything related to her or to the characters from the goddess effect. I feel like I, really like the way that they all sort of held together there, but, certainly if people wanted to see more, I would be absolutely open to the possibility of exploring what happens after this book ends.

Ashley: 10:45

I love that your book really is so funny. And so. Relevant to right now. Now if you know, Hollywood came knocking and they decided to make it into a movie, what would be your dream cast for your characters?

Sheila: 11:00

I would absolutely love for, this to be made into a film or a series or have that kind of screen adaptation. Because there are some producers who have expressed interest and who are, looking it over now. I'm hesitant to attach any names to it, just because I want to. If anyone is interested, I certainly want to hear them out. I do have some names in my head, but for Anita in particular, I think it would be a great opportunity to see a south Asian actress or a south Asian American actress who is maybe not. Incredibly well known, embrace that role. I think there's a lot of opportunity and potential there, and I'd love to see a face that maybe audiences aren't super familiar with and get to know her through the goddess effect.

Ashley: 11:46

That's another change that I'm hoping we start to see going forward is that there are not just white people being cast in things that we really are seeing diverse characters and real people in more productions going forward.

Sheila: 12:01

Absolutely. I made every effort to be as inclusive as possible. When thinking about these characters, while also acknowledging that there are characters in there who they could in theory, be played by a number of different actors or actresses what's more specific about them is their personality and the things that they do. And the way that they sort of move the story along. I think for a very long time, it's been that the industry has thought that only. White actors can play a certain type of role when in reality, there is a lot of different options and there are certain characters that do have a specific background, but there are others where, let's make the film version of this. Look as much like LA now as possible. Los Angeles being a super diverse city. I feel like we should see all sorts of different people in this.

Ashley: 12:55

Yeah, absolutely. People wanna be able to like see themselves or aspire to be able to do what the people that they're watching on TV are doing. And if we continue to cast the exact same people and everything, then we're really missing out on that potential.

Sheila: 13:12

Absolutely. I completely agree. I do think that there are certain stories about particular communities, like in the goddess effect, we have a big Indian wedding and of a lot of characters in those chapters are Indian and I'm Indian American. I do have a lot of. Friends who are also Indian American have a similar upbringing. But that said, I think that when you tell stories about certain minority groups, there could also be a lot of universality there. You know, we saw with crazy rich Asians, what huge success that was, and you didn't have to be Asian to like that movie as the box office numbers.

Ashley: 13:49

It's a hilarious, fantastic movie.

Sheila: 13:52

Of course, and as the sensation that the book and the ones that preceded it were I think that when, you delve into a specific community and really highlight what it is about them, like what's going on with Anita and her mother. Yes. They're both Indian, but that's a struggle that anyone from. Any background can sort of identify with and apply to themselves. This idea of I'm not good enough as a child. And my parents don't like me or I'm trying to make them happy, but also trying to be myself. That's really, it's a universal story that I hope a lot of people can relate to.

Ashley: 14:28

I think crazy rich Asians. was a fantastic Movie in the sense that I think Hollywood in general had said, you know, you couldn't have an Asian cast or this wouldn't sell or even with the Marvel movies and black Panther. And both of those films proved that people love stories about humans, and we really don't need to make it a race thing.

Sheila: 14:51

Absolutely that that's so well said, Ashley, that is the whole crux of this. There is a universality to the human story that is just going to apply no matter where you come from

Ashley: 15:04

thinking about crazy rich Asians and his Kevin's name is thank you. He wrote a thing for your book. How did that end up coming to be?

Sheila: 15:15

So I'm so lucky to know him. And so thankful that he read and had wonderful things to say about the goddess effect. We actually first met when I was writing an article about him for the economist and the magazine wanted me to go gallery hopping with him in LA because he's a big art collector And also lives in Los Angeles like me. He was so down to earth and open and I was working on my, I don't know, 18th umpteenth, whatever revision of the goddess effect at that point and telling him about it and asking for advice. He was really helpful. We stayed in touch after that. I ended up profiling him again for the new Yorker when the paperback edition of sex and vanity, his latest book came out. And then at that point, the goddess effect was more sort of fully coming together. I asked if he would consider reading it when it was ready and offering praise if he loved it. And thankfully that all came to pass.

Ashley: 16:19

That's awesome. And so exciting. I would imagine would be a really great thing to have connected to your book, to help with the publicity.

Sheila: 16:29

For sure, for sure. Because as we've been saying crazy, rich Asians continues to be such a sensation to have an endorsement from someone like Kevin Kwan, who really is just besides being a wonderful human is just an incredible author and creator in Hollywood. It means the world for a debut author like myself.

Ashley: 16:49

Absolutely. Now you had touched on, there was many revisions. How did you find the writing process for a book versus. Your articles, how did you find that that was different?

Sheila: 17:00

It was so different, and it was really frustrating for a while because I had sort of come up with a sort of scheme for getting an article done. With articles, you have an audience, an editor who is hoping to receive your work by a certain deadline. With a book, there was really, everything was open. It could be done whenever I wanted it to be done. When I started this, I didn't have a literary agent, so I didn't really have an audience of people who were waiting to read it. I hadn't really written much fiction before. I didn't know how to sort of scale down all of the options in the universe that these characters could do and create a narrative that held together that kept you wanting to turn the page. So I started it in 2015 and I got a few thousand words in and then I just didn't know what to do next. For two years I basically didn't work on it at all in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, I need to do this. I wanna make progress on this. I bought some books. That I thought might help me figure out how to crack writing fiction. It was really when I was profiling someone for the new Yorker and they told me it's always been my dream to be, profiled in the new Yorker. that was. Sort of a light bulb moment for me thinking my dream is to publish a novel and I'm not doing anything about that. So it took about half of the following year. This was 2018 for me to finish the first draft. And then after that it was a series of rewritings. I found an agent. Thought it was going to work out. Didn't really work out. I had to find another one. I had to sort of swallow my ego and say, I really need to like cast as wide of a net as possible and try to find the right person to represent me because I thought I've written all these articles. It should be so easy to get published. It wasn't at all. It was really only last year that things started coming together in a very Substantive way.

Ashley: 18:59

I think your journey sounds like it would be one that a lot of people would go through in the sense that you pick it up, you put it down, you do do a bunch of copies that it isn't. I sit down and write a book. I'm done.

Sheila: 19:14

It's a absolutely true. I think that it's very easy to think. Especially as you get older too, because you look at other people around you who, this person's younger than me and they've published four books and this other person I went to school with and they've published, five and you just start comparing yourself. When you get into that game, it's a waste of time, really? Because it's time that you could be spending writing or thinking about how to make your book work. as I said before, it's really, there's a lot of, sort of swallowing your ego and thinking it's okay for me to be new at this. It's okay to stumble. It's okay. For me to not know exactly how to do this thing, even though I've done something similar before and just trying to approach every project with that sort of bright-eyed. New to the world. Energy is something that I am constantly reminding myself. You know, because if you're going the sort of hard end, oh, I know exactly what to do it. It's just not the best way to go about it.

Ashley: 20:15

It's really hard, especially as we get older to learn new things or to say this is new to me. And it's hard to do. I think, as we get older, we're just used to doing the same things all the time and we know how to do them. So we're gonna get better where when we are brave and we step out of our comfort zone and go, I'm gonna take my ego out of this. I'm gonna really try something new. It is really amazing what that journey can look like. I think it's really awesome that you stuck with it and look at this amazing thing that you've created.

Sheila: 20:45

Thank you. It required a lot of perseverance and you know, that that whole spirit is also something that with Anita, who I don't define her age in the book. I say that she's in her thirties. But I felt it important to, you know, when I was certainly, when I was in my twenties, there was this inundation of the idea that you should have everything figured out by 30, you should be married. You should be thinking about starting a family. You should have a house like the career you want, like everything you need to have all of your ducks in a row by this age. I think that that's something, slowly, maybe that is being chipped away at, but women especially are told you know, get your act together. Figure out your life by this age. So with Anita, I wanted her to be ambiguously in her thirties because I know for me, my thirties were where I really did start. Understanding who I was as a person. What made me happy? What I wanted to do as a career, what I wanted my life to look like. I wanted to put an example into the world of a woman who reaches that point of life and is still just trying to figure out what works

Ashley: 21:58

there should be more examples of that, because that really is the case.. I think that it is okay to not know what you wanna be when you grow up. My grandmother personally went back to college in her forties and had a total career shift that I think it's it's okay. That even if we feel like we've picked something, that it doesn't have to be the end, all be all. That life is really short and we only have so much time. So we may as well fill it, doing things that we love. It is a journey to try different things or try different industries and figure out what you like and what you don't like before actually finding that path. But I think the idea of it having to be a set age, which I find really was 30, was that big, scary number that it's like, you can start a new career at 40, you can start a new hobby at 50 that there really isn't this, you know, it all has to be wrapped in a bow at a certain point.

Sheila: 22:50

Absolutely. One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received, and it wasn't even, it wasn't sort of intended as advice. But I was in high school and my art teacher, I can't remember exactly what the conversation was, but she made a comment that said, yeah, I really, you know, that's what I wanna be when I grow up. She was in my eyes very much an adult.. She was an art teacher. At a public high school. Until she said that it hadn't occurred to me that you could be a quote unquote adult and still have things that you wanted to do and be that weren't, in your description at that point, I also when I was working at ABC news, one of my Wonderful coworkers who became a great friend who was there with me, was a woman named Susan who took up journalism after her children had graduated from high school and left the home. She started this whole second career. I was in my twenties. She was in her fifties or sixties, I think. She was just as ambitious and hungry as the rest of us. And seeing that kind of drive in someone who, traditionally would be labeled as, okay, now you're going to retire. You're going to do something else. That was really impactful on me. This idea that you don't have to stick with the thing that you started when you were 22 and entered the work world, you can change your mind as many times as you want,

Ashley: 24:18

which I do hope for anybody listening that if you're struggling with this, to know that it's normal I don't know about you at 22. I was still like a dumb kid. The life choices I made, even at 22 to think about it now, it's like, what was I thinking? So to expect, to have to make all of our important life decisions in our twenties is kind of a terrifying thought.

Sheila: 24:41

Absolutely. I say this all the time. I'd love to go back to college now, now that I could be sort of focused on learning and not focused on how do I have friends in this new situation where, there are no parents observing me and partying and drinking and all of the things that so many people do in college and school and, actually learning anything becomes secondary. The idea that we should know, what moves us and what we're passionate about by after, maybe two decades in the world is crazy. I mean, more power to the people who do know by that time. Absolutely. I certainly didn't

Ashley: 25:21

There definitely is people that know and they thrive and that's fantastic for them by all means. But I just, I definitely wasn't one of.

Sheila: 25:34

There's a lot of emphasis to put on, prodigies and all of these, 30, under 30 or 20 under 20, like all these sort of lists that I think just reinforce this idea that hurry up, make your mark as early as possible. It can become sort of damaging and make you a little bit depressed in a way, if you haven't sort of hit these mile markers by a certain age,

Ashley: 25:57

for sure. I think another thing and not all companies, but a lot of those 20, under 20 and 30, under 30, a lot of those people are paying to be on those lists, which I don't necessarily know that a lot of people realize that. So it's like also realizing that Every industry has their good and their bad selling parts. You do have to really question the motives behind me on messaging in some of these instances. Now thinking about your book a little bit more. Yeah. Is there anything else that you would want people to know about the book that we haven't touched on?

Sheila: 26:33

You know, I dedicated it to Anitas everywhere in the sense that this book is for anyone. Who's kind of trying to find themselves, but it's not just for them. I really think that this is an exploration of wellness and social media, and it's a coming of age story. It's also a fish out of water story. I tried to take a very contemporary approach to fiction and to writing for an audience that, so often now, Myself included. I'm being pulled into my phone, into the unlimited amount of streaming options that there are, I wanted to write a book that was as fun to read as, you know, watching the latest, whatever hit series on Netflix might be. So that said, I think that it's really for anyone who is interested in pop culture and, and the way that we live now. I

Ashley: 27:31

It is one of those really fun, easy to read books where it's not gonna be like, oh, I don't wanna pick up this book. I wanna pick up my phone. It really is. worth putting your phone down and actually diving into it.

Sheila: 27:45

I'm very glad to hear you say that I've had multiple people, friends and people I have worked with who have looked at advanced copies and said that they read it in a single sitting one of my friends said that she was reading it in a cab in the dark and using her phone as like a flashlight to light the page as she was in the back of the cab. As an author, there's just no greater, compliment than knowing that you're capturing someone's attention in such a. Deep way that they have their phone in their hand and they're not using it to look at Instagram or social media or text or something. They really just wanna know what happens next, that badly.

Ashley: 28:23

These characters do feel like, they could be anybody. They literally could be somebody you went to school with. They could be somebody that you see yourself in that they are such a real characters that it does almost feel like you're watching your favorite reality show instead of necessarily just reading a book.

Sheila: 28:41

It warms my heart to to hear that you think that the demands on people's time now with the way that life is moving and. Work and family, and then all of the entertainment options out there, it can be a really Herculean effort to get someone, to choose a book over everything else. And so I really wanted to acknowledge that and create and write a book that was meant for today's world and really encapsulates the way that we talk and text.. Especially with Anita, so much of the indecision that goes into, how am I gonna word this text? How am I gonna word this email? What is the right picture for me to post, to make people believe something about me that isn't even true? I think it's something that all of us are going through on some level. Now this sort of battle between who am I on social media and the internet and who am I in real life quote unquote, real life. I mean, social media and the internet is as real as anything else now,

Ashley: 29:39

but there is a lot of pressure to put your best foot forward. I think the problem with. Thinking that social media is real nowadays can kind of set you up for failure because it does create that environment of comparison. Oh, this person's house is always clean when really they've just smushed everything out of the picture to take the picture of the clean corner or whatever it is, or. If you're a parent taking a picture of your kid, odds are, you're not taking a picture of when they're refusing to listen to you and having a blowout and melt down somewhere, you're taking a picture where you've coached them to do something really cute, and then you've recorded it. And now it's a TikTok or whatever the case may be that I think a lot of it isn't real life, but we have a pressure to make it feel like it.

Sheila: 30:25

I know I have to remind myself every time I look at some of these apps that. Every post is an advertisement or promotion for something, even the ones that are like a no make selfie or a there was that trend for a while of people taking selfies of themselves crying or upset. I just felt very like this is anything myself included. Put online on these social media platforms is an advertisement for something. So as long as you sort of know that, like, okay, this person is, talking about their book or this person wants you to know about this great meal that they just had. Whatever it is. I think just sort of looking at social media with that sort of a grain of salt that as you said, this is not real life. This is someone's highlight real is super important. And also very easy to forget because a lot of times, especially when I'm just looking for that visual candy and I find myself tapping through story after story and. Then have to sort of ask myself, what am I doing? Like, why am I watching this? I should do something else.

Ashley: 31:33

Or to realize that when you do wanna do other things, I know I hate the app on my phone that tells me how many hours that I've been doing it because I'm like, I cannot believe I wasted X amount of hours scrolling. When I wanna be reading or I wanna be exercising or really, I just don't want to waste the time scrolling, but it's so easy to get sucked into that. So I think it's also important to remember, have you been looking at it for seven hours this week and is that why it's controlling your mind to think this is something you should be doing? And to just remember. again, connecting with yourself and disconnecting and doing maybe a little bit more of that digital detox and saying, you know, what do I actually want to do? What is actually important to me versus what am I being sold?

Sheila: 32:19

Yeah, absolutely asking yourself that that question is such a, important part of life. And it's, it's something that you know, certainly I think that all of us should, should do every day, if not multiple times a day. Because otherwise it is really easy to get sucked into this kind of feedback loop of like, what are people around me doing? What are celebrities that I don't even know? What are they doing? How is what I'm doing, comparing to all of that. It's a very defeatist way to look at life because you're right. there's a multitude of things that you can do wherever you are. Often at least for me, I've found that my greatest happiness is when, for whatever reason, my phone is either dead or it has to be turned off and I have no access to it. for an extended amount of time and I just get to be in the moment.

Ashley: 33:11

I think it's just letting yourself off the hook. If you know that that's your happiest time, then giving yourself permission to take that time, to disconnect from it. Now, if anybody is looking for you online where can they find you?

Sheila: 33:24

So I am on social media at Sheila YM. I also have a website, Sheila marik.com that I need to update but you can find me in both of those places and follow me for everything that I've said about social media. I do find enjoyable moments and you know, it's a reality of life now. That is a way that a lot of us interact with the world and keep up with friends and communicate with people who like our work. So I'm always happy to receive messages and hear from people who are following me. I love for anyone to message me at Sheila YM.

Ashley: 34:03

Well, thank you so much for having this conversation with me today.

Sheila: 34:07

Thank you so much, Ashley. It's been a pleasure to talk with you.

34:13

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of The Filled Up Cup podcast. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear. You can also connect with us@filledupcup.com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.