S2 Ep5. Redefining What’s Possible: Sherrielynn Lilley's Story of Triumph and Self-Discovery

In this episode, Aderonke Bademosi Wilson sits down with Sherrielynn Lilley, a compassionate, resilient, and committed individual who shares insights from her diverse experiences as a therapist, mother, and advocate. Sherrielynn opens up about her journey of losing her sight and how it profoundly shaped her perspective on life, giving her a unique outlook on challenges and resilience.

She also delves into her experience as a playwright and shares her love for bowling in a blind bowling league, demonstrating how she continues to embrace life with creativity and determination. Throughout the conversation, Sherrielynn reflects on overcoming the obstacles related to her disability and how she learned to stand up for herself, becoming an advocate not only for her own rights but for others facing similar struggles.

As a clinical mental health professional counselor, Sherrielynn discusses her passion for helping others and the importance of supporting mental well-being. She also highlights the significance of self-care, authenticity, and self-acceptance, offering valuable advice on living an empowered and fulfilling life despite challenges.

Sherrielynn’s book recommendations provide additional insight into her journey, including Telling Yourself the Truth by William Backus and Marie Chapian, Breaking Free by Beth Moore, and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis.

Key takeaways from this conversation include the importance of letting your core values guide you, the need for consistency in showing up as your authentic self, and the reminder that self-care is a daily practice, not a one-time event.

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Transcript

Aderonke (00:00.933)

Welcome to another edition of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I'm Aderonke Bedemosi Wilson, and my guest on today's show is 
Sherrielynn Lilley. Sherrielynn is compassionate, resilient, committed. Sherrielynn , welcome to the show.

Sherrielynn  (00:34.208)

Thank you for having me.

Aderonke (00:36.251)

And so, Sharlene, I'd like to explore the three descriptors that you've given me. Let's start with compassionate. What does compassion look like to you?

Sherrielynn  (00:49.14)

Yeah, I think that is always being open to the understanding of others position and the things that they may be going through. So compassion is important to me because I think we all experience times in our lives where we need people to be compassionate towards us. And so it's important to me to show compassion toward others. I certainly have needed compassion many, many times kind of in my life. I think it's a core value that if we engage it, the world will be a better place.

Aderonke (01:20.711)

Yes, I agree. And resilience. Tell me about that. When have you had to be resilient?

Sherrielynn  (01:28.714)

wow. A lot. I think, first of all, that I understand resilience as more than just bouncing back. To me, resilience isn't only that. think resilience has a lot to do with having a permanent stance of recovery, knowing that there are going to be times that you may be knocked down, but to always kind of have in your mind that you can recover. And bouncing back, I think, limits it to just kind of

landing back in the same position. But for me, resilience means sometimes recovering and actually landing in different space, hopefully a better space than you were before you were knocked down. So that's kind of how resilience looks for me. And I've had to really use resilience around a lot of trauma, a lot of things that have happened in my life that weren't necessarily a result of anything that I did, but that

required me to have to quickly recover. Divorce was one of those things. Losing my sight was one of those things. And some childhood trauma was another one of those things.

Aderonke (02:39.752)

And being committed, how does that show up in your life?

Sherrielynn  (02:46.068)

Yeah, staying the course, not giving up, know, not paying attention necessarily to your circumstances, right? If you only allow your circumstances to dictate how you move forward, that a lot of times many of us, including myself, would not be able to accomplish our goals. So I'm very committed and dedicated to the decisions that I make in my life across the board, whether it's something, you know, social and not, you know, so serious or all the way to the way that

I function in my businesses with my family, with my children, etc.

Aderonke (03:21.683)

Thank you so much. And so I'd like our listeners to learn a little bit more about you. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

Sherrielynn  (03:29.262)

Mm-hmm.

Sherrielynn  (03:38.806)

Hmm. Okay. I think a lot of people may not know that I'm a playwright. So I enjoy writing. I see entire scripts acted out in my mind and then I put them on paper. And so I've actually written many plays. I've actually not...

been totally committed in this way to producing them in larger scale. So that's one of my goals this year is to take a play that I've written that has done very well on a small stage and kind of move it to a medium stage. So I think that that's one interesting thing. I think people will be surprised to know that I'm actually an introvert. You know, I always have the mic in my hand. My work requires me to talk a lot and I love people and so I'm great at.

kind of engaging with people, but the truth of the matter is my preference is to be with myself. I love to be with myself, by myself. That's how I replenish. And so I only have like a certain window of ability to stay in large crowds and lots of noise. So that's another interesting thing that I think most people don't know that I'm quite the introvert.

And the last thing I would say is I bowl. I bowl on a blind bowling league and I love it. I'm not great at it, but I do it for fun. It is one of my outlets. It's the way I get a bit of exercise in, but I thoroughly enjoy bowling. I've been to four tournaments since I started bowling about five years ago. Have one coming up this May. Yeah. And I enjoy it.

Aderonke (05:29.127)

So how does blind bowling work? Tell me how that works.

Sherrielynn  (05:34.958)

Sure. The same way regular bowling works. The only difference is that we use these railings that run the length of the walk up to the lane. So normally a person with vision, they walk, you know, they have a certain amount of steps and then they swing and throw. For us that have no vision, we have these railings that are one on the right and one on the left that stop.

right at the foot of the lane. We don't want to cross and foul. So we know when we get to the end of that railing, we are at the top of the lane. The guys that I bowl with that have been doing it for a long time, they bowl looks very much like everybody else. A step, step, step, swing, throw. I don't have that kind of coordination. So I actually walk to the top of the lane and I bowl from a standing position. And I do pretty good. I hit pins, you know?

Aderonke (06:30.739)

Well, that sounds really cool. I know the few times that I've been bowling, I've made quite a number of gutter bowls. So that sounds like it's really interesting and a lot of fun. Can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you're particularly proud of?

Sherrielynn  (06:53.858)

Yeah, I think the most recent one was participating in the United Nations Women's Initiative that was held in Bermuda, where we had to prepare a pitch. And I, I

I entered it, first of all, not knowing that I was gonna be accepted or not expecting to be accepted, but secondly, not fully cognizant of what it was going to entail. And once we got started, I was even more unsure. My classmates all had these products that they were connected to and passionate about, and they were pitching, and I didn't have a tangible product.

And so I'm proud of getting to the end of it because I ended up really learning some really important things about myself and also the event itself or the class itself pushed me into my next chapter. And so it was a lot of self discovery and now has me on a whole different trajectory in terms of how I'm moving forward with my life.

Aderonke (08:10.963)

And that's where you and I met. We both did the same program together and got a chance to interact a few times. And I will admit, during the program, I didn't realize you were blind, to be honest.

Sherrielynn  (08:15.436)

Yes.

Sherrielynn  (08:27.758)

Yeah, I don't lead with that. I don't lead with that. I don't lead with my blindness because I find that people are still... I'm sorry. stop. Thank God for editing, Alexa, volume one. Okay. It's my sidekick over there.

I'll just start that over. I know you'll edit it probably. Yes, I don't lead with my blindness. I find that there are still a lot of people in the world that are not quite sure how to respond. And so rather than spend extra time trying to break through that barrier, that discomfort, that kind of elephant in the room, I try to lead with me.

Aderonke (08:58.097)

Yeah.

Sherrielynn  (09:23.15)

in my totality and then at some point, depending on the setting, the blindness kind of gets introduced. But I love when people can hear my voice and begin to connect a bit with me as a person, my personality, before this significant barrier comes into the conversation. By the time blindness gets introduced a lot of times, then people are just already comfortable.

with what I bring to the table and that's really super important to me.

Aderonke (09:55.507)

Thank you so much for sharing that. And so please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another's life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

Sherrielynn  (10:07.038)

Yeah, this is a very interesting question because

I think that with the work that I do as a therapist, I walk through this every day, but I wanna answer this from a slightly different angle. As we've already kind of explored is the fact that I'm totally blind and I have five children at Aranka. I do, I have five kids. And I had something happen recently, right?

Um, and I'm going to tie this back into the question. It may not make immediate sense, but my, my oldest son, um, is 33 he's Mary and he and his wife have a podcast together and they do a podcast that talks about bridging mental health and faith. So on this particular podcast, the topic was five myths, um, about healing or something like that. And so he didn't tell me this, um, that he, was going to include this in the conversation, but.

sent me the link shortly thereafter it was recorded and released. And one of the questions or one of the statements that they were debunking was something to do with, you don't experience, and they were talking about mental health, but if you don't experience kind of healing, it's indicative of the fact that you lack faith. And so my son starts telling this story about his mother and that I'm blind.

and that he had experienced over his life, childhood, young adulthood, where people would assign to me my blindness as a result of lacking faith. And in the middle of describing the story, it brought him to tears and he had to hand it over to his wife and have my daughter-in-law kind of finish the narrative. I feel like

Sherrielynn  (12:09.878)

My takeaway from that in terms of this particular question is that as a mother, like I'm a regular mom, my children don't in any way act any differently because I'm blind. I yell the same way. I fuss the same way. You know, our dynamic is very similar to every other household that has, you know, children, a mom, a dad or whatever. And the only difference is that, you know, they were born with a job.

So I think my takeaway was that how I have lived in front of my children impacts them, even when you think it doesn't. And my son's tears to me represented how connected he felt to my experience. And it made him make a choice because in the interview he said, you know, it made me question being in certain faith spaces.

And so he started making decisions about his own faith and his own experience with spirituality based on the fact of something that I had experienced. So I feel like the impact, feel like the way I affected this in my son was how I lived it out. How, because as his wife told the rest of the story.

She kind of connected with her experience with me as someone that's very tenacious and vivacious and resilient and a person of great faith and that my blindness doesn't get in the way of that. so yeah, so I think that example along with many little micro examples of how my children themselves experience the world through their experience with me is something I'm very, very aware of now, proud of.

And I hope that for my son, that it made such an impact. I know that for my son, it made such an impact because his emotions kind of told that part of the story. I don't know if that makes sense or if that answers the question.

Aderonke (14:17.619)

It does. And that's incredibly powerful, your story. So thank you for opening up and sharing about that. So I appreciate it.

Sherrielynn  (14:22.862)

Mm.

Sherrielynn  (14:29.996)

Yeah.

Aderonke (14:34.235)

What were the key strengths and qualities you have relied on to make a difference?

Sherrielynn  (14:41.356)

Yeah, yeah, I think it's consistency. think consistency no matter what. I've been through a lot of different things in my life. And I think that at my core, how I show up is important and how I demonstrate that resilience and how I respond to the challenges of life is what really truly makes a difference, right? So it is resilience. is...

the ability to be honest with my emotions, right? To show my vulnerabilities and not really see them as a weakness, right? Because I think a lot of times us opening up can be misconstrued as a weakness, whether that's from a person looking in or whether that's from me looking out, right? So I think those are the qualities that help me to really show up

all the time in a consistent manner. that consistency helps people to feel safe. You're not gonna question what Sherry brings to the table because I'm the same in pretty much all of the settings in terms of like my core personality and my qualities as a person, my characteristic attributes. They show up the same pretty much.

in every setting and that helps people. And you know, that's really important as a therapist, right? Because that consistency is also what helps people to build that rapport and to feel safe in their own vulnerabilities. So people will mirror how vulnerable they are based on how vulnerable you are. know, so consistency to me is everything.

Aderonke (16:23.761)

Mmm.

And so, and so you've mentioned being a therapist a few times. Tell me a little bit more about your work.

Sherrielynn  (16:33.89)

Yeah, so I'm a clinical mental health professional counselor. So I do one-on-one individual counseling. I do couples counseling. I do group therapy and support groups. And I've done some family. I love this work because it's my natural lean. I was doing this before I knew I was doing it. know, I've always been a great listener.

I can remember being a teenager and just friends being able to sit with me. And so when the opportunity presented itself, which was after my husband left, for me to go back to school, it was just a natural progression into formalizing something that I had been already been doing for a really, really, really long time. And I really cherish the space because I didn't always have access to this space myself.

as a little girl growing up in Bermuda, as a young woman growing up in Bermuda and then migrating to the US with all of the trauma and all the difficulty, getting a diagnosis that was going to lead me into blindness. There was nowhere that I knew to turn where I could process those things. so having to just figure it out on my own until eventually...

I found my way to my own therapy. So I value the space, I cherish it. It's important to me that clients just really understand that I'm here to just hold their hand and to help them to connect with their own internal locus of control, meaning that I can be more in control of my life and I have everything that I need already. It's in there. Somebody has to come and help me unlock it.

So I love the work that I do. I do some coaching as well. So I have a couple of businesses. I have a counseling, a more formal counseling business in Bermuda called Numa. And then I have a coaching business here in the US called Heal, Heal Creative Coaching. So it's just, love helping people and it's very organic for me, just happens. And yeah, so that's kind of how I do a lot of mental health education. believe that.

Sherrielynn  (18:50.86)

especially our persons of color who are still learning that this space is okay. So getting out into the community and doing mental health education is kind of like a safer way to do it for the person that may not necessarily feel like they want to go sit in a room with a therapist. Yeah, professional development and all of the ways and all of the different rooms I can enter into to provide mental health safety for me is important.

Aderonke (19:20.733)

Thank you for sharing. And what I will do is I'll be sure to put your website on the podcast page when we get to your interview. So Sherilyn, can you recall a situation where you overcame a challenge that led to personal growth? What did you learn from that experience?

Sherrielynn  (19:46.592)

Yeah, this one is a hard one. Not hard in identifying something, but just to communicate it. Because it's still very, like it happened last week. But it's happened a couple of times over this last year. Happened with the class that we took together. And that is...

Sherrielynn  (20:07.916)

That is that I find that where I feel very confident in certain spaces, like doing my therapeutic work and showing up in that way, taking care of my family, those things feel very natural. I feel very confident. But where I lose confidence sometimes is when it comes to my disability. So,

Recently, last summer, I had a really tough time. And recently, I had a situation where someone was doing a bit of a job for me and they went a different direction that I didn't expect nor did I ask for. And when they were confronted, they kind of said, well, it's this situation's fault and this person's fault or whatever.

And I felt myself, even though I knew it wasn't true, I felt myself kind of pulling back because part of their narrative was also, well, you know, these little kind of microaggressive statements like, well, I understand your situation. You know, so I find that if I'm challenged a bit around what I'm capable of doing or able to do with the limitations of my visual impairment,

that I tend to pull back and get quiet and not stand up for myself. So recently I found that that bit of power differential, right? And a lot of times when we think of power differential, we think of authority versus subordinate. But in this case, it wasn't authority versus subordinate, you know, in a traditional sense, it was this person has the authority around the thing that they're doing for me and...

I don't have any say because my limitation prevents me from being able to speak to this. So whereas I may not have the skill to fix it, I do have the skill to understand the process. But I disqualified myself 100 % because the power differential said, listen, I understand your situation and you can't see, so therefore you can't question me. And I felt myself kind of pulling back. It took me a day or two. It really triggered me. It triggered me a lot.

Sherrielynn  (22:29.998)

I could feel myself getting anxious and I knew I needed to make this correction because it was connected to my business. So I took a day, collected myself, did my deep breathing, told myself the honest truth and came back the next day and confronted it head on. Spoke up for myself. There was still some pushback, but I was able to kind of pull up my socks both as a business person, but also as a person that I can walk in my confidence.

And understand that my limitation around my disability doesn't mean that I lack understanding in processes. I may not be able to put my hands in it and fix it, but I can certainly gain the knowledge and understanding and maybe help you along through understanding how to connect this, that, or the other. And so I confronted it head on and I got the response that I needed. The blame game stopped and I got to that final.

goal of what the job entailed. And so for me, that was a big breakthrough. It was a huge breakthrough because when you question me based on my disability, my tendency is to pull back and say, they're right, I can't see, so therefore I have no say. And in this situation, I stopped myself, I honored what I was feeling, I told myself the truth, and then I responded with

courage because it took courage to come back and say, listen, I hear what you're saying, but here's where I disagree and stand firmly in that my heart was racing, my hands were sweating, but I did it. And I was able to get the result that I was looking for.

Aderonke (24:13.445)

And so Sherrilyn, I hear the determination and the triumph in your voice and being able to stand up for yourself and being able to pause and notice and then choose the direction that you choose to go, that you picked and championed your perspective. And so...

How are you going to take that into the future with you? How are you using that newfound strength or strength gained each and every time? How are you going to take that into the future with you? How are you carrying that with you?

Sherrielynn  (24:55.628)

Yeah, I'm completely redefining for myself how my limitation actually limits me. I think that I had done that in a lot of areas, right? I'm a business owner. I own two businesses. I've raised, you know, all of these children and mentored many, many, many others. Like, so I've seen where I've not allowed the limitation to limit me in other spheres of life, right? But in this case where...

It's speaking to a challenge or speaking to someone else telling me what I cannot do. And there's an aspect of truth to it because yeah, I probably can't fix, you know, something like actually hands on, but now I am saying to myself, wait, it's okay to respond. It's okay to challenge that. It's okay to take what you do know about the situation and answer back to that thing and not feel like you should pull back and say, well,

They're the expert and therefore I have no say. So now I'm looking at, where do I fit this into my life as I'm moving forward? Like it was definitely an awakening. now I think, I think that, like I teach in therapy, right? I teach people in therapy how to understand their triggers, right? And that when you understand what triggers you, then you can anticipate it.

you could prepare for it and therefore the trigger is less intense. And you get better and better and better at not being triggered by that thing or being triggered less by that thing. So I think that that's what it is. think moving forward, when I'm triggered around my disability, I understand myself better now. I feel more confident to come back and speak on behalf of myself.

without that hesitation, without feeling like this particular power differential disqualifies me from having a say. So I'm definitely going to be looking at in my life, in my businesses, as I move forward, how to really translate that into all areas, different settings of my life. Yeah.

Aderonke (27:08.669)

Congratulations. And not everybody, sighted or unsighted, can say that and stand out for themselves and stand strong in their positions. So congratulations to you.

Sherrielynn  (27:23.672)

Thank you.

Aderonke (27:25.499)

You are listening to A.B. Wilson's Heart of the Matter podcast.

Welcome back to AB Wilson's Heart of the Matter podcast. My guest today is Sherilyn Lilly. Sherilyn, what self-care practices or strategies help you to sustain your energy and motivation while navigating your journey?

Sherrielynn  (27:49.974)

Yeah, I think one of the most important things is to be very connected to your identity, to yourself. Who are you? Who am I? Like what makes me tick? What makes me happy? What makes me sad? What brings me joy? Right? I think that as a Black woman, we've been so conditioned to care for others, right? And I am a caregiver. I am a nurturer, right? Both in my personal life and in my professional life.

So I've had to be very intentional about knowing myself well, because the work that I do requires me to be well, mentally well, spiritually well, physically well, emotionally well. And so I'm very tuned in to myself and I respond to my needs, right? It's okay to have needs.

And it's okay to respond to those needs. So self-care for me is not an event. It is indeed a daily practice. It's how I nurture and care for me and what my needs are. I'm not afraid to say today I feel sad and know what that means and then respond so that I'm caring for myself in that sadness, right? So that's a big part of it. I think honesty is the other like really

really big thing, right? Not to deny what you may be experiencing in your life. Because honesty gives you permission also to make changes, to be able to respond to things. And I think the last thing is authenticity, right? Is to truly show up fully as yourself all the time. And that's something that I have gotten better at.

I used to dim my light a lot. I had people kind of say, you're just too much. And which is interesting, right? Cause I told you I'm an introvert. But when I do show up, this is what you get. What you're getting in this moment. This is who you get. And for some people it can feel like a bit much. So I found that I would hide a bit. I would dim my light a bit. And now I'm okay.

Aderonke (29:55.475)

You

Sherrielynn  (30:14.626)

just showing up fully as Sherry and all that I bring with me, right? And of course there's maturity that comes with that, right? So I'm not the same when I'm hanging out with my girlfriends as I am teaching a webinar, a seminar or mental health education class, right? So of course the maturity that comes with that. But again, that consistency that I talked about earlier, like that's me, you will get the same me all the...

Aderonke (30:37.235)

Mm-hmm.

Sherrielynn  (30:41.888)

time and that's important. And I'll say that the last thing is I've learned to be okay being with myself. I used to think that I was by myself, but I learned that being by myself isolates me. It makes me feel alone, but being with myself really speaks to acceptance, self-acceptance. I love me the way I am. Right. And when I tell you that this

has been a journey. It sounds beautiful, but, and I haven't been like this my whole life. It's been a journey of getting to a place where it's like, okay, I'm knowing myself now. I'm connecting with myself, but now I'm also accepting myself. So that when I'm in my introverted space where I'm replenishing through being with myself, alone by myself,

It makes sense. I enjoy being with me and I'm enjoying me and I've fallen in love with me. And it sounds like we've been conditioned for it to sound like that that's super selfish. But the truth of the matter is that when we look at the world, when we look at our communities, there's so much self-hatred. It's a lack of identity. It's a lack of being connected with who you are and being accepting of who that person is. So that's my self care.

Aderonke (32:09.309)

Thank you. That is great. And how might sharing your experiences of success and growth create a positive ripple effect in your family, community, the world?

Sherrielynn  (32:24.032)

It's my story and it's modeling life in a healthy way. So first, my story is just, and all of us have a story. All of us, you have a story, I have a story. What we do with our story does matter because there are going to be people out there who have a similar story and may not understand like why they're on the journey they're on or what this particular

part of the journey means or how to recover from this particular thing that's included in their story. And so we are responsible as storytellers to be able to take the lessons that we've learned and share it with others. So that's the first thing. I think the ripple effect of that is important. But then the second thing is modeling healthy behaviors is really important to me. The ripple effect of that. I have these five children.

And how I've shown up for them, children that have been through a divorce, you know, with their mom, children who have watched their mom lose her sight over time and other things, right? And it's been so important to me to make sure that they understand that life has challenges and life has a lot of difficulties. You'll be hurt.

You know, you'll have moments where you feel abandoned, where you feel betrayed. And you have choices in how you respond to that. And those choices will determine your future, whether you have a happy future, whether you feel good about yourself, about your life. And a lot of times our emotions also shape, you know, the way that we are just in the different spaces in our lives. Are we satisfied?

Do we feel fulfilled? Does life have meaning? So I really believe that modeling healthy behaviors is super important. And I do that in my house. I do that in my individual therapy. I do that when I stand up in front of audiences and give proper explanation and context to things like grief. I'm a specialist in

Sherrielynn  (34:45.612)

domestic violence education and prevention. I'm a specialist in suicide education and prevention. And so I believe just getting in front of people and giving proper context and modeling healthy behaviors will ripple in their lives and therefore in the lives of others and right across the world, family, community, and into the greater world.

Aderonke (35:10.865)

I agree, I agree. You just don't know where one action or one modeling will lead. can hit this person and then that will go on and on and on. So you absolutely, I think, have described what the ripple effect looks like, right? You just don't know. You don't know where that little wave will end up once it leaves your shore.

Sherrielynn  (35:18.382)

Mm-hmm.

Sherrielynn  (35:25.186)

Yes, yes.

Sherrielynn  (35:32.536)

Thank

Sherrielynn  (35:39.15)

And it helps to break, I think a lot of times we can look into, you know, our families are in our communities and we see these consistent perpetual habits that have negatively impacted our families and communities. And when someone steps forward and says, wait, I don't have to do it that way just because my mama did it that way.

and they make a different choice, then you break that cycle of a bad habit, whether it's alcoholism or whether it's anger or whatever it is, poverty. Like there's lots of ways that the way we choose to do it differently can break cycles of bad habits or negatively impacting habits.

Aderonke (36:28.603)

And so going on to the next question, what exciting opportunities do you see on the horizon? How do these opportunities align with your passions and aspirations?

Sherrielynn  (36:29.198)

you

Sherrielynn  (36:41.486)

Yeah, well, you know, taking part in the United Nations Women's Initiative opens up my next, right? I've I talk for a living. I've been talking for a living for a good grief, 35 years and never saw myself as a public speaker. And I shared earlier how.

coming into the class, I didn't know what I was pitching. I didn't know what I was bringing to the table in terms of the class. And with some guidance from the founders and the mentors, I ended up really connecting with Sherry the brand and the brand is really the story. And so now I am launching into professional public speaking. So I only put the word professional there because like I said, I've been speaking for a living for a long time.

but really being more intentional about it, shaping what that looks like, finding what the overarching story is, and then taking it into many different spaces and sharing it in an appropriate way in those different spaces. So that's where I'm heading. I'm already engaged. I have some things coming up that I'm excited about. I'll be speaking next week at a retreat.

Orlando, Florida. After that, I'll be home in Bermuda and I'll be doing some of the things I love to do at the Women's Resource Center. But the Women's Resource Center has also asked and I have accepted to be one of the speakers for their International Women's Day. So I am now looking at and then I'm being courageous and I'm reaching out. have an amazing content manager that helps me as well. So reaching out into these speaking spaces, connecting with speakers, bureaus and all these things that

come alongside being an excellent professional speaker. So, and how does it align? It aligns because it's my natural gift. The gift of gab is my natural gift, but attaching meaning and purpose to it. I don't want to just go and talk because I can make money talking, but I do want to have that intentional impact on those who

Sherrielynn  (39:06.176)

listen to what I have to say. So that's kind of what's coming up and I'm really, really excited about this new space and I'm getting better at it. I'm practicing a lot and it's different than sitting in a therapeutic room. Yeah, so I'm learning how to do it better.

Aderonke (39:26.823)

Congratulations on your upcoming speaking engagements. I absolutely will continue to follow you and see where your path ultimately leads. So congratulations, Sherilyn. And we're almost at the end of our conversation. And my last few questions, what book recommendation do you have? It can be a book that you've read recently or something that has stayed with you over the years.

Sherrielynn  (39:39.278)

Thank

Sherrielynn  (39:55.586)

Yeah, I have a couple. There's a book that I literally about once a year buy a case and give away. It's a book by an author called William Bacchus. It's called Telling Yourself the Truth. And this particular book, it's a therapeutic book. It has reflections of cognitive behavioral therapy, but it's not. It's really kind of more what William Bacchus has.

coined as misbelief therapy. So it really challenges more about not so much what others say and that you absorb, but a lot more about the things you tell yourself and how that can get in the way of hindering your walk forward. So that's an excellent one. And then there was a book that I read. I've read it now about four times.

called Breaking Free by Beth Moore. Beth Moore is a preacher. She's very practical, very girlfriend-ish, but she's powerful. And at a time when I was very unsure of life, I was right at the end of my vision, so I was just entering into total blindness. And I think I've shared in other spaces that at that time, it's the same time that my husband left.

And so I was in this very precarious space of how do I move forward and how do I do it blind? And to be honest, as a person that's very faith oriented, I didn't feel safe going to my church. So I had to seek out something or some other way to connect with how to understand what I was going through and how to move forward. And that book did it for me. So Breaking Free by Beth Moore is another great, excellent book. And then

One for fun. Just a novel. It's a book called The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. H-A-T-T-I-E. Excellent write, young author, lives in Brooklyn, New York. It was such a good read. Her writing style is similar to mine, so that may be why I really enjoyed it. But it's a really, really nice novel that deals a lot with family dynamics and things like that. So...

Sherrielynn  (42:20.942)

Those are my three top, yeah, recent reads. Breaking Free has been in my life for a long time and Telling Yourself the Truth also has been in my life for

Aderonke (42:36.443)

Out of curiosity, how do you read? all these books in Braille? How does that work?

Sherrielynn  (42:42.498)

Yeah, absolutely not. Braille still exists and Braille will never go away. However, with the entrance of the digital age, there's so much audio now that very few people, especially the younger generation coming up, are using Braille to read books. We use it for other things like signs in the elevator and that type of thing. But I mostly listen to my books.

And of course people know about audible and that kind of thing, but I actually use a service that actually records books in a different type of format called Daisy for blind readers because it allows you to do the things in a book that you would if you were sighted, like bookmark a page. I can actually bookmark a line in a book. So I use that particular format.

because it's easy for me to do the things in a book that you would do, like if you enjoy reading and you put like a little bookmark in between or you're highlighting something I can highlight and that type of thing. yeah, so I read my books audibly.

Aderonke (43:53.469)

That's fascinating. I had no idea. I just assumed either audio or braille. So Daisy, Daisy sounds like a really cool and handy tool.

Sherrielynn  (44:04.118)

Yeah, it's audio, but it's just with the features that allows a person with visual impairment to interact with the book in a similar way that a sighted person would.

Aderonke (44:14.931)

Thank you. so Sherilyn, is there anything else? Do you have any final thoughts?

Sherrielynn  (44:23.726)

I just think, I think, I think I just want to say it's so important in the world today, right? There's so much going on around us that can make us feel unsure, anxious. You know, we just had a new president here in the United States. Bermuda is getting ready for an upcoming election and the external things of our lives matter.

and they can make us really feel scared. And I just want to encourage people to stay centered in what you know and what you're committed to and what you believe. Let your core values guide you and be comfortable in what you believe and don't be shaken by what's happening externally around you. You can make a difference and...

these things will pass. They come and they go. But that consistency that I talked about earlier, show up fully and consistently as yourself and be generous and kind, caring and compassionate, and you will feel fine. You will get through life very well and you will make a difference in the lives of others.

Aderonke (45:49.511)

Thank you so much. And so what I wanna do is share my appreciation nuggets of what I'm taking away from our conversation. And the three that I've highlighted, one thing that you said is my limitation has not limited me. I think that is.

that speaks to bravery and being courageous. And you mentioned being courageous as we were talking. Another thing that you said is self-care is not an event, it's a daily practice. As you spoke about the things that you do to care for yourself. And the last is something that you've just said. Let your core values guide you. And...

Sherrielynn  (46:30.67)

Mm.

Aderonke (46:44.423)

That says to me that whoever you really are, let that be what, the center from which you will make your decisions, how you will continue to show up in the world. So Sherrilyn, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to join me on AB Wilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast dedicated to asking overwhelmingly.

positive questions as we uncover incredible stories of people you may know. Sherilyn, it's really been a pleasure talking with you.

Sherrielynn  (47:20.472)

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure talking with you as well.