It Won’t Always Be Dark At Half Past Four

Sheila is originally from her beloved Cookstown, but today, when she is not teaching reflexology all over Ireland, she can be found gazing out at the swans on the water at her tranquil new home in Bundoran, Donegal. Sheila is passionate about sharing her tragic, turbulent yet terrific life story with as many people as possible in the hope it will inspire, comfort, inform and heal hearts and minds everywhere.

Foreward:

The differences between the moth, the butterfly and the caterpillar are that the butterfly flies in bright sunshine, the moth prefers to fly in darkness and the caterpillar doesn’t fly at all but crawls along the hard rough earth.

I am enough.

I am not stupid; I am not fat; I am not inferior because I am a girl.

I am strong; I am confident; I am a survivor, and I love myself not for what I do or say but for the powerful woman I am right now!

It has taken me 40 years to be able to say this, and it has taken every ounce of courage to declare it in this book, my book!

My husband Donald says I’m like Ronnie Corbett; I start on one story and go off to a million others before returning to the original one. I prefer to think of myself as a butterfly, flitting from one place to the next, never settling for too long and always returning to where I started off. I am always on the move and always on the lookout for other butterflies with broken wings!

Before I flew to freedom with my flamboyant butterfly wings, I was the caterpillar.

For 40 years, I crawled laboriously along into many dangerous and soul-destroying territories.

When my beautiful baby boy died from sudden infant death syndrome in 1981, I did find a set of wings, but they were the wings of the moth, not the butterfly. The moth – who prefers to fly in darkness while the butterfly heads straight into the sunlight. I flitted around in the darkness of my soul, consumed by denial for years before a chance landing into reflexology catapulted me into the sunshine.

Since my awakening and getting my butterfly wings, they have been damaged more times than I care to imagine. I am determined to keep exercising them, not to fly away from the realities of life like the moth, but to breathe deeply and meet them head on like the butterfly. Only when you face your fears can you learn to heal. I choose to heal while basking in the sunshine rather than wrangling in the darkness. I would encourage you, dear readers, to do the same.

My passion is to help others find their wings; to lead others to sunshine and healing.

Reflexology came into my life to take me from darkness to light! I did not start my journey knowing anything about reflexology. I started it at the end of a litany of courses, which were all just a desperate attempt to escape my life! Keep doing; keep working; keep talking; but whatever you do, Sheila, don’t feel!

When I finally let my pain out and my feelings in during a workshop by the psychiatrist Dr Elizabeth Kubler-Ross called ‘Life Death and Transition’, my reflexology family were there to nurture and support me every step of the way.

I feel so privileged and blessed to have woven the collective energies of so many vibrant students and clients into my tapestry of life.

I am happy now, flitting from this place to that, teaching what I love. I am a holistic reflexology therapist whose work has impacted thousands of people over the last 40 years. I have trained thousands of people, and I will continue to do so for as long as this is where my ‘sole/soul journey’ takes me.