Season 01, episode 03 February 9, 2025
Originally recorded January 14, 2025
58:28 minutes
SPEAKERS Sheri Salata, Dayna Del Val
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Dayna and Sheri Salata explore the concept of middle ground, the importance of community through the Prosper Network and the transformative power of storytelling. They discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by women in the middle of life, the changing landscape of media representation and the significance of personal narratives in shaping one’s identity and experiences. In this engaging conversation, Dayna and Sheri explore themes of justice, happiness, self-discovery, spirituality and the power of daydreaming. They reflect on the importance of managing one’s energy and mood, the journey of personal growth and the significance of embracing life’s lessons. Sheri shares insights from her experiences, emphasizing the need for spiritual growth and the value of dreaming big. The discussion culminates in a heartfelt acknowledgment of the complexities of life and the beauty of the human experience.
KEY WORDS
middle ground, Prosper Network, storytelling, personal transformation, women’s empowerment, media representation, community building, life transitions, memoir, personal growth, justice, happiness, self-discovery, spirituality, daydreaming, life lessons, personal growth, divine feminine, energy management, law of attraction
Takeaways
- Middle ground requires inner work and self-awareness.
- Tending to one’s own garden is essential for personal growth.
- The Prosper Network fosters community and support for women.
- Storytelling is a powerful tool for personal transformation.
- Women in the middle of life have rich possibilities ahead.
- Media representation of women is evolving but still has challenges.
- Personal narratives shape our identities and experiences.
- It’s important to challenge the stories we tell ourselves.
- Change in media and culture takes time and patience.
- Being present and engaged in community is vital for growth. The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, but progress is slow.
- Happiness should be prioritized over societal expectations.
- Spiritual growth is essential for personal fulfillment.
- Managing your mood is key to attracting positive experiences.
- Daydreaming is a powerful creative tool that should be embraced.
- Life’s challenges enrich our understanding and compassion.
- The journey of self-discovery is ongoing and vital.
- Spirituality can be uncoupled from traditional religion.
- It’s important to ask ourselves what we truly want in life.
- Embracing the unknown is part of the human experience.
TRANSCRIPT
Dayna Del Val 00:01
Sheri Salata, thank you for joining me on Brave Middle Ground!
Sheri Salata 00:05
Delighted to be here, delighted.
Dayna Del Val 00:08
Well, that’s very kind of you. I have had some audacious asks in my life, and you are one of them. And the fact that I was able to get to you and you so joyfully said yes, is… Just when you start to think the universe is not conspiring in your behalf, then something like this happens, and you think, “All right, everything’s going, okay.”
Sheri Salata 00:26
Oh, that’s listen, I’m happy to be a cooperative component.
Dayna Del Val 00:30
Well, I appreciate that. So for people who don’t know, I’m gonna introduce you in how I know you, and then there’ll be other ways for people to learn about you, but you are a friend and a colleague of a friend and colleague of mine, Angela Greaser who works with Melissa Camilleri, and the three of you have started an online platform called The Prosper Network. So let’s start, well, actually, let’s start with the question. I start with everyone with and then we’ll move into that. And my first question, then is, from your perspective, wherever you want to take this, how do you define middle ground?
Sheri Salata 01:13
Oh, I’ve been thinking about that. I figured we were gonna ask me that. I’ve been thinking about that for a while. I don’t often think about that concept, and so I don’t have a ready answer. Boy, in these times, isn’t that an interesting focus? I’m going to say this because I think it’s a very challenging concept at the moment, and I think what I’m finding for myself, because I find myself not having middle ground with a lot of people. So what does that require of me? And it requires a lot of inner work. It requires deep work. For me. It also requires me to be very clear that I don’t know everything, number one, and I’m not right about everything, number two,
Dayna Del Val 02:22
That’s hard, isn’t it?
Sheri Salata 02:26
Actually, I’m finding it to be a little bit of a relief. I might have thought it would be hard, but it takes some sort of judgmental burden off my back, just to say you don’t know everything. You just don’t know everything, and you’re not right about everything. So it doesn’t have to be, I don’t have to feel a certain way about things. I can say, okay, I don’t know everything. I’m not right about everything, and at least that puts me in a more neutral position. I often find when I see myself not having middle ground with somebody, that I’m out of my own garden, I like to say, “We got to tend to our own garden.” I’m out of my garden. I’m in somebody else’s business. I’m deciding how they need to see things instead of being in my garden deciding, who am I? What is my essence? What are my values? What am I? What’s my course? What’s my path? And how do I want to show up in a way that no matter what somebody else believes, no matter what somebody else thinks, that I am a mirror of love?
Dayna Del Val 03:49
Wow, okay. That is beautifully aspirational. I really started this podcast because, ultimately, I just want everyone to agree with me. I just feel like the world would be so much better. I clearly know what’s right. Let’s just all agree with me. Well, obviously, that’s not true. Obviously, there are millions of things I don’t know, don’t understand. Could perhaps be persuaded to think differently about, and it seemed like the best way for me to work in my own garden, to use your parlance, which I love so much, is to start having conversations with people who might agree with me on many things, but might might posit a different idea, or might shift the lens a bit, or might be polar opposite of me. And what does that feel like to stay in conversation with someone who I have very strong feelings against their beliefs? Their values? All those kinds of things. So I really, I really appreciate this idea of, “Alright, why don’t you just tend to your own garden?” It’s sort of the Don’t worry about the toothpick in his eye. You got a log coming out of your own you know,
Sheri Salata 05:14
Very much like that.
Dayna Del Val 05:16
Yeah.
Sheri Salata 05:16
You know, that’s interesting, because I don’t often find myself in conversation with people I vehemently disagree with.
Dayna Del Val 05:25
I don’t either, because I kind of avoid them, because it feels fruitless. And so I, here’s what I can tell you. To date, I have not yet had a guest on who I know I am absolutely in disagreement with. I do have some people I am working up to inviting on.
Sheri Salata 05:47
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 05:47
I need to be in a position where I’m a little bit more modulated, because I’m not interested in it being the equivalent to, you know, a faux wrestling match over the podcast. That doesn’t, that doesn’t feel productive to me, but I do hope to get to that point. I think it’s, if only for me, I think it’s valuable and important work. We can’t continue to only preach to our own choirs. That just creates more divisiveness. And I think what we really need is to look at someone and say, you and I don’t agree in all these areas, but you know what? We both have a child we love, or we both have dogs we love, or whatever it is, there’s a common commonality. So that’s my goal, but that is, I don’t think where you and I are going to go today, and that’s good. So let’s talk about The Prosper Network and what prompted that development at this stage of your life. You have had this long, beautiful career. You are in middle of life, not mid life, which I love. Talk about this new community that you have created.
Sheri Salata 07:01
Well, I guess it was four years ago. It was after my memoir had come out, and I’d done the book tour, and I was getting ready to, I was launching a 12 week course, and I met Angela Greaser, strategist, digital strategist, business strategist extraordinaire, and she came on to help me with that. And from there, because the people who were taking this 12 week course with me, which was so fun, were like, “Where are we going after this?” And I’m like, “Well, gee, I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it.”
I launched a membership for women called The Support System, which is very much focused on personal growth, living the practice life, as I say, and expansiveness and developing and creating new dreams, et cetera, et cetera. And so when I would do challenges for that business. Melissa would come on, and she would she would coach participants. When they come to me a year ago, it’s all a blur, they came to me and said, “Hey, we have this idea. We want to partner with you in a business network for women, where women can meet one another and support one another and network together, and we can teach them how to network, to scale their businesses. And we’d like to call it The Prosper Network.”
And I’m like, “I’m in. That’s great.”
So The Prosper Network. Now picture this: There’s the Sheri Salata network. There’s a bunch of free things. There’s a free front porch, we call it. I just closed my Facebook community and moved it there. And then underneath that, there’s two paid networks, The Support System and The Prosper Network that are thriving.
Why did I decide to do…I’m going to be creating and innovating till my last breath, my friend. The pace of my life is different. I’m much wiser about that, but I feel like inventing and creating and connecting is a reason to be here, so I don’t imagine that that’s going to go away for me at any point.
Dayna Del Val 09:41
Yeah, so I joined this group just a little bit over a year ago. It was a new group at the time, so I bet you, and Angela and Melissa started talking about 18 months ago, if I had to speculate based on my time with you. And the first thing that struck me was how active, present and available you are. Your name carries weight and water. You’re a big deal, whether you feel like a big deal or not. Your experience your one degree of separation from many, many of the world’s most famous people, and yet I can get on every morning at 8am my time and meditate with you. I was just on with you last night during a Monday check in. You’re there. Like I recognize the art behind you. I think about your pups that I see in the background. It’s an incredible thing to have someone of your stature say, “Well, I won’t just put my name to this. I will put my mental, spiritual, physical self to this that makes this…”
Sheri Salata 10:57
Dayna, Dayna. That just bugs me. It bugs me so much when I was like, figuring out how do I want to set this up? I go look at other people’s stuff, and I’d be like, well, you’re charging people money and you’re never there. This is, this is your old leftover bittely, boo that you’re tossing up there and calling a membership and asking them for money. So I’m not interested in content reshuffling and doing that. What I am interested in, for my own self, is really taking advantage of this moment in time where I feel like we are just on the leading edge of shifting all kinds of paradigms.
The possibilities for a woman in the middle of life have never been this rich, never been this expansive. And I’m in it. I want, I want to, you know, clean out all the dusty corners of my life. I want to take the things I’ve struggled with and call in, summon that healing. I want to do the work that allows me to create the next version of me. And I can think of no better way to do that than in community. And so, really, the content is just me doing my thing, walking the path of transformation. It’s not a big, you know, not a big pre-packaged thing. It’s, I am saying, I think that walking this path and really, really allowing the universe to kind of join us and guide us, could make for the best life experience possible. Who wants to come with?
Dayna Del Val 12:48
Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. It’s, it’s really, it’s, it’s joyful, it’s thoughtful, it’s very present. And that’s really lovely, because what it does then is it gives everybody else permission to show up too, you know, just come
So I don’t only want to talk about your book because you’ve done many things now since the book, but we, we have to talk about this book because I knew of it, and then I read it in preparation for this interview. I’ve already texted about 75 people and said, “If you haven’t read this book, get the book.” So The Beautiful No and other Tales of Trial, Transcendence and Transformation. This book is, is like a like a piece of you that you have gifted to readers in a way that very few memoirs I’ve ever read have. I love memoirs. I’ve always been drawn to them. But this memoir is so honest. It’s so real. It’s so funny. When you talk about getting a perm like Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. My husband and I were in bed last night when I read that and I laughed. He turned his movie off, and he said to me, “What’s so funny?” He’s not American. He’s not going to know this reference. So I said to him, “Never mind.” But it’s a very funny moment. I’m still laughing about
Sheri Salata 14:28
That is hilarious.
Dayna Del Val 14:30
What you call your clothes. I mean everything about it. There are some incredibly funny moments. And then there are moments where, I had to put more mascara on today, because I cried it all off reading about you pulling off the last two episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show. I mean, come on.
And there were many other moments in your very personal life that also moved me. But this book is top to bottom, left to right, all encompassing. I loved it!
Sheri Salata 15:04
Dayna, that is wonderful. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I mean,
Dayna Del Val 15:10
Well,
Sheri Salata 15:11
Here’s the truth: it is a very vulnerable thing. So everybody who’s listening or who’s watching this, who has thought, you know, “I’d really like to write my story someday.” And, I say yes. And oh my gosh, it’s really, a real challenge. It’s very, very hard. I was lucky enough that I had a friend who was a very seasoned, legendary book agent. She got me a contract with a major publisher. Oh, and then the pressure, you know, I was late. I missed all my deadlines because I was like, no, no,
you know. So it feels like… because I also felt like this, if I am not saying anything that is useful to you, reader, that you can’t say I’m either going to make you feel better, give you a warning or you’re going to see something in what I’m sharing that you can relate to that will be helpful, if I can’t do that, then what am I doing? So it was really, it was laborious in that I expected a lot of it, lot out of it. I expected it to do a lot. And I think I would say that I’m happy with it. You know, I think there are a lot of really nice gems in there that could help inspire somebody else.
Dayna Del Val 16:41
Boy, I couldn’t agree more. And I will just say I just finished the first draft of a memoir. So I’m with you. That is the most emotionally fraught thing I’ve ever done, because, again, nobody needs to read about somebody’s life at just for the sake of it. So to try to build that piece in of meaning and value is a real piece while exposing yourself.
Sheri Salata 17:07
And I mean, how many times did you say this? “Is this true? Is this really true? Is this my truth? Truth?” I mean, not everybody has to know everything, but…
Dayna Del Val 17:16
Isn’t that true?
Sheri Salata 17:17
But there is a there’s a standard of truth that must be met. Yeah, absolutely.
Dayna Del Val 17:25
Okay, so I want to read this quick segment, and then I’m going to ask you to just talk a little bit about it. This is the introduction you say, “As a writer and a producer, I have honored the impactful nature of stories for a long time, but it’s only now, in the middle of my life that I understand their awesome quantum power, I can see clearly now that stories are the actual building blocks of our lives. They are the intentions of our the ingredients of our intentions, our deepest desires, our requests to the universe, our hopes, our most fervent prayers and the most crucial stories are the ones we author for an audience of one ourselves. That’s right. What we say to ourselves about ourselves, about every area of our lives, is life and death, the difference between the joy ride and the hard road.”
Sheri, on paper to just read your biography is to go, “Well, she’s had a friggin’ charmed life. I mean, come on, everything’s worked out for her.”
This beautiful memoir pretty clearly lays out that not everything has worked out for you; that you’ve had to your own trials and tribulations, and, more importantly, that you’ve had, in the midst of the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. So talk about this idea of an audience of one what we say to ourselves about ourselves. That hit me so hard.
Sheri Salata 19:04
So since we were in, since we had the power of thought, like first grade, maybe kindergarten for some, we start telling stories about ourselves, about our beauty, about our intelligence, about our popularity, about our worthiness, about our skills and abilities, about what we could do. What probably isn’t open to us, about whether if we’re rich or poor. If we’re lucky or unlucky. And what happens is those stories become the truth. They become, they magnetize events and circumstances, and they get deeper and deeper and deeper the more we tell those stories to ourselves. And those, those well worn grooves become kind of the cadence, the framework of our lives. And part of that is generational.
I think maybe a generation behind me are the last ones with the really bad training for women. You know, don’t make a fuss. You know, keep your mouth shut. Serve everybody all day long. And the only thing that matters about you is this, this, this. So that concept of story, which is the thoughts you’re thinking all the time, I’m just giving it a more interesting name.
It’s, it’s that, that tape that plays in your mind over and over, and nobody ever taught us at a young age to stop and change the story. Stop, refocus. Is that true? Change the story.
We didn’t have access to the spiritual training we have now, to the emotional training we have now; the emotional intelligence. We didn’t have access to what other people thought about us meant everything, and that became part of our story. So what I see now is, and mostly I’m working with women who are, and some are much younger than me, but mostly in the middle of life and older. I just had somebody in one of my courses. The last cohort I taught was, or I guided, I don’t really teach anything, was 98 years old.
Dayna Del Val 21:45
Ah, that’s extraordinary!
Sheri Salata 21:47
I know! I just every time she showed up, I just wanted to weep with happiness. But anyway, so what I find what’s super challenging is that your story gets pretty locked in. By 50, your story is very locked in. And if you have not put yourself in courses, in workshops, in doing the work, and you can get so locked in, that’s it for you. Now you’re just waiting for the sands to run through the hourglass, because whatever you decided about yourself, that’s it.
Or if you decide to do the work, if you take advantage of the opportunity to be a part of membership groups like we are, where we’re having conversations about things that remind us about What is your story? Who are you really? What is this? What is it that? What is the next version of you? Can we celebrate how far you’ve come? Can we talk about how, you know, fabulous you are? Can we talk about, you know, the magic and the mystery that life is offering to you, if you will just open yourself up just a wee little bit? And so it’s a very different experience for women who are willing to crack open the door and say, maybe, maybe, let me stir the pot, maybe. And next thing you know, you know, they are off to the races with exciting, interesting lives that would not have been possible had they not opened that door just a crack and started to believe that a new story about themselves and their lives was possible,
Dayna Del Val 23:33
Amazing. Okay, so I want to double down a little bit on this middle of life thing, because I’m just, I don’t know, I’m 10-ish years behind you, so I’m definitely middle of life. You say “Fifty-six. When I say it out loud, it sounds older than I picture myself in my mind, a lot older, and it looks different on everyone I notice. I’m not talking about gray hairs or wrinkles. When I glance around at women in my age range, I can see so clearly how we are each telling such different stories about what’s possible for ourselves. You can tell by the way we move, by the way we talk and the language we use. You can tell by the way we dress. You can tell by our energy, the smile in our eyes, or the listless, exhausted state of disappointment. Some of us have clearly subscribed to the messages floating around in the ether telling us that it’s time to start winding the party down. You’ve been to the ball and you had your chance to dance, you’ve made your bed, and now there’s nothing to do but lie in it and accept what life has doled out.”
Okay? This piece knocked me sideways, “In our culture, once women hit 54-years old and a day, nobody cares at all about what we think. The media industry actually stops tracking our opinions, viewing habits and spending behavior. The 25 to 54 demographic, as it’s known in the industry, is considered the advertising sweet spot, which means anything outside that range is not worth targeting. Even though we 55 plus people may finally have some money to spend or time to watch TV, they don’t care. We’re no longer relevant at 55 years old. I ran a television network that, from a business perspective, could not have cared less about me. Oprah is older than I am. Imagine being the name of the network, the icon who founded it, and knowing they don’t care about you either? Not one bit.
Twenty five to 54! First of all, what a preposterous accumulation of years. As a 25-year old, I was much more like my 15-year old self than I am my 52-year old.
Sheri Salata 25:42
So much me, too. Absolutely, me, too. Well, isn’t this interesting, though it’s so funny, because several years have passed since I wrote that little ditty, and the truth is, look at what’s happened to the media industry. It is imploding on itself. The advertising structure from a patriarchal time is just crumbling before our eyes. There probably won’t be networks. At some point you will choose a streamer and you will be your own network, deciding which channels come into your life kind of like you do right now. Like, what YouTube people do you want to see? What is this? Do you want to see? So isn’t it interesting that a an industry that, for the most part, lacked a lot of vision about women and possibility is going out of style?
Dayna Del Val 26:47
Well, and if you think about media from a larger perspective…so it’s award season in Hollywood, and if you look at the nominees, they are certainly some young nominees, but the number of women who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, who are not just playing this sort of secondary, frumpy mother role, but who are carrying a TV show, who are carrying a streaming show, a film, a franchise, who are their own producers. I mean, it’s an extraordinary time for women, and yet we still have so far to go,
Sheri Salata 27:29
Yeah, because those are the standouts. I mean, those are 10 people, You know, the bread and butter for actors and creators is all the work that doesn’t, you know, get nominated and get all the awards. And I think they would tell you that very, very hard, first of all, very, very hard if you’re not skinny and if you’re older,
Dayna Del Val 27:35
Yeah, yes. And I think still very hard if you’re not white,
Sheri Salata 27:58
Yes.
Dayna Del Val 27:58
I think we are still very much driven by that being the dominant…look, I will never forget. So I’m an actor and a voice over person, and I had an agent say to me when I was 31 or 32 years old, she said, “You’re going to have such a great career,because you’re at a great time. Meryl Streep’s career has had such a resurgence.”
And I said to her, “I’m not seeing the correlation.”
She said, “Well, Meryl Streep’s just opening the doors for older women.”
Okay, Meryl Streep is my dad’s age, which means she’s 23,years older than I am. And PS, she’s Meryl Streep!
Sheri Salata 28:43
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 28:43
So Meryl Streep sits at the top of the mountain, utterly isolated from almost any other actor. And she’s, she could be my mother. She and I are not in the same category. So it goes back a bit to that demographic, 25 to 54.
Sheri Salata 29:02
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 29:03
How did that become like, “Well, you know, whatever this is women, this is just women. This is the only period that matters.” Basically, it’s post-college to “put them out on an ice flow.”
Sheri Salata 29:16
Yeah, and it’s making decisions about how the family spends money and what products are bought and things like that for sure. There, you know, it isn’t…There is, you know, research that was created by patriarchal structure that backs that up for whatever reason, but it was always. Can you even imagine, for me, being in those meetings? and I’m just like, “God, this is, this is a disconnect for me.”
That it’s insulting and, you know, but it takes a minute. That’s one of the things, for sure, that I’ve really gotten out of this, maybe the last 12 to 18 months in the country. In my world, in media and in the whole thing, don’t take score too soon, because change, it isn’t an overnight thing. It is a five steps forward, three steps back, two step net gain. It’s a thing. It’s, it’s, it’s a process.
And if you are taking score too soon, and things are not going fast enough for you, and you know you’re like howling into the wind, your life experience isn’t going to be that great. So that’s where we say. I am going to tend to my, I’m going to make sure my life experience is brilliant, because that’s job one. When my life experience is brilliant, I’m putting out all kinds of positive energy into the culture and into the world. I am not going to make a decision to live a less brilliant life because of some of the changes that need to happen aren’t happening fast enough for me.
So I keep an eye on things now, but I’m not glued. I am not glued to news. I am not glued to new shows. I don’t really watch that anymore, because I’ve decided it’s kind of poisonous to my spirit,
Dayna Del Val 31:21
Boy,
Sheri Salata 31:22
It’s toxic.
Dayna Del Val 31:23
Absolutely, absolutely. I think it behooves us all, particularly anyone in a position of privilege, to pay attention, so that we can act on behalf of people who can’t where we can.
Sheri Salata 31:36
It’s not going to miss you, though.
Dayna Del Val 31:38
No, it sure is not.
Sheri Salata 31:39
It’s not going to miss your from being in TV. I mean, you know, I try to tell my 88 year old father, who’s like, “I had trouble sleeping.”
“Did you watch that six o’clock news again, like you always do?”
Dayna Del Val 31:50
Yeah.
Sheri Salata 31:50
Because I was in advertising before I was in TV. And listen, those are a lot of hours to fill on those cable news shows. You take one little snippet of a bit and you’re repeating that for, like, seven hours with different hosts, because there’s not enough things. And you know, we can take some credit for this as viewers. People don’t want to watch the good news,
Dayna Del Val 32:18
Right? Absolutely no.
Sheri Salata 32:21
You’re interested in mayhem,
Dayna Del Val 32:23
Yeah.
Sheri Salata 32:23
And so that’s why you got to take that as a, like, a tonic. You take little bits, you check in to see what you need to know. You decide where, what your sources are going to be, what the inputs are going to be, and you stop living on it as if it’s, you know, oxygen,
Dayna Del Val 32:44
Yeah, absolutely. This whole conversation reminds me of Dr King’s line of “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward…
Sheri Salata 32:57
That’s right,
Dayna Del Val 32:57
justice.” There’s, there’s a slow movement of goodness, of equity, of parity, of egalitarianism, but it isn’t moving fast enough for any of us, I think, who,
Sheri Salata 33:13
No
Dayna Del Val 33:13
Who long to see it. And so our job is to be vigilant, but to not be held hostage by the day in and day out.
Sheri Salata 33:21
That’s right, and understanding that those things are only possible in a new energetic structure, a new world must be born, which is
Dayna Del Val 33:32
Yes.
Sheri Salata 33:33
A return of the divine feminine, the healing of the toxic masculine, which, and I’m not talking really about men and women. I’m talking about energy and the dismantling of that, of the patriarchy, and something that’s just as profitable and rich and successful, but that everybody can participate in is waiting to be born.
Dayna Del Val 34:00
Yes, absolutely.
Okay. You talk in the book about a question that I think many of us have conversations about, and so I’m curious to get an update on it. You talk about what would you say to your younger self? And five years ago, you said, “I say this, worry less. You’re going to do a lot of things wrong, and it’s going to turn out all right, but spare yourself some pain. Tune into your inner compass at the start and make sure it’s pointing you where you want to go. Your dream is happiness, not just a spot on an org chart. Your dream is joy, not just fattening up your resume.” What would you say today? Sheri, five years further?
Sheri Salata 34:46
It’d be very similar. It would be, well, first of all, here was a big thing: I’d say what looks like the top of the mountain is just the setup for what’s next. I feel like I was just set up so brilliantly for the work I’m doing now, I would say that, which I kind of did say you’re in this for happiness, that is your purpose. You’re in this for joy, that is your purpose. And from that joy, and from that happiness and from that energy, everybody on the planet benefits. When somebody has tended to their own happiness cup, where they have healed their worthiness issues, they have found the joy and the now moment, and they’re just emanating that energy, the whole world gains from that.
So I would say that make your spiritual growth your priority. I would say that the the three best words I’ve ever heard were from Abraham Hicks, and it was the only work you need to do is three words, “manage your mood.”
Manage your mood, which is really, really an easy way of saying, put yourself in the receptive mode, manage your energy, because if you just leave it to what’s happening externally, you’re always going to be vulnerable to things that are not in your control. But your mood and your energy is in your control, and that really is the beacon for the things you say you want.
So I would, you know, I really, this is the only conversation I really like to have. Small talk? Not at all anymore. In fact, if I walk into a social setting with a ton of people, I used to be really good at it. I’m terrible at it now, because I’m like, I’m bored. I don’t
Dayna Del Val 37:02
The clock is ticking.
Sheri Salata 37:04
The clock out. Let’s get to it.
Dayna Del Val 37:05
I mean, let’s say, let’s say we really are at the midpoint of our lives, and we each have another 50 plus years to live. I know how fast the first 50 have gone.
Sheri Salata 37:16
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 37:16
I don’t want to waste my time on “boy, it’s cold today, isn’t it?”
Who the hell cares? Of course, it’s cold; it’s winter, and I live in North Dakota. Let’s find something of value, something of substance, to discuss.
Sheri Salata 37:29
Yeah, I don’t think I’m in the middle of life anymore. Now that I think about it, I probably have 25 left, and maybe not. But that that’s that probably is my upside, and yeah, I want them to be…I really feel like I have the goods now. I have the stuff. I know how to make that the best 25 years of my life. To the most joyful, the most fun, the most abundant. I just say everything I know now I could have excavated in an earlier time. So I’d say to my younger self, “Get yourself a coach. Get into therapy. Start doing this work in a serious way. Don’t miss a day of meditation. Get your practices down. Let’s go because that’s what’s going to open you up to these insights and the inspiration and to the solutions you’re looking for. “So, you know, I know people who are doing that at 25 and I just I’m a little jelly.
Dayna Del Val 38:34
I know me…
Sheri Salata 38:35
I’m a little jelly. I’m..
Dayna Del Val 38:36
Me too.
Sheri Salata 38:37
Dang it. You’re going to be, not going to be as hard for you as it was for me, because I, I really was like, “I can do this myself.” And that’s the hard road.
Dayna Del Val 38:52
Yeah, yeah, it is. Okay. I want to flip this question, because I was at a talk of a friend of mine, Heather Boschke, recently, and she said this, “What would your little girl self say to you about where you are today?”
And I never heard anyone flip it. Don’t look back. What does looking back and forward, what would she say to today’s Sheri Salata?
Sheri Salata 39:20
She would say, “Wow, you did it.”
Dayna Del Val 39:24
Yeah,
Sheri Salata 39:25
Wow, yeah. Because I remember my big question as a little girl was, “Am I gonna be somebody? Am I gonna do it? Am I gonna be somebody? Am I gonna make something of myself?”
Yeah, you sure did. You did it, Sheri.
Dayna Del Val 39:41
Isn’t that an interesting way to think of it? Because her point was, often, what might happen is that you will remember, “Oh, when I was little, I wanted to be a dancer.” And so I would say to myself today, “Well, why aren’t we dancing?”
But you get to say, “Hey, we did it.”
Sheri Salata 40:02
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 40:03
“It was a windy, bumpy path, but we did it.”
Sheri Salata 40:06
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 40:07
So who cares that it was hard? You did it and you’re doing it. Let’s not put it in past tense.
Sheri Salata 40:13
Well, listen, it makes me feel so good, especially when I’m talking to, you know, women who are in their late 20s, early 30s, and they’re like, “God, I want to make something of myself. I just can’t find…”
And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, let me be your cautionary tale. Let me be your cautionary tale. Quit trying to. Quit trying to fancy up your business card and get yourself into meditation immediately.”
Dayna Del Val 40:35
Yeah.
Okay, so you have made some references to your spirituality, but in my short time with you that is very clearly front and center in your life. You talk a lot in the book about, you know, having a model through Oprah Winfrey and the guests that she had on who became important to you, but you have this beautiful section towards the end of the book that says, “That is the real beauty of the multicolored woven tapestry of spirit. I’ve come to understand something I intrinsically felt as a young girl. There is a reason why there are so many languages and paths to source, God, the universe, or whatever may be your holy name of choice, because we are all moving toward the light, physically, psychologically, spiritually, at our own pace and in our own way.”
And I guess that the question that I have in terms of thinking about the theme of this podcast is, I think spirituality and religion, which are both uncoupled and coupled, are becoming, for so many people, utterly irrelevant, and for so many other people utterly relevant. What is the middle ground of this practice toward…
Sheri Salata 42:01
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 42:02
that you are talking about?
Sheri Salata 42:05
Let me think about that. I feel like the greatest thing that happened to me was to be raised within. I mean, we weren’t super strict, but, you know, we went to Mass every week. To be have been raised Catholic, where I have a deep appreciation of ritual and ceremony. I love that, but I don’t connect to it as a spiritual practice. I see it as something else, so that, oh, and so I was left at the altar with empty hands, like I don’t know about this. And who’s this guy? Why is he the one who gets to have all the you know, the power you know, in our church and you know and what’s going on? So I could sense a lack of and I’m not talking about lies and truth, but a lack of integrity in the structure, like there was something that just didn’t, didn’t hit with me. And yet, I had seen my grandmother with her rosary and all that, and I hit with her, but it didn’t hit with me.
And so I was really a little bit rudderless until Mary Ann Williamson wrote A Return To Love. And she still used the word God, which is a little tricky for me, because it kind of takes me right back to Father Cole in the pulpit telling us we’re all a bunch of sitters. But that book just said, “Oh no, this, you know what it really is, is love. We’re talking about love here.”
And all of a sudden there was something I could grasp onto. And then, of course, once I got to the Oprah Show, and Oprah’s exploration and seeking nature spiritually just opened me up to all kinds of thinking, new ways to think about things. And I think when something gets yourselves excited, that’s a sign that you got some there’s something there for you. There’s gold in those hills.
So what I think about that today is religion and spirituality is definitely uncoupled for me, and I recognize that that’s not true for everybody, but I kind of feel like it will be someday. You know, I just, too, I just kind of feel like you’ll see. Listen.
And I don’t mean that out of a smugness or holier than thou, or like I get it, and you don’t. I just mean, like, things start to happen in your life, and you can see that, you can you know, that the ritual and ceremony…Like I’m looking at my desk right now. I have some beads that were created for me in a very beautiful ceremony. I have. I always have a candle that I can light. I have a couple of key photographs. I have a few crystals. I have some decks that I like to just pull a card and see, you know, if the universe has a message for me. I find this very holy. I find this conversation very holy, and I feel like that is the that is what’s spreading.
That energy is what’s spreading. And so meanwhile, I go back to what I said that when we first started talking: I don’t know everything, and I’m not right about everything. So, and I need to tend to my own garden and let people believe what they believe.
But I must tell you I see it. You know, I was in the religiosity. I’m in the same crowd. It’s just like when you start waking up to new language, to new expressions that are literally grounded in ancient spirituality. I mean, there’s an ancient quality to it, and yet, there’s a quantum quality to it. There’s a multi-dimensional, intergalactic quality to it. It just gets so, so interesting that maybe there’s room for the softening of the tenants of religion to include more of the real mystery.
Dayna Del Val 46:46
Yeah, that’s so beautifully said. For me, because I was also raised Methodist. I was a very, it’s funny to say devout Methodist, because that’s not really a thing, but I was an active Methodist. I raised my son Methodist. I taught Sunday school. But it started to feel way too small for me. It felt like it was telling me about a tiny little lane or box of “this is what it is,” and it just no longer felt big enough. The whole understanding of faith is that we can’t comprehend it. So when someone says to me, “Well, here’s what it is…”
Sheri Salata 47:27
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 47:27
that is the antithesis of the whole point of it, in my opinion. So
Sheri Salata 47:33
World is Flat,
Dayna Del Val 47:35
Yes, yes. Don’t tell me something that A) I don’t believe is true and B) has proven itself to be untrue in all these various areas.
Sheri, the last question, or the last point I want to bring up, because this all, I mean, I could go on and on about this book. Really, really, really, really, please go get the book, The Beautiful No. First of all, the title. I don’t very often think about titles. When I got to what the title means. I did one of these.
It was such a glorious moment. I was so jealous that you had written that amazing moment, and I hadn’t. I just…it’s a beautiful, incredible moment.
But you also in the same area of talking about spirituality and Abraham Hicks and and seeking all of these leaders in ways you say this, which so moved me, “I carve out time for serious daydreaming as a part of my day in and day out schedule, the art of dreaming has been marginalized, sentimentalized and devalued when it is really one of the most powerful creative tools we have, a truth I proved to myself over and over again, when I got serious about my soul, teachers, alive and dead, physical and non physical, began showing Up to provide me with ongoing illumination. Thanks to that guidance, I keep discovering new layers of the sacred, the mystical, the ultimate connection. French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, ‘We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.’ Drop the mic. Pierre.”
Sheri Salata 49:24
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 49:25
I mean daydreaming. I think sometimes about young kids today, and I wonder what fourth grader in America can say to you, “I just love to lay in the grass and look at clouds.” I bet that doesn’t happen anymore, and it breaks my heart.
Sheri Salata 49:46
Well, and back listen for my generation, it would be like, “What are you doing laying around, daydreaming all the time? You need to get a job for 50 cents an hour. Go babysit some kids.” I think. And this is something I really like to offer to women in the middle of life and older, which is, it’s very easy to lose your dreaming muscles, because, again, you’ve, you’ve had to, you’ve had to maneuver a certain structure and culture where you’re kind of like the servant and the do everything, and you’re the last on the list. And so you lose…those dreaming muscles get mighty flabby.
And so getting into the practice again of asking yourself, “If I could have anything, what would I want? Is that delicious? If I could have anything, if I could go anywhere, where would it be? If I could live anywhere where it could be?” Without dousing that little bit of a dream fire with water by saying, “Well, I can’t move, and we don’t have enough money, and, you know, we can’t leave all these relatives here.” You know, just without just throwing the water on your own Little Dream fire. Just training yourself to think about “If I could have ever and what if I can have anything I want? What if I can? What is that? What if I can create a whole new life experience? What if I’m going to have a completely different, you know, last 25 years, maybe they will look nothing like my first 50.”
I’m just saying that is, that’s really beautiful, spiritual work. I think,
Dayna Del Val 51:29
Boy I do too. And I like to say to people “Somewhere between reality and your wildest dream is a whole lot of gray. If you never go beyond what you believe is possible, if you never imagine bigger, you’ll never get to what you can actually get to, because you’ve already limited what the universe has in store for you. You’ve already told it what you can’t have. That’s the opposite of faith.”
Sheri Salata 52:00
I know. And that I’m telling you that law of attraction, which you can test it any day of your life. You can test it. You can see it’s true. The universe just says “Yes and here’s more. Yes and here’s more.”
The Law of Attraction yes and here’s more, yes and here’s more. So that puts the onus on you to choose, to manage your mood and to choose and so, you know, like, when I’m like, when I’m in a complete and total state, like, I’ll do a little 10 minute appreciation practice. Like one of my favorite things to do is to play the What’s Working game instead of, I don’t like that and that.
You know, Buzzy ate the my new chair, and I can see that. Instead, it’s like, I love this, and this feels good, and this is working. And, you know, and even if you’re in a really low point, you can find something. Your lungs are working. Obviously your heart is beating. You know, maybe your car still starts, and maybe there’s water coming out of your faucet. And you can play the What’s Working game, because guess what, all of a sudden there’s going to be more stuff working. That is the magic of this life experience.
Dayna Del Val 53:10
Yeah, absolutely. So I have to put in an aside to the grammarians listening. I realize children lie in the grass and daydream; they don’t lay. So don’t come back at me with that. I do know my tenses, but…
Sheri Salata 53:25
I’m always
Dayna Del Val 53:26
Well, I have to think about it, which is why I said it incorrectly, and then it came to me. You know how you remember it? Just as a totally irrelevant side note? I lie. If it’s you, you lie. If you’ve got a book, you lay the book down. So it’s a personal versus an object, direct and indirect object.
Sheri Salata 53:47
I gotcha.
Dayna Del Val 53:48
That’s how I remember it. I lie.
Okay, so anyway, away from grammar. If you if you were to say, if you were to sit and see the reel of your life, which I think your memoir has, has given you the opportunity to really play out your journey, would you do it again, knowing the the really heartbreaking lows accompanied the euphoric highs?
Sheri Salata 54:28
No,
Dayna Del Val 54:30
Really?
Sheri Salata 54:31
I’m going to surprise you, aren’t I? No, that’s why we don’t see what’s around the corner. We’d never keep walking. No, no, no, no. I know that’s a surprise. You’re very surprised by that. I know. No, no.
Dayna Del Val 54:47
I’m actually really relieved by it. It’s like, it’s like you write in the book when somebody asked you at one of the 12 million places you’ve been asked, “How did you manage, work, life, balance?” And you said, “Yeah, there isn’t such a thing.” And you said, “I could see all the women in the front row go, ‘Oh, thank goodness. Someone’s being honest.'”
Sheri Salata 55:06
I don’t believe in it. Yeah, and I don’t believe in it. And the same thing is true when people would say, “Do you have any regrets?”
Oh, I know what the correct first stage answer is, “No.”
I have millions of them. There’s millions of things. Are you kidding me? with what I know now, I’d go back and clean up all kinds of stuff. You know, I’d do a lot of things differently. So yeah, that question, that’s a really good question.
Would I? No, no. And that’s why, listen, that is and that is my human answer to you. That is my human answer.
And that is why we don’t see down the path that far. There’s a nebulous mist we can, like, even when we’re on the leading edge of living this human experience, like we are quantum, multi-dimensional, really understanding that there is a matrix, even when our toes are right there, we can’t see beyond the nebulous mist, because you wouldn’t keep going if you’re too scared, you know, you’d be like, I don’t want…I don’t want a divorce, a betrayal. I don’t want my brother to drop dead. I don’t want my mom to have cancer. You know, all the things that you know make up a human life. I would not say that I’d be anxious or interested in exploring that again, or surviving that again. Even though, at the same time, I will tell you, all those experiences have enriched me. For sure, it makes me, it makes it possible for me to do the work I’m doing today, because I understand, I have compassion. I’ve been through shit.
Dayna Del Val 56:48
Yeah.
Sheri Salata 56:48
But yeah, I wouldn’t sign up for it again. No, no, don’t make me. Can’t make me.
Dayna Del Val 56:55
Well, I guess that’s the beautiful thing, if reincarnation is a piece of of the possibility you won’t come back as Sheri Salata 2.0. You’ll come back as something utterly different, and you’ll you’ll have experiences…
Sheri Salata 57:11
Maybe…
Dayna Del Val 57:11
maybe a dragonfly to wrap up your beautiful, beautiful ending to this book.
Well, I was both voracious in finishing this, not just because I was going to talk to you, but because I couldn’t stop reading it, and I dreaded turning the pages because I knew I was going to get to the end of it. You’ve done this really beautiful thing. You’ve made me believe that somehow you and I are friends and that you are sharing your life with me. And you’ve given me the gift of feeling like, wow, I could share my life too. And that’s a really rare thing to do, particularly, particularly for someone who’s got a reputation on the line and who people probably think they know lots of things about you. You really dispelled a lot of that, and that was a beautiful thing.
Sheri Salata 58:05
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Beautiful compliments today. I will receive them
Dayna Del Val 58:11
Well, they’re very heartfelt. And I just I so loved our conversation, and I know that my audience is going to, too. So thank you, Sheri, and to everyone else, we’ll talk soon.
Sheri Salata 58:25
Dayna, that was great. So.
