After a successful career in the entertainment industry, Sheri Mandell found her true calling in mindfulness and meditation. In this interview with WorldAuthors.org, she discusses her inspiring new book, The Butterfly in You, and shares how self-reflection can help people overcome loneliness and reconnect with their authentic selves.
Welcome to WorldAuthors.org, Sheri. Please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a little about your background and what inspired you to become a mindfulness teacher and author.
For much of my early career, I worked as a wardrobe stylist in the entertainment industry. It was a creative career that I truly enjoyed. It wasn’t until after I had my children that I began asking deeper questions—not about how we look on the outside, but about who we are underneath it all.
That search eventually led me to mindfulness and meditation, and for more than fifteen years I’ve had the privilege of helping others reconnect with themselves during life’s many transitions. Along the way, I realized that beneath so many of the struggles people shared—stress, anxiety, uncertainty—was a quieter, deeper loneliness. Not the loneliness of being alone, but the loneliness of losing touch with yourself.
Writing The Butterfly in You felt like the natural next step. It allowed me to take what I’ve learned through years of teaching, my own personal journey, and countless conversations with others, and share it with anyone searching to better understand themselves.
Your book, The Butterfly in You: Finding the End to Loneliness, explores a type of loneliness that many people don’t often talk about. What inspired you to write this book, and why was it important for you to share this journey?
The inspiration for The Butterfly in You came from my own life.
Over the years, I came to realize that the deepest loneliness isn’t the absence of other people. It’s not knowing who you truly are.
When I began teaching mindfulness to children, I was struck by their joy, their curiosity, and how naturally they knew what made them happy. It made me realize something about myself: I wasn’t sure I could answer that same question. Somewhere along the way, I had spent so much time being a daughter, a wife, a mother, an employee, and everything everyone needed me to be that I had become disconnected from myself.
So I started searching. I began journaling, asking deeper questions, practicing mindfulness, and exploring the symbolism of the tarot—not to predict the future, but to better understand myself.
That search ultimately became The Butterfly in You. My hope is that the book encourages others to ask those same questions and discover that sometimes the journey isn’t about becoming someone new—it’s about remembering who you’ve always been.
In the book, you write about feeling disconnected from yourself despite doing all the “right” things in life. Why do you think so many people, especially women, experience this feeling today?
From a young age, many of us are taught to be caregivers, achievers, helpers, and people-pleasers. We become daughters, wives, mothers, employees, and friends. Somewhere along the way, we stop asking the most important question of all: “Who am I beneath all of those roles?”
Women, in particular, are often rewarded for putting everyone else’s needs first. Eventually, we wake up one day realizing we’ve built a life that looks successful on paper, yet we don’t feel connected to it anymore.
When we spend years becoming who we think we’re supposed to be, it’s easy to lose sight of who we truly are.
You use tarot as a reflective framework rather than a mystical tool. What drew you to this approach, and how can it help readers better understand themselves and their life patterns?
Honestly, it all happened by accident.
I was trying to learn the tarot, and like many beginners, I was looking at the cards without really understanding what they meant. Yet somehow, certain cards stirred emotions and questions in me that I couldn’t explain.
Out of curiosity, I started having conversations with AI. I wasn’t using it to write a book. I was using it the same way someone might use a piece of poetry or a journal prompt—to reflect on what I was feeling and ask deeper questions about my own life.
Those conversations led to more journaling, more self-discovery, and eventually a realization that the cards weren’t giving me answers—they were helping me ask better questions.
As the reflections grew, I realized I wasn’t simply learning the tarot anymore. I was uncovering a framework that brought together mindfulness, psychology, personal reflection, and the universal journey we all experience as human beings.
That’s when I realized I wasn’t just writing in a journal anymore. I was writing a book.
The book began as a personal journal and was influenced by your experiments with AI-generated journaling prompts. Can you tell us more about how that process evolved into a published book?
What began as a personal journaling practice slowly became a conversation. I would reflect on a tarot card, then use AI to ask deeper questions about what that card might represent in my own life. It wasn’t about finding answers—it was about becoming more curious.
The more questions I explored, the more I realized I wasn’t simply journaling anymore. I was uncovering patterns about identity, expectations, loneliness, and what it really means to know yourself.
Over time, those reflections became chapters. The journal became a manuscript, and the manuscript eventually became The Butterfly in You.
One of the things I’m most proud of is that the book doesn’t present AI as a replacement for human wisdom. It presents it as a tool for reflection—one that helped me ask better questions and ultimately understand myself more deeply.
Having spent more than 15 years teaching mindfulness and meditation, what are some of the most common struggles you see people facing when it comes to self-discovery and emotional well-being?
One of the biggest struggles I see is that people are constantly judging themselves. They believe they should have everything figured out by now or that something is wrong with them because life hasn’t unfolded the way they expected.
Mindfulness teaches us to become curious instead of critical. Rather than asking, “Why is this happening to me?” we begin asking, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” That simple shift changes everything.
Curiosity opens the door to understanding instead of judgment. It allows us to slow down, become more compassionate with ourselves, and recognize that every experience, even the difficult ones, has something to teach us.
I believe that’s where real growth begins.
Alongside the book, you created a companion tarot deck. What can readers expect from the deck, and how does it complement the ideas explored in the book?
I created the companion deck because I wanted people to have something tangible they could hold as they meditated, journaled, or reflected on their own lives. More than anything, I wanted them to be able to see themselves in the cards.
The deck wasn’t designed to offer answers or predict the future. It’s meant to serve as a mirror, inviting readers to pause, reflect, and become more aware of their own thoughts, emotions, and life experiences.
The deck doesn’t provide questions on its own. Instead, it works alongside the book, which offers the questions, reflections, and deeper exploration. Together, they create a meaningful practice of self-discovery, helping readers reconnect with themselves one card at a time.
Was there a particular lesson, realization, or breakthrough during your own journey that significantly changed the way you view loneliness and personal growth?
The realization that changed everything for me was understanding that loneliness isn’t always about being alone. Sometimes it comes from living the same patterns for so long that we lose touch with who we truly are.
Once I recognized the patterns I had been repeating throughout my life, I realized I finally had a choice. I didn’t have to keep repeating them.
For me, that’s what personal growth really is. It’s becoming aware of the patterns we’ve been living and having the courage to choose a different path.
What do you hope readers take away from The Butterfly in You: Finding the End to Loneliness, and what would you say to someone who feels lost, disconnected, or unsure of who they are today?
I hope when readers finish The Butterfly in You, they feel hopeful enough to take that first step forward. I hope the book gives them the confidence to try some of the ideas that resonate with them and begin the journey of discovering who they truly are.
More than anything, I hope they come home to themselves feeling a little less alone, realizing that they already have everything they need inside of them.
If someone feels lost today, I’d remind them that you don’t have to have all the answers before you begin. Sometimes all it takes is the willingness to ask the first question. That first step can become the beginning of coming home to yourself.
The Butterfly in You: Finding the End to Loneliness published by Mark Victor Hansen Library is now available on Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Amazon, and Books-A-Million.