“NO ONE told me you could get paid for having fun. It is the best kept secret,” says reflexologist and foot reader Jane Sheehan.

“I used to admire people who have a passion for things and wondered when I would get that,” she continues.

Jane has most definitely discovered her passion and, since stepping into it by chance in 1998, she hasn’t looked back.

The 50-year-old from Lancashire, who has appeared on ITV’s This Morning programme and on the BBC’s Strictly It Takes Two, has just started running clinics in Worcestershire for reflexology and her unique foot reading therapy – otherwise known as solestry.

She says by examining a person’s feet she can identify a client’s current emotional state, their personality strengths and weaknesses, while highlighting hidden potential and undervalued talents.

She analyses the structure and texture of the feet to understand her client’s emotions and personality. This is not about foot health although she has seen feet in pretty bad conditions – one woman had athlete’s foot so badly it was all over the soles of her feet and had even spread to the tops.

Jane explains that a little bit of athlete’s foot indicates that some situation in life a person might usually handle in their stride, has begun to get under their skin. But in the really severe case the issue was overwhelming her.

Jane says: “We are all used to changing our facial expressions and hiding our true feelings, but we can’t do that with our feet – they tell the truth. Simply by analysing the shapes of feet and toes, we can tell an awful lot about a person.”

She had worked in a number of industries doing desk-bound administration jobs and first became interested in feet about 18 years ago. Her friend wanted to have a reflexology treatment as a birthday present and Jane booked them both in for appointments.

Jane watched her friend having her treatment and was fascinated by what the reflexologist was saying. “She was having her treatment and the reflexologist was telling her about her health. When it was my turn I had a huge reaction to it. It was amazing. I had such a profound feeling of being relaxed after the reflexology. It was better than going on holiday.”

She decided to jump in with both feet and signed up to study reflexology at the Chiltern School of Reflexology and, while doing her 65 hours of case studies as part of the course, she found that a lot of the people she used in her case studies had huge emotional reactions to the treatment.

This made her curious about the link between the feet and emotions so she decided to investigate further and this led her to the teachings of American Louise Hay, famed for her “You Can Heal Your Life” self-help book, Dutchman Imre Somogyi who developed reading toes and reflexologist and healer Chris Stormer.

Jane developed her own style of foot reading therapy, incorporating some of these people’s philosophies and then started doing foot readings for family and friends as a bit of fun.

“It started off as a bit of fun, just reading friends’ feet. But then it got to the stage where I couldn’t go to a party without getting a foot bared before I could even grab a drink. People would kick off their shoes when they came to my door and I was reading feet through their socks.

“A lady called Helena asked me if I would read feet at a fund-raiser for the local play group. This was my first venture into foot reading for the general public.”

At first Jane did her reflexology and foot reading as a business alongside her job and then decided to give her total attention to these complementary therapies by going full-time. She recruited a friend to do her marketing and asked her to get her on This Morning.

And the morning TV programme jumped at the chance to have her on the show explaining and demonstrating what she does. “I have done TV from the first day I went full-time as a reflexologist and foot reader.”

Since that day she has expanded her work to include teaching, writing books – two about foot reading and one on how to start and run an holistic therapy business – doing foot reading parties as well as seeing individual clients. She also works in other countries and was in Australia last year and will be going to Israel later this year.

Apart from her passion for these therapies, she is also an astute businesswoman and never misses a chance to promote what she does through the media – hence her appearances on This Morning, Today with Des and Mel, Channel 4’s Morning Glory and Big Brother's Little Brother and that’s just in the UK. She always aims to get media coverage when she travels abroad too.

Her family have watched her progress with a mixture of amazement and pride. “When I first started my mum said ‘reflexology is all very well but foot reading!’. It was going too far. But I know there is a market for it because people are curious about foot reading.

“I thought I would give myself three or four years and see how it goes.” She thought she would run out of clients but she failed to realise that a new generation would come along - curious to find out what their feet were saying about them. “As I am getting older, I am seeing younger and younger people.”

Jane’s techniques and style has evolved as her experience grows. “The way I do it now is different from the way I started,” she reveals but she is as passionate about it as ever. “It is a compulsion.”

In 2010 she was awarded honorary membership of the Association of Reflexologists for her outstanding services to reflexology.

Jane is holding monthly reflexology and foot readings at the Wellness Centre, John Street, Bromsgrove.