How to Spark Magic with Sha Sparks

In this Episode

• • [03:22]Sha Sparks shares experiencing a profound vision as a child. She also mentions meeting Rhonda Britten at a conference where she signed up for a certification program and became a fearless living coach.
  • [10:32]Stephan and Sha discuss human design and manifestation, with Sha recounting a shamanic journey experience where her spirit guides revealed her happy place.
  • [19:16]Sha describes her parents as unknowingly abusive, leading to her own abusive relationship.
  • [27:20]Sha talks about how she created a gift of service and connection through forgiveness and compassion.
  • [35:19]Sha journals to receive messages and clear her own chakra, leading to spiritual growth.
  • [50:49]Sha practices forgiveness through journaling and elaborates on dealing with anger in a healthy way.
  • [56:37]Connect with Sha Sparks here.

Jump to Links and Resources

Sha, it’s so great to have you on the show.

I’m honored to be here, Stephan. It was just an amazing conversation we had when we met at Podfest, and I can’t believe it’s that much later that we finally get to sit down and have this together. So, thank you for having me.

You are quite welcome. It is a pleasure, and I’m glad we pulled this together. I was so inspired and excited by the story that you shared. When we sat down, it was with Seth, who has a great podcast and business focused on channeling angels, and he’s just a great guy. I think I met him at a previous podcast a year ago before that, and he shared, I think, with both of us this story of being about eight years old and having a vision. I’d love for us to start with that because that was so memorable then. When I heard that story, I said, “I got to have her on my podcast.”

Well, thank you for remembering that because sometimes I share so many stories that it’s hard to tell which one makes an impact. Between the ages of eight and ten and probably more in the eight-year-old realm, I attended Sunday school at the church I had been attending most of my life. It was a non-denominational church but a very traditional type of church. It wasn’t Catholic, but it had a lot of pomp, circumstance, and tradition, along with going to church. I was in the church basement where Sunday school was held. I’m staring at this corkboard-looking thing that was blank. It had nothing hanging on it, but was also like using a room divider. Not that that makes any difference, but to get your visual sense about it, I’m just staring at it and looking up to the right at the ceiling so you can see the ceiling tiles and this corkboard. I don’t even know how to explain how it happened other than a movie flashed in front of my eyes. Now, I understand it is a vision. I was standing on stage with a microphone in my hand and speaking to what looked like many people. They were laughing, excited, smiling, and all happy to be there. I said, “I don’t know what that means, but okay.” 

Around the same time of life age frame, another profound experience happened, which I don’t know if I shared with you, but I’ll add it because it pertains to it. We learned again that it’s a Christian church. I was learning the Easter story in the back row of Sunday school. We had metal folding chairs, and I was sitting in the back row because, even at that age, I was a troublemaker. So, that’s where I sat. This voice presence entity came on the folding chair next to me. It leaned into me so I could feel the presence of something in my right ear, and it whispered, “Did you hear that? The religious people killed Jesus. So be like Jesus and love everyone.” 

‘Spiritual’ was the word that I took away from that moment. That was all that was said, but in my mind, my confidence and self-worth were not there. I was not there. So I had this, “Huh, I wonder if that’s it,” and then immediately, my fear took over and was, “Well, there’s no way I could do that. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not courageous enough. I’m not confident enough to be him, nor do I want to be himself.” It was kind of like, “Oh, yeah, that’s not it at all.” So, around that same time frame, we were watching Tony Robbins. There was this other woman on Oprah, and she was talking about this TV show that she had called Starting Over. It was where she had a house full of women that she was coaching.

Some of the coaching exercises and things that she was showing was how women had experienced some sort of trauma, and she was helping them release it to move forward, to be able to get out of it, and my mom looked at me and said, “I think you could do that.” I don’t remember if she and I had talked about that vision of public speaking, but I just think, especially now that she’s gone, I believe that was the only time in my life that she spoke life into me. She was not very nurturing, I will say. She cared in her best way, not the way that most kids need to be cared for and nurtured, but she did her best. 

Many years later, I’m at a conference to clarify my website in Nashville, and after the first day, I’m like, “Man, I’m talking to some people I’d met,” and I was like, “Man, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m stuck.” They say, “Oh, you should talk to the other life coach in the room.” I’m like, “Oh, who’s that?” They’re like, “Rhonda Britten.” I was like, “Rhonda Britten? Why do I know that name?” I’m flipping the Google in my head, saying, “Where did that come from?” I got back to my hotel that night, googled it, and saw that she had started over and that she’d be an Oprah. I said, “Oh, my gosh, that’s it.” 

A funny story: the memory of my mom didn’t come up until way later, so I talked to her the next day. She was like, “Oh, I have this.” I said, “Yeah, I would love to talk to you.” She was like, “Yeah, let’s sit at lunch.” We went to lunch, and she said, “Well, tell me about your coaching certification. What did you go through to get certified?” I said, “Oh, I didn’t get certified. Do you think I should be certified?” She’s like, “Well, of course I do. I have my own certification program.” I said, “Oh, well, tell me what it’s about.” She’s like, “Well, I help people step out of their comfort zone.” I was like, “Well, this is clearly meant to be,” because, at the time, I had called myself a practitioner of stepping out of my comfort zone. I had lots of practice doing that, and she said I help people break through fear. I said, “Oh, well, I experienced lots of fear in my life, so I get that.” She said, “If you want to know more, a Fearless Conversation for Coaches is coming up.”

I was like, “Well, that’s funny. I’m calling myself a communication coach, so clearly, everything is aligning, so I just need to go and find out.” That was in November when I met her; the following January, I was in LA at this Fearless Conversation Workshop. Sitting there, within just a few hours, I felt like I was in a hug sitting in this hotel room and conference room. I had never experienced that before, so immediately at the first break, I was in the back of the room. I’m like, “What does this fearless communication certification look like? How much is it? How long does it take? My dad is sick, so am I able to pause if I need to take care of him?” I was literally sold by the first break to sign up to become a certified fearless living coach, which I did right then and there. That’s been probably six years ago now.

You probably don’t remember this, but I’ll remind you that you mentioned Rhonda Britten when we met. And I was like, “Really funny coincidence. Guess who I interviewed not even two weeks ago?”

That’s right. I do remember that. 

I just checked my calendar. Can you guess which date it was? 01-11. That’s the third time today that I got an angel number.

I love that; so much alignment. 

Speaking of alignment, our listeners are not aware of this, but we had a little technical snafu and false alarm. Thankfully, the error message saying it didn’t record the recording was a false alarm. So it’s all good. But the funny thing that happened because of that is we would go over time, which would be a problem for your appointment at the top of the hour from now. We were going to have to either cut it short or something. Then you just got a text message or some sort of communication that called, and it was canceled. I’m like, “Wow, you are a powerful manifesto. Thank you for clearing your schedule.” That got us on this whole rabbit hole around human design. Do you want to share a little bit about that? Because that was spookily accurate, what I just happened to say out of ether about being a powerful manifesto.

For the audience, if you know anything about human design, just know I am not an expert. I don’t know much about it, so feel free to message me and talk about it. Share more of what you have and what you know. Several years ago, a friend said, “Oh, you got to find this app. It’s called Human Design. It’s similar to a natal chart; it takes your birth date, time, and where you were born and puts it into this thing, and then kind of like a personality like Myers-Briggs, it tells you what you are.” I know there’s a manifesto or generator and other things I know nothing about. I know I showed up as a manifesto, and when I saw it, I laughed because I was thinking, “Man, actually, that’s pretty true.” The more I now say it to myself, like, “Oh, yeah, I’m totally a manifester, the more stuff manifests.”

And you called yourself a magical manifesto.

Magical—more manifest because several years ago, when I was at this coaching retreat with Rhonda Britten, several of us have become close-knit friends, and one of them is a shaman. We did a shamanic journey as we prepared to prepare for a retreat. One thing you do is call in your spirit guides, and it’s a beautiful story. She has a drum there, and she’s drumming this beautiful beat. She takes you through a guided meditation and tells you, “Okay, so I want you to picture your happy place.” I’m in my head, like, “Oh, I know my happy place. It is on the top of Estes Park, looking over and seeing this gorgeous mountain view.”

Suddenly, that wasn’t showing up, and I was like, “Okay, what is the deal?” And all of a sudden, a beach showed up. And I was like, “Okay, got it. I’m trying to control this, okay?” She’s like, “Yeah, there might be these beautiful flowers or a waterfall.” She started to name all these other things that are in your environment. In my head, I remember consciously thinking, “Oh, there’s no such thing as flowers or a waterfall on a beach. Why would she say something like that?”

Then, boom, they show this vision in my head, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s funny. There they are.” She says, “Yeah. You’ll be visited by your spirit guides, so just allow them to show up. It could be a person. You could have one, two, five, six, or ten. But just trust the process that they’re going to show up exactly how they will show up.” I’m like, “Trust the process.” Well, clearly, in my head, I’m not trusting the process. I’m trying to control this. “So, who’s going to show up?” The first thing that showed up was a beautiful white crane. The next thing was a centaur, which is very odd. Then, it was a fairy, which I thought was interesting, almost like a Tinkerbell kind of thing. The fourth was an angel, and the fifth was my dad. My mom and my dad had both passed at this time. It was fascinating.

Then, we would come out of that shamanic journey and return. “Then, the next time we went back in, each one had a message for you.” I don’t remember exactly what the crane and the centaur are, but I remember the centaur saying, “You are a bridge. It seems like you’re two different people but in two different places, but you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. You’re exactly bringing everything together that you’re supposed to be bringing together,” which is very true in many ways. I was living in Washington, DC and Kansas City at the time, so it looked like I was living in two places.

Then this fairy comes to me and says, “So you are a magical manifesto.” I went, “Oh, okay, magical manifester.” It’s just been over the past several years that I’ve owned that off. “Okay, what does a magical manifesto look like? Just play with it rather than being so serious about it and figuring it out and owning it and all that stuff.” Being like, “Oh, I’m curious. What is magical? What magic am I going to manifest today?” It’s the right kind of thing, so that’s been fun to watch unfold.

The angel was actually my mom. It wasn’t until we went to this retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There was a catholic church that the nuns were running there, and the story goes that there’s a magical staircase that they call in this church that was made by a carpenter who just showed up. The nuns were praying, and suddenly, this carpenter showed up and wanted a place to stay, and he was like, “How can I pay you?” They said, “Well, we have this beautiful loft, and we don’t have a way to get there.” So, he created this spiral staircase that has no support system whatsoever. The wood is curved. It’s just gorgeous. But a normal spiral staircase has this, like, beam of support in the middle, and there is no beam of support. So they’ve called it this magic staircase type of thing.

Anger or sarcasm is real anger in a clown suit.

We went there, and you feel the energy of something. Then I go to the gift shop—I’m a sucker for a little trinket—like, “Oh, what do I take?” This is the first time I’ve ever done this in a gift shop, and I think I need to do this at all times now. I go in there, stand there, close my eyes, and get really present. I’m just talking to God, looking in one direction, and saying, “Okay, God, what do you want me to learn? What do you want me to buy and take home? What does it represent?” I woke up and shifted my entire body and head to look to the left, which was weird because I don’t recall moving. I opened my eyes, and immediately straight ahead was this angel made out of different kinds of metal. Copper is one of them. Then, it has chakra beads around it with all the colors of the chakra, and it has a wire frame around it.

I’m like, “Okay, that’s it. God, what does that represent?” “Your mom.” My mom is the angel who visited. She believed in angels. And, gosh, we could talk about so many conversations she and I used to have around angels that we started because of watching Oprah, and somebody on there was talking about angels. We immediately knew angels surrounded us. Then my dad, in this shamanic journey, showed up, which is really quite funny because his message for me was that my husband was on his way, so be patient. So if he shows up, I’ve been patient, Dad, I’ll let you know.

That’s awesome. Do you feel like your mom? Are you happy with your mom having all the problem behaviors and things from your childhood? Do you feel like that was all perfect, or do you feel like that was just hard, uncomfortable, and painful, and you wished it would have gone better? But it is what it is. When you look back at your childhood, how does that feel? 

Both, actually. I feel all of it. Neither one of my parents really wanted children. I’m the last they have. I have two older brothers. They didn’t have good parents themselves, so they didn’t know how to parent or never ask for help. They never really talked about it or read books back then. They didn’t do any of that stuff. They never got counseling or anything like that. My dad didn’t know how to be a husband. He didn’t know how to be a father. My mom didn’t know how to be nurturing and loving, and neither was her mom. My grandma wasn’t either. When I was 21, I took something called The Landmark Forum and learned that there are things that happen to us, and then there are the things that we interpret the story that we put with it, right?

We have these expectations towards the people in our lives, and they’re just showing up as the best version of them without knowing that you need them or want them to be different. When I learned that at 21, it was like, “Wow, so my parents only knew what they knew. They didn’t know what they didn’t know. Think about what they didn’t know, and you know, get help for what they didn’t know, and they were just doing their best. Got it?” So, in a way, I think I started the forgiveness process at the age of 21. 

I was in an abusive relationship for twelve years, and when I got out of that, I was able to say that I was in that relationship for a reason, which was to really heal me. But in the process of healing myself, I was able to have conversations with my parents then. They’re divorced by this time and say things like, “Oh, are you trying to manipulate me? Are you asking me to do something?” My dad was like, “What? I don’t even know what that means.” I said, “Well, what it means is that you’re demanding that I do something and if I don’t do it, you’re going to be upset with me, and then you’re going to, “beat me up” verbally, emotionally, mentally and withhold love if I don’t do it.” That’s exactly what my ex used to do. That’s why I was with someone like that; it’s because it’s familiar.

I would say it in that kind of tone rather than blaming or shaming or guilting them into thinking that they were bad parents and that’s why I was in an abusive relationship. Just by being able to have that open conversation, they started to have self-awareness, they started to learn about themselves, and they started to heal.

When you come from a place of service, forgiveness has already been the foundation of love and compassion.

My mom was super sarcastic, and I learned that anger or sarcasm is real anger in a clown suit. Once I used to share that with her, I was like, “Okay, mom, you’re telling me this about my brother, but you’re really angry at him. You’re wrapping it in, trying to be funny, but it’s not funny. You’re really angry. What are you getting from telling me about it? Do you want me to fix it or talk to him? Because I can’t. The only one who can is you. So I will hand it back to you and say, “What would happen if you would go and talk to them about that rather than be upset about it?’” She’s like, “What? I’m not angry. You’re angry.” I’m like, “No, I’m not angry, mom. I’m really okay.” The transformation in my parents was just mind-blowing to watch them understand who they were and how they were being.

At the time, I was a hairstylist, so I’m sharing all of these stories with my clients, and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re never going to believe what I learned about myself this week that I’m emotionally unavailable.” They’re like, “Oh, what?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m not able to say what I mean and mean what I say. I use sarcasm and am trying to manipulate people into doing what I need them to do rather than just asking them. They’re like, “Whoa, I do that, too.” I’m like, “Really?” They’re like, “Yeah. I didn’t even notice until you said something.” So they’re like, “Well, how do you fix that?” I’m like, “Well, I just be vulnerable and ask for what I need,” which is super hard. It’s really scary. It’s totally out of your comfort zone, but it’s worth a shot. So then they would go and try these things. In four to six weeks, they would come back and be like, “Oh, my gosh. Because of what you told me, my relationship shifted with my boss, team, kids, parents, or spouse.” 

They started to speak life into me and say, “Have you ever thought about becoming a coach, writing a book, starting a podcast, being a public speaker?” In the back of my mind, I’m like, “I have, but I didn’t have the confidence to do so. So thank you for speaking life into me.” At the same time, I had to think back to where they were. The clients are giving me their best advice and saying, “Oh, wait, even though I don’t have confidence in myself, what if I borrow their confidence in me? What if they’re right? What’s the worst that can happen?” I learned new skills, and I remain a hairstylist. What does it matter? Once I started down that route and went to the fearless living conversations workshop, everything shifted, and I knew I was destined for more. Instead of the one on one, it was the one-to-many. Everything has shifted the ebb and flow. That’s where I am today.

How amazing! When you were talking about your mom and how she changed, your dad changed, and you were also able to uplift your clients—just thinking of the book The Little Soul and the Sun, which is by Neil Donald Walsh. It’s a children’s book. Are you familiar with it?

No. Well, Neil Donald Walsh sounds awesome. 

Yeah, he wrote Conversations with God. I haven’t read that one, but read the children’s book to my son. It’s really beautiful and powerful. The idea behind it is that we’re all playing this game where we’re pretending, doing different roles. It’s like somebody’s got to be the villain in the game, in the story, and we forget. But when we forget, then everybody forgets.

We have to remember so that the other players in the game, the other little souls doing this dance with us, will also remember who they really are because the whole point is not just to learn lessons but to experience different aspects of being the light—being forgiving, generous, kind, and loving. In order to be, for example, forgiving, you have to have somebody to forgive. But there was nobody to forgive because we were all beautiful and perfect. So somebody had to play the role of being the villain, and that meant forgetting who they were. Because how could you be this angelic being, remembering who you are and being a villain at the same time so that you have somebody to forgive? That’s how it works. When you remember who you are, you inspire others to remember who they are. If you forget who you are, then everybody else forgets, too.

I love that. Speaking of forgiveness, when I was probably six or seven years after I started on my healing journey, my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So, when the diagnosis came, I had to drive so that I would go to her, and I put my hand on her stomach where the cancer was, and I said, “Mom, I forgive you. Please forgive me. Let’s enjoy whatever time you have.” She said, “Yes, let’s do that.” 

When you come from a place of service, forgiveness has already been the foundation of love and compassion. The service is so different. When serving and taking care of my mom, it never once felt like an obligation. It felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was a gift in every aspect of the world for me. This was a gift that I got to give my mom every time I visited her, every other weekend for about 16 months. They gave her four to six months, and she lived 16, and there were times when she was sick the whole time. Sometimes we would go on a road trip, and I was like, “What do you want to see?” She’s like, “Oh, there’s the White House, the space center, and Buckingham Palace made with nothing but matches.” It’s like a three-hour drive in the middle of the country, so I said, “Sure, let’s go.” We just had great conversations and just in our energies. I felt intertwined and spoke volumes to each other, and I am just able to be filled with love and compassion.

Amazing. Do you believe in soul contracts? That you and your mother chose each other before incarnating and that she was going to do what she did, kind of traumatize you in different ways, but also give you these little wisdom nuggets as you were growing up, too, that inspired you or changed your perspective and so forth, that this was all kind of a setup, a divine setup.

When we learn a lesson, it becomes knowledge, and it’s not until we share that it becomes wisdom.

Absolutely. Both of my parents and my brother. My brother has passed, too. All of them. My grandma. All my family. It’s interesting. When I got out of the abusive relationship, there was a book called Women Who Love Too Much. It was instrumental in changing my life. It shows how when you’re with someone like that, it’s familiar. That’s why statistics will tell you that people who have been in abusive relationships typically go either back to the same person or someone similar because that’s all they know. I really started to ask myself this question that I often ask myself, “What is it that I don’t know that I need to know in order to move forward?” When you’re looking from a place of curiosity—I call it curious exploration—you really are able to just come up with really interesting things. Like, I didn’t know how to love. I didn’t know what love looked like, and I didn’t know what family love looked like. You can see examples of it. Stephan, your family is definitely an example of family love. I love seeing you guys all together at Podfest. So thank you for having your wife and your son there. But to be able to notice that rather than noticing the drama-filled couples in the world is just huge, switching that mindset and reframing was huge. I believe in soul contracts and am so glad I learned everything. I fully believe that when we learn a lesson, it becomes knowledge, and it’s not until we share that it becomes wisdom.

Yeah. I also believe that spiritual lessons, ideas, knowledge, and wisdom that we acquire spill over and carry over into future lives. It’s not lost. If you don’t remember much of past lives other than maybe from past life regression sessions or maybe Akashic Records reading or something like that, then you’re just getting these little tiny fragments, but you’re not going to be able to retain that. I was a marketing expert in that lifetime, and I am one this time, now again. I remember all this stuff, all that’s gone. But the spiritual lessons I know, and I’ve always known in this life, are never to curse anybody. I just knew even when I was agnostic for my first 42 years of life, I just never ever cursed somebody. You carry this stuff through, and this is what I understand.

Well, it’s funny you mentioned past lives and generational, so I just am. I am trained as a master practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnosis, and MER (Mental Emotional Release). We learn how to coach people through their past lives—through the past generations. We talk to the unconscious and say, “Preserve these learnings.” It’s fascinating when you look at it from the lens of the soul contracts, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s exactly what was happening.” Now it’s like, “Let’s honor that by asking the unconscious to pull that up and be able to live with that wisdom today.”

It’s really cool. I don’t need to dig up a bunch of dirt from my past lives or whatever, but I do feel like there is wisdom that I accumulated from all those experiences that are accessible within me. Something you said earlier about being a bridge. This feels to me like you have one foot in this world and one foot in the unseen world, and you’re able to traverse those two worlds simultaneously and bring stuff down from the unseen to the scene because not that many people can do that yet, so they’re only seeing what you see, which is what you get. You can access this stuff, bring it to them, and help draw down that light. That’s how I interpreted that message about you being a bridge that you got from the centaur, was it?

Yeah. That’s beautiful. Thank you. I’ll take that.

Let’s talk a little bit about talking to God because I loved that story that you shared about having a conversation with God and getting guided to that angel trinket, how meaningful it was, and getting the interpretation of it. I would love to know what the bigger picture is here. But they’re getting any information like they’re flying blind. I felt like I was flying blind. I had no idea. I bumped my toe on something, and I’m like, “What the heck? That was such a freak accident. Why did that happen? And crickets? Nothing.” Because I’m not directing that question to God. I’m just being rhetorical. When I direct the question to God, I get answers—not always; sometimes, I’m not supposed to get the answer. But when I get up in the morning, one of the things I do in my morning ritual is to ask God what I need to know or do today. That’s similar to your question, “What is it I need to know that I don’t know?” It makes a world of difference.

When you’re looking from a place of curiosity—I call it curious exploration—you really are able to just come up with really interesting things.

It really does. Probably over 20 years ago, I started journaling as an adult. We’ll put it that way because I had to do it in school, and I hated it. I was dumb, and now I do it all the time. But as an adult, I started journaling. It was out of frustration with the abuse that I was enduring and the physical pain that I was going through. I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and I refused to be on the cocktail of three medications that they wanted to put me on. It was painkillers, antidepressants, and sleeping pills. I said, “No, thank you.” I got acupuncture every week for a year. In that process, I felt like there was so much. Well, obviously chi. There was obviously energy that was moved. My crown chakra, I think, was cleared so that I was able to really receive messages. One day, this idea popped into my head out of the blue, and I decided to start journaling. I was like, “That sounds so stupid. Why would I do that?” Here comes the fear talk, right? “I did that in school. I hated it. My hand hurt. That’s awful.” I got some notebook paper and am writing down all those things. “This is stupid. I don’t want to do this. My hands are going to hurt. I hated this in school. F*** you, English teacher.” Then it was like, “Okay, well, what if I just let whatever thought come up? I just do it so literally.” 

What I was doing was just capturing my thoughts. In doing that first time, all of a sudden, my memory shifted to when I was in probably 6th grade, and I was getting up to do a math problem or write something on the board. I can see it just plain as day. But I didn’t know what was happening to me until I wrote that first journal entry. As I write it, I’m writing about how I felt when the teacher called my name. My heart started to race, and I started to get sweaty palms and get nervous in my mind. Of course, most young people, especially girls, have this body dysmorphia about themselves.

I think my body is so wide that I’m not going to fit down the aisles of the classroom, and I’m going to knock books off the people’s desks. I’m going to knock clean Xboxes off their desks. “What if I have to bend over and my pants rip and all of these things that were going through my mind as I’m walking to the chalkboard to write down whatever it was, and not to mention to know the answer to that question that was on the board, right? Having these same thought processes, feelings, and emotions, I’m sweating profusely and all of that as I walk back to my seat. As I’m writing this in the journal, I’m like, “Oh, my God, this was a panic attack. No way.” 

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

I had no idea I was experiencing those as a young kid because when I would get home from school, and in our house, we had a saying that, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” If it wasn’t anything nice, as my little brain took it as positive, then don’t talk about it. I would get home, and instead of saying, “Hey, I had this weird thing that happened to me at school,” they would say, “How was your day?” “Fine.” Then, “Here’s your snack.” It was normally something my mom loved because that was her way of showing love and care—delicious chocolate chip cookies or something amazing that she baked from the oven, like apple crisp or something that was only 1000 calories a piece of thing. I learned that then, to express myself, I needed to hide those feelings and shove down those emotions with food. In my teenage years, I started doing that with alcohol. It was probably actually right after that 6th-grade moment I started doing it with alcohol because, by the time I was 15, I was drinking daily. At 16, I got a DUI. At 23, I quit drinking. At 24, I quit drinking altogether. I’ve been sober ever since. I went back to food for a while. But I remember right again in that first journal entry, writing how embarrassed I felt to tell my mom and anybody around me. I didn’t want to feel that embarrassment anymore. So, I would take whatever was closest to me to hide that embarrassment.

Thank you for your vulnerability. It is so valuable and beautiful to share this kind of real, raw experience and get this out there for others so that if they’re experiencing something similar, they can feel not alone and feel like there’s light at the other end of the tunnel.

Absolutely. So, that began my journey of journaling. Within a few weeks, they no longer became journal entries. It became a letter to God. I started to ask him to help my boyfriend at the time, who was abusive, “Heal him. Help him. Take care of him.” At some point along the journal process, I really believe that had I not been journaling and was able to look back, this probably wouldn’t have happened. But all of a sudden, it hit me again. It was probably a download. It was probably God saying, “Really, why aren’t you doing this?” All of a sudden, it became very aware to me that I wasn’t asking for me. I wasn’t asking for God to heal me or, “God, what do you want me to do?” I was asking only for someone else. If that person doesn’t want that, they’re blocking it, right? They’re blocking their own blessing. Once, I started to shift the way I was journaling and said, “Okay, God help me,” it shifted once I was out of that relationship. It was really a thank you letter to God every day. “Thank you for getting me out of this. Thank you for this. Thank you for that.” 

Through journaling, the conversation between God and I was no longer just on pen and paper in the morning. It was an ongoing conversation in my head.

As time passed, the conversation between God and me was no longer just on that pen and paper in the morning. It was an ongoing conversation in my head: “Okay, God, who do you want?” I’m at a networking event, standing there like, “Okay, God, who do you want me to meet? Who do you want me to connect with, and what do you want me to learn? What’s my takeaway?” I remember that at this particular event, I stood in the same place and just turned, like on a pivot, like on one of those turntables, and I literally did circles. The most amazing people just approached me. I don’t even know how I couldn’t have planned this. To have those types of experiences is just so profound to me. 

Then, several years later, I was at my first podcast conference, the Podcast Movement, in Orlando in 2019. I met 500 people, and then the last day, I met this gentleman who said, “Well, tell me what you do for your coaching.” I said, “Oh, I transform trauma into treasure. That’s what I did with my own life.” He said, “Have you considered working with veterans?” I said, “Well, that’s funny, you ask. I meet them everywhere I go.” One of the things at networking events is more than likely that I would meet a veteran in the mix. And he’s like, “Well, I’m a veteran, and I know that this would help you or help them what you do.” He also worked for Bunker Labs, a space for veteran-owned businesses to go from idea to invoice. I was like, “Well, what is that?”

I started helping the local community here in Kansas City with Bunker Labs until 2020, when everything shifted to online. But the fascinating part was just how it was. I said, “Okay, God, are you trying to tell me you want me to work with veterans? Is that what you’re doing?” As soon as I’m like, “Well, I’m here, what’s next?” Within a month, as I was telling you earlier, I lived part-time in DC. Within a month, I found myself on Capitol Hill in a congresswoman’s office advocating for what the government is doing and helping the military find its purpose before it gets out of the military and goes back to civilian life. What tools and skills are they equipping them with? And the answer is, they’re not. So, talking to God has given me fantastic direction, and now that’s why I live in Florida.

Amazing. When you were talking about journaling, I could totally relate to the fact that I had never had any desire to journal. I knew I was supposed to, that that was like a thing, that highly productive leaders journal, and I just couldn’t find it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And now I do it almost invariably every day. It’s part of my morning ritual, which I call my God journal because I write it to God. I’m thanking him for everything. The most important aspect of the God journal for me, from a utilitarian perspective, is the messages because now I can go back. This is all fodder for potential keynote presentations or material for books, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, etc. 

My way of paying it back to God for removing me from an abusive relationship is allowing Him to work through me.

I receive all these beautiful messages, like downloads, synchronicities, and angel numbers, and then I unpack what that means by looking it up in whatever book I’m guided to or doing a Google search. All of that stuff is recorded. I also, of course, thank God for the blessings, the beautiful stuff happening in my life, and the challenges because these are disguised blessings. Something that looked like a total sh*t show at the time, and I saw it as a beautiful opening or unfolding of something that was important leveling in my life, in my spirituality and my development. I find that very important, and it anchors me a lot, and I can’t imagine not doing it anymore. That’s part of who I am. I’m somebody who journals, and I don’t just journal for myself; I journal for God or to God and for him. As part of being a servant and delivery agent for his miracles, this is an essential aspect of how I show up in the world.

Agreed. I mean, that’s how I look at it, too. It’s my way of paying it forward and paying it back to God for removing me from the abusive relationship. All the healing that has happened is like, “Oh, this is how I can pay you back by working through me because you worked in me.”

Yeah. Do you see that your ex and you had a soul contract where you guys decided, “You’re going to be the villain in this lifetime,” and, “Okay, I will do that because I love you that much.” That’s kind of the premise of it. And from that book, The Little Soul in the Sun, “I love you so much that I will play the villain, but don’t forget who I am, because I will forget.”

Absolutely. Our energies have moved to forgiveness and gratitude many times over. He was in a coma from a car accident. So to just sit with someone knowing that I was walking away, but to be able to sit with him in the hospital, at this point, his eyes were open, and he stared at me blankly for hours, and our energies and our souls to just go, “It is done.” It was really powerful for me, and I think it was for him, too. On a soul conscious, I think not in his body that he was with for the rest of his days, but I saw it, I felt it. “You understand why this is the way it is, and even though you might not understand what I’m saying right now, you understand.” I didn’t even have to say anything. I just sat there. You just feel it.

There was a telepathic communication going on. Did he wake up from the coma?

In the first week, his eyes opened, and that’s “waking up,” and then he had brain damage. Then they moved him to a long-term care facility, and then they moved him to a nursing home. The last time I saw him, he was in a nursing home. That’s all that he had progressed. His eyes were open, and he had a feeding tube and a trachea then. He then lived 14 more years in a nursing home in a wheelchair. He was able to use his right side of the body, but not his left, and he had brain bleeds. When someone has a brain bleed, they continue to have mini-strokes, and so that’s what it was mimicking was a stroke. I told him goodbye—the first and the only time I saw him in the nursing home, he told me goodbye.

Thank you for sharing all that. That’s profound and beautiful. It seems to me, from an outsider’s perspective, that the healing there is complete, but that’s for you to determine. It’s just my outside perspective.

Absolutely. Well, I will say forgiveness, back to journaling, if I may share about forgiveness and journaling. One of the gifts I received one day as I was driving to work and listening to Christian radio was that I didn’t know who or what pastor came on and was giving the message of anger. He said, “Do you have a list of people you’re angry with?” I went, “Oh, my God. Yeah, I need a list. That’s exactly what I need.” I was still with him, but I realized I had become very aware that I was feeling angry. It was because I was journaling, and I was like, “Okay, what am I feeling today? Oh, I’m angry. Wow. Have I ever actually felt what it feels like to be angry? Or was I so used to stuffing something down that anger down?” I thought, “Wow, this is a weird feeling.” 

So then I’m in the salon, I go to do my clients, and they’re like, “How are you?” I’m like, “Oh, you know what I’m realizing? I’m angry. How do you deal with anger?” They’re like, “Well, first of all, Sha, are you going to be okay? Because you have a sharp instrument towards my head. Are you going to be okay with cutting my hair?” I’m like, “Oh, of course. I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. I am fine. I’ve noticed I’ve never really felt what anger feels like. So, how do you deal with anger when it shows up for you?”

Most of my clients were women, and I will tell you that most of them had no idea how to deal with anger, nor how to feel it, nor did something else to avoid it. They’re like, “Oh, I have a glass of wine at the end of the day.” Okay, that’s one way. I don’t want to do that. I’m a recovered alcoholic at this point. I’m like, “No, I’m good. I don’t need to do that. How do I need to navigate this?” There wasn’t really any information out there at the time.

So here I am, driving to work one day, and this pastor comes on. “Do you have a list?” “Oh, my God, that’s exactly what I need. I need a list.” So I grabbed a fast food napkin and unfolded it however much it was folded into a compact little thing. I grabbed a pen from my console, saying, “Oh, I’m mad at this person.” I just started making a list of people, and when I get to work, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. The front and the back are filled with all these people’s names, but I’m upset about it.” I realized it wasn’t just a full-on major thing that happened. It was just a grudge that I had been holding onto for whatever reason. 

One of the gifts I received was a message of anger.

I thought, “Okay, I don’t know what I’m gonna do exactly with this, but I’m gonna do something at some point.” I hung onto that list, and sometime later, I decided I would take the day and get all my favorite junk food, soda, and everything I wanted. I said, “I’m just gonna journal it out.” And so, for each person, I would journal about, “This is how I feel. This is exactly what I want to tell you—cuss words and all.” I would say, “I forgive you. Do you forgive me?” And then, “God, do you forgive me?” Then, go to the next person. Bringing up all these memories of all these grudges with all these people was gone after I spent the entire day journaling. The heaviness of my shoulders weighing me down had dissipated. What a freeing feeling that was to be able to go, “Wow, this is forgiveness. Got it.” And I did nothing with that. I didn’t send it to them. I didn’t call them up and be like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. I was mad at you, even though you didn’t know it all these years.” I felt I needed to reach out to a couple of people and say, “Hey, I’m really sorry. I know I was a jerk. I was a bully. I’m sorry. I was going through my own crap, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry for that.” Some responded, “Oh, it’s no big deal.” Some didn’t respond, but they saw the message, and I just went, “It is what it is.” I felt cleaner. I felt like I needed to do that to be complete.

Yeah, it’s a great exercise. It’s a great share. Well, this is a great way to end this episode, too, because our listeners are hopefully inspired to do that exercise themselves now. So, if you wanted to share one last nugget of wisdom or something to close out the episode, what would that be?

Always ask, “God, what do you want me to share in this moment?” when you speak in font of people.

First, I have to close my eyes, get really quiet and ask, “God, what do you want me to share in this moment?” Because I don’t ever want to have a canned answer, and I feel like every audience is different, I want to ensure that I’m the vessel he works through to give the right one. 

I just got the message. I just heard, “Be willing to say what you mean and mean what you say. Be willing to ask for support and ask for what you actually need.”

Mean what you say and say what you mean. That’s similar to one of my affirmations and how it sounds, and I’m a man who does what he says he’s going to do.

Yes. Love that.

Awesome. I don’t know if you offer individual coaching or just group programs, but if they want to work with you or learn from you, where do they go?

You can go to my website at shasparks.com. You can also find me on all social media: Sha Sparks on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. You can also find my podcast, The Sha Sparks Show, on all the platforms, including YouTube. Thank you for having me, Stephan. This was a beautiful conversation, for sure.

For sure. Thank you. And thank you, listener. You’re a special person to listen to at the end of an episode like this. You’re open-minded, conscious, and want to be better. My hat’s off to you for that. So we’ll catch you on the next episode. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

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