Kathy Sheehan is a wellbeing teacher, the author and founder of ‘Sparky and Shady’, has a Bachelor of Education (Behaviour Management) and a Bachelor of Psychological Science
Our inner loving voice
I believe there is a creative, loving power in the universe.
Every single living thing on earth is connected to this loving power and we are also connected to each other. It is as though everything in nature has a spark of love inside it.
I call our spark of love ‘Sparky’.
In the Sparky and Shady program I don’t talk about the source of this loving power other than to suggest that, “If you believe in God then Sparky is a spark of God’s love and power. If you don’t believe in God, then Sparky is your inner loving power that every human being has inside them.”
It is important to respect people’s religious and spiritual beliefs and for this reason I encourage you to see how Sparky and Shady may fit in with your current beliefs. If you have no spiritual or religious beliefs then the program can stay based in science.
Our inner fearful voice
Fear is a natural and normal part of life. The purpose of fear is to keep us alive and safe and to protect us too.
The problem with fear is that if we do not learn to manage our fear, it can seep into our lives through our thoughts and feelings until we end up believing unhelpful things about ourselves, other people and life.
This is why so many people in the world are unhappy and unfulfilled. People believe the fearful thoughts that have been passed onto them from their parents, grandparents and our society as a whole. Some of these beliefs include; “Life is hard. You have to work in a job you don’t like to earn money to survive. No one is going to go out of their way to help you. You are not worthy of happiness, wealth, a loving partner, love, fun, freedom, loyal friends, recognition and fame. Dreams do not come true for ordinary people like you. You can’t be your true self because no one will love you.” (None of this is true by the way! I call it a ‘load of Shady’! )
‘Shady’ is our fear. Learning to manage our fear includes letting go of unhelpful beliefs.
What we believe comes true for us (to a very large extent)
‘The Law of Attraction‘, ‘A Self-fulfilling Prophecy‘, ‘A Growth or Fixed Mindset‘, ‘As a Man Thinketh‘, ‘The Power of Positive Thinking‘ or whatever you want to call the theory that human beings have power over their own lives, has a lot of truth to it!
There are a wealth of authors and enough scientific, anecdotal and neurological evidence (in my opinion) to suggest that this theory has merit, which means we have a responsibility to teach it to our children and let them decide for themselves.
The Law of Attraction as portrayed in ‘The Secret‘ suggests that our thoughts are 100% responsible for everything that happens to us in our lives. This idea has understandably, caused heated debate between people from different religious and scientific backgrounds. To clarify, I do not agree that our thoughts create everything in our life. For example; a family receiving a cancer diagnosis for a young child, victims of a natural disaster and winning the lotto, all happen to people who have never ‘thought’ about these things.
Instead, my research and personal experience has lead me to conclude that what we think, feel and believe about ourselves, other people and life comes true for us to a very large extent. I say ‘a very large extent’ because I believe there are things we are destined to experience in our lives, or simply experience through luck (both good and bad) that we have little control over.
When we learn to manage our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, words and actions it doesn’t matter what happens to us, we know we will be okay. As the saying goes, “You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react to things that are out of your control” (Unknown). The things that challenge us in life give us the greatest opportunities to learn. If we make the most of our learning experiences we become wiser, happier, more loving and more fulfilled.
