How to Get Your Spark Back
If you feel it has departed from you.
In women’s conversation, one topic that we may often encounter and hear of is the topic of “losing one’s spark”. It occurs after a draining relationship, after childbirth or simply a pattern of devoting one self to external pursuits and feeling drained by them. When we “lose our spark”, we feel flattened, dull, separate from the current of life and that which makes us feel excited not only to be alive but to be this particular person and have this particular experience.
Getting it back often seems more difficult than it initially appears — we may attempt to do the things that once brought us joy, yet now, it does nothing for us. Sometimes it deepens our despair because that which previously could serve as a vessel to ourselves no longer serves that purpose. The old channels and rituals do not work. What our being demands is renewal, not regression.
Renewal is not as easy as one may think — for how do we come to practice and live something unknown and new? This new is the only channel through which we can access that centre again. Still “the new” is a dark place in which our old methods and tools no longer work. This means we have to rely on our senses, intuition and instinct to guide us.
Dwelling in this liminal space is often heavy. This space demands of us an oxymoronic position — we must remain passive and receptive to the wind, the sun, the stars that shall guide us to the new shore, but also to keep steering the boat towards the unknown, trusting ourselves and trusting the world to deliver us.
"Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day, and she would listen to every sound, spring to her feet, feel surprised that it had not come; then at sunset, always more sorrowful, she would wish the next day were already there.”
— “Madame Bovary”, Gustave Flaubert
Today, Volupta shall give you both concrete practices and rituals that shall help you find your way and also mindsets and perspectives to consider.