April 10, 2025 • 39 mins
We lose our spark and love for life for many reasons: burnout, mental ill health, people pleasing, a breakup. When we do it can feel like life gets very boring, it loses colour, we lose interest and we can become cynical towards all of the small joys and brilliance of being alive and being human. In this episode we break down six tips for getting your spark back:
- The power of rest
- Choosing to live light versus live heavy
- Reconnecting with your inner child + play
- Seeking inspiration in the mundane and The Alchemist
- Exercise + the healing power of nature
- Ignoring the urge to compare
Listen now for when you're in a rut or have lost your spark!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode. Today's episode, though you may have
already noticed, is a rerun, So over the next two weeks,
I am putting out some of my best episodes from
(00:21):
the last four years of almost NonStop podcasting as I
just take some time away to launch my debut book,
Person in Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your Twenties.
Do not fret. I will be back on the twenty
ninth of April, but I just wanted to give my
book a little bit of extra love these next two
weeks because it's a big deal and I'm not going
to talk about it too much. I'm sure you're just
(00:43):
here to listen to the podcast and probably sick of
me talking about it, but I just want to say
thank you. I want to say a huge thank you
for allowing me to write this book and put it
out in the world. This is only possible because of
you all. Because of you, guys, the listeners. Literally, that's it.
That's the only reason I'm able to do this. And
(01:03):
I've wanted to be an author since I was five.
Twenty years later, you guys made that happen for me,
So just thank you, Thank you so much. I would
obviously love it if you could pre order it, buy it,
gift it to a friend, but you've already done so much,
and I just feel honored to have had this opportunity.
(01:24):
Most of all, I'm just really pumped for you guys
to read it. I hope that you learn something. I'm
sure if you love the podcast, you will love Person
in Progress as well. But it's a really exciting time
and the main feeling I have right now is one
of gratitude. So thank you so much. Without further ado,
I hope you enjoy this rerun of one of my
(01:45):
favorite all time episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
as always, Back for another episode as we dive into
the psychology of our twenties. So I want to talk
about something today that I have been struggling with recently.
(02:35):
You know, I'm just going to jump straight into the point.
I don't know about you, but I have been really
experiencing this strange sense of just dissatisfaction towards my life recently,
A lingering, kind of buzzing sense of exhaustion, an aimlessness,
a kind of like a boredom when it comes to
my interests, my future, my relationships, my health, my life,
(02:59):
and general. It's been really bothering me as someone who
is very proactive when it comes to just like actually
enjoying my life. I like feeling excited about things. I
like feeling optimistic about the future, and that just hasn't
seemed to be the case recently, and I've been really
looking into what it might be. The biggest thing for
(03:21):
me has been low energy, not being able to kind
of show up in my friendships as I would like.
I cannot tell you the number of plans I've canceled
in the last three months, and I've kind of just
reached the conclusion that I've lost my spark a little bit.
I've lost the buzz, the love the thrill for life,
(03:42):
and I don't think that I am the only one.
You know, our twenties come with a lot of expectations
that are hard to ignore. There is so much hype
around these being like the best years of your life,
filled with adventure and sleepless nights and random friendships and
relationships and these warm, brilliant memories you'll get to look
(04:03):
back on for years to come. And I think maybe
this is what we would define as our spark, like
an enthusiasm to go out and grab life and to
be interested and interesting. Our spark is the thing that
kind of keeps us passionate about showing up in the world,
and it keeps us passionate about who we are and
(04:26):
the experiences that we're having. It's what makes us inspired
and kind and engaged and motivated and present. But we
can't be that all the time. You can't really be
living in the golden bubble every minute of every day.
There will come a time, as I guess I'm experiencing
right now as we speak, where the energy and the
(04:48):
excitement for life kind of dips. You become very detached
from that person that you love, that person that you
are at your core. And everything around you seems to
lose a bit of color. You lose that kind of
energy that you bring into conversations, that energy that you
bring into your daily life. And for me, I've been
(05:10):
really reflecting on this, and I've been thinking about the
person I was three or four years ago who just
seems so in love with life and really wondering where
she's gone, whether I can get her back, but also
whether I want her back or whether it's just a
a general disconnection. So we're going to talk about that today.
I want to talk about why we lose our spark,
(05:32):
why it is such a common experience, the reasons behind that.
It may be burnout, it may have been a breakup,
but then also six tips for regaining that motivation and
that love for life. Losing your spark could be for
a number of reasons, but there are four main explanations
(05:52):
that I think stand out to me, especially in our twenties.
The first, the biggest one, really is burnout, pushing ourselves
too hard for too long and ignoring the warning signs
that we need rest and we need time to actually
process our lives, our emotions and all the activity that
(06:14):
is going on. We're seeing a lot of research that
burnout is becoming a lot more common during this day
and age, especially amongst people under the age of thirty. Now.
I think the reason for this is twofold Number one.
We're obviously quite new to the workplace, but also new
to life. We don't really know or aren't able to
(06:36):
express our limits, our points of exhaustion. But secondly, I
think it's because of this expectation to be doing everything,
to be constantly and always aiming for more. You have
to be focused at school or in your job, whilst
also having a lot of fulfilling friendships and then hobbies
(06:56):
and a loving relationship and perfect physical and mental health,
whilst also been able to you know, juggle your family
and a side hustle and your own needs. If that
feels impossible to you, you are not the only one.
Each of us has an individual threshold for how much stress, activity,
(07:16):
mental exhaustion that we can tolerate, and I think as
we slowly reach that threshold, we start sacrificing elements of
our wellbeing to keep up with what is expected of
us and what we expect from ourselves, and that includes
very tangible things like sleep, self care, exercise, down time,
(07:38):
those are normally the first things to go when we're
burnt out, and also more intangible things like mental rest,
thinking time, a space for imagination and creativity. You need
all of these things to keep your spark a light.
It's hard to prioritize the things that make you excited
for life, the small joys, or even the energy for
(08:00):
the big things, if you are struggling with prolonged you know,
prolonged exhaustion, prolonged fatigue, burnout from a lack of life balance,
or kind of academic or personal overload. We are seeing
so much of this recently, and it also is demonstrating
(08:21):
a lot of links to an increased vulnerability to illness,
increased feelings of pessimism, inadequacy, none of which I think
seem to go hand in hand with feeling like yourself
or feeling like your spark is a light and alive.
So the second factor that I think contributes to losing
(08:41):
our spark is a lingering or pre existent mental health
disorder or challenge that maybe getting out of control or
becoming a little bit unmanageable, whether that is anxiety, depression, ADHD,
some other condition when acts our cognitions, our mood, our emotions.
(09:04):
This condition is going to impact our so called spark
and most importantly, our way of relating to the world.
So many factors impact this, and sometimes there really isn't
an explanation for why your mental health is suddenly not
as good. But I don't think anyone really talks about
how physically tiring it is to have to put one
(09:26):
hundred percent of your energy into just convincing yourself to
do even the smallest of tasks. I think maintaining your
spark and all the activities that promote this part of
you is a luxury when you're just trying to get
by day by day. The third contributing factor, I think
is not spending enough time with your own thoughts or
(09:47):
operating from a place of external validation. I think when
we live for others, how are we really meant to
pull from that internal source of meaning and passion and mission.
How are we meant to feel like ourselves when we
are engaging in extreme people pleasing, when we do feel
(10:07):
unnecessarily guilty for other people's emotions or feelings, when we
say yes when we really want to say no, when
we have no social boundaries, when we take on others
opinions or try and impress people at the expense of
our own mental health. If our spark is cultivated from
our own internal mental energy source from being connected and
(10:30):
attached and knowledgeable about who we are. When all of
that time is devoted to thinking about others, that part
of us becomes neglected. And the final factor, this one
is a little bit different from what we've just spoken about,
but it is the end of a relationship. I really
do see that as a catalyst for losing a little
(10:53):
bit of your passion and your passion and your love
for who you are, and your love for life, and
the energy that you bring into literally just your daily activities.
So when we lose a relationship, whether that is with
a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a really close friend,
(11:15):
that creates a massive shift in us. It is a
complete severance from part of ourselves that was connected to
this other person. It would often, I would say, also
trigger a really significant dip in self esteem, feeling very
lost because we attach so much of our identity to
(11:35):
those we love. You know, they hold us up, they
make us feel seen, they bear witness to our lives.
But they can also I think cause us a lot
of heartache and a lot of disruption when relationships like
this end, often because there comes a moment of complacency.
So I think when we are in a long term relationship,
(11:57):
or we are in this long term friendship, sometimes we
become very It becomes very easy to just fall into
only seeing them, to only hanging out with them, to
sitting watching TV with them, to not exploring other parts
of you. So when that relationship suddenly ends, you kind
of experience an emotional vacuum where you have incidentally, accidentally
(12:23):
involuntarily given up parts of you for this relationship, for
the ease of this relationship, and when you come out
of it, you don't really know who you are. You
don't really know what the future holds, you don't really
know what it means to be you without them. And
I think that is a huge catalyst, as I said,
(12:45):
for feeling a sense of dislocation and disconnection from what
makes you you and from your spark. It also just
reveals so much about what we have perhaps been neglecting
in our lives, the parts of ourselves that have become
secondary behind the relationship. Maybe one of these explanations, one
of these situations is calling to you you can really
(13:08):
see yourself in these examples. Maybe you just feel like
there's just something missing. None of these really apply. There's
just a genuine lack lack of sense of effort to
be put into your life. It doesn't really matter because
I think that what is most important here is that
right now you are having this experience that makes you
(13:29):
feel like your life is less than optimal and that
there is something that you're missing out on and missing
out of getting from your life. So I'm going to
talk about six research based tips to get your spark back,
starting with the most simple but the most important. After
this shortbreak, you need to replenish your body and your
(13:57):
mind before you can start building back your interest in life.
That is why the biggest thing for getting your spark
back is prioritizing rest. It sounds so simple, but we
really don't acknowledge how much of a difference a good
night's sleep or a week off can be for resetting
our body, especially when this becomes a practice of scheduling
(14:19):
time to do nothing, of scheduling time to just relax
in your body, in your mind, and be present. When
you've pushed yourself to this cliff edge of complete exhaustion,
you reach a point of internal disharmony whereby your body
will literally start to shut down due to ongoing chronic stress.
(14:40):
That doesn't sound optimal, and it certainly doesn't help with
getting your spark back. Sometimes we think that we need
to be doing more to be more, but it's actually
quite the opposite. The people who know themselves the best
and get the most out of life, of those who
realize the value in giving their brain and their body,
(15:01):
even their soul time to replenish. If you've lost your spark,
you need to start by reintroducing rest back into your life,
and this includes by doing things like taking your sick
days when you need them without feeling like you need
to justify it, being okay with saying no to plans
to just chill at home, giving yourself a day every
(15:23):
now and again to just do nothing. It's those slow
moments that our brain finally gets to switch off, and
you'll really be surprised about how much comes up for you,
how many ideas, plans for the future, helpful thoughts arise
because you finally have space to hold them in space
to process them. I really do understand that it's actually
(15:45):
quite hard to do that and accept that we need
to slow down. We feel a lot of guilt towards
rest because of the societal association with laziness. If you
are not pushing yourself one hundred percent of the time,
if you if you don't want to do it all,
it's because you just lack discipline. It's because you're just lazy,
(16:07):
rather than actually listening to your body and recognizing that
this is actually more efficient. I think these attitudes are
especially pervasive if you're an overachiever, or if you put
a lot of worth into your external achievements. Resetting your
attitude towards rest kind of means unlearning everything that brings
(16:30):
you a sense of personal fulfillment or satisfaction, like your achievements,
like being somebody who can push themselves, being somebody who
enjoys the urgency of exhaustion. That is just not sustainable, though,
and it cause you to neglect the parts of you
that you need for that your future self really needs,
you know, it needs you to stay strong and to
(16:52):
stay healthy. Your soul, your sense of self needs you
to actually stop and pause and focus on who you
are and what you're getting out of life. I think
rest also just really increases our capacity for self awareness,
It improves our empathy, it improves our ability to imagine
the future. So I think that it gives us a
(17:13):
real creative and perspective vision for who we are and
what we want, and in turn really gives us our
life back. So my second tip for getting your spark
back is to shift from a passive agent to an
active agent in your life. So often the reason we
lose our spark is because we settle into living as
(17:34):
though we are on autopilot. I want you to pause
and think whether that's you. Things happen to us, life
happens to us. We just kind of accept that that's
the way it is. We aren't doing much steering when
it comes to our decisions to what might make us happier,
to avoiding or changing circumstances that are depleting us. And
(17:57):
it is a lot easier to live life way. It's
really tiring to have to wake up each moment and
live with the fact that you are creating your reality,
that you are creating your future. You are in control,
you have agency, because that kind of awareness of your
responsibility is naturally more effort right. It takes a lot
(18:18):
more from you. But I honestly believe that that expenditure
of effort pays off in its thousands and becomes easier,
becomes less taxing when we adjust to a way of
living that actually gives us what we want in the
long term, rather than like the instant gratifications more pleasures
in the short term. It's so much more exhausting living
(18:41):
every day at sixty percent and dragging the other forty
percent behind you than at one hundred percent and seeing
yourself really have purpose and passionately come back into your life,
getting your spark back. Now, this isn't to say that
you should be working hard at doing more one hundred
percent effort one hundred percent energy all the time, right
(19:01):
because I think that is a contribution to pure exhaustion,
which we know is a contributor to burnout. Rather, it's
about choosing to live light versus live heavy. When we
live heavy, we kind of borrow effort and time from
our future selves. I'm going to explain this a little
(19:24):
bit more. When you don't make active choices about what's
going to make your life better, whether that is choosing
to fuel your body in a way that feels good,
choosing to rest when you need. Choosing to turn off
your screen before bed, even though you want to scroll
for a few more minutes, choosing to keep good company.
You transfer all of those decisions into your future as consequences.
(19:45):
In the short term, you got to live light because
you made the easiest decision to stay in bed rather
than work out or see friends, to spend that extra
thirty minutes on your phone in bed rather than reading
a book, to sacrifice your sleep, to put things off
when they would seriously you only take about five minutes.
You're stealing joy from your future self and contributing to
(20:05):
exhaustion by taking what seems like the easier route, but
in the long term is the harder route. I think
good practices, fulfilling life habits are tiring, but they do
actually give you a sense of control over your life
and give you a sense that you actually get to
do the things you want to do and create a
life you want to live, and actually create meaning within
(20:26):
that life, meaning that when you show up every single day,
when you wake up, you have the energy in the
space to be yourself, to show love to yourself, to
get your spark back by actively engaging in decisions that
are all devoted to bettering you and to making your
life easier. I think at the end of the day,
(20:47):
what this shift from passive to active entails is noticing
the things that deplete your energy versus create energy for you.
Things that unsettle you versus comfort you. Things that make
you fatigued, make you tired, make you sad, versus things
that make you energized and excited and joyful. That's the
first step. I think the second step is really consciously
(21:09):
choosing the alternative to those energy takers in your life.
You typically, I think, see a difficulty curve oc here.
For example, if your big thing for making your life
easier or living life is choosing to do a creative
project before bed rather than just mindlessly watch TV. It's
(21:32):
always going to be hard at the beginning, because I
think that we become very adjusted and very comfortable in
what is familiar and what is easy, and any shift
or change to that kind of life structure, life routine,
it's going to just rupt that norm. But over time,
(21:52):
as you adjust, you'll see that it becomes a lot
more kind of habitual and automatic to do the thing
that is best for you and to do the thing
that helps you get your spark back. That the thing
that really involves showing yourself a lot of radical self
compassion by not giving into your immediate ons, but focusing
on your long term wellbeing. My next tip is perhaps
(22:16):
my favorite, and this involves getting back to that place
of passion, interest, and joy in life by creating excitement
in the mundane. The biggest thing that gets me back
in touch with my true self time and time again
is looking for joy rather than looking for things to
complain about. Actively searching for things that make me happy
and elated or surprised or grateful to be human, rather
(22:40):
than always buying into my negativity bias. And I do
this by connecting with my inner child and getting back
to a place of childhood wonder and curiosity. Your inner
child is the most alive version of you. There is
the least uninhibited, the most excited. And I think it's
one of the saddest things about getting older is finding
(23:03):
that everything becomes a lot more gray, that there is
a certain glimmer that we lose that feels like we
can't get back. But I think that we can. We
can reach We can achieve that sense of wonder that
we had when we were younger by looking for things
to be amazed about rather than things to be disappointed over.
(23:26):
You know, the leaves changing color, the cat you see
every day on your walk to work, eating a really
tasty pastry or a tasty piece of fruit, smiling at
a stranger having them smile back, like your favorite artist
playing over the radio at the supermarket, a cool bug
on a tree singing along to like the opening track
(23:46):
of your favorite TV show. Joy really is everywhere, and
it's a strange feeling because it's one of the few
emotions that when you search for it, you'll notice that
it wants you to find it.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
If you look for happiness, you can't always find it,
But if you look for joy, you most certainly will.
As you kind of train yourself to look for awe
and to discover joy, you also begin to notice that
your thoughts and cognitions begin to transform and become more positive,
and you slowly get that glow and appreciation for life back.
(24:21):
Another part of getting in touch with your inner child
is allowing yourself to be playful. Play is honestly so
much fun. That's like the whole point, right, to just
be free of everything else that's hanging over you and
to get into your body, to get into your joy,
to get into the moment. And studies have really shown
that play in adulthood lets us act in a way
(24:43):
that is unstructured and creative, and it reduces stress levels.
It increases creativity, of course, along with the number of
neural connections we have in our brain because we engage
in different kinds of activities that you different parts of
our brain that normally don't talk to each other. Anything
(25:04):
you do recreationally that brings you joy or excitement counts
as play. You know, it could be a video game,
it could be playing sport, especially if it's social sport.
Could be writing little poems in your spare time, painting,
I don't know, trampolining literally, going on the public swing
(25:24):
at like your local park, going for a swim at
the beach. That is play, and it once again is
an avenue for joy to enter your life and to
keep you feeling like wonderful and curious and engaged in
your environment and your surroundings rather than kind of stuck
(25:45):
behind like a glass wall of negativity, feeling like you're
watching your life go by and you're not able to
reach out and touch it. I think reconnecting with that
childlike version of you is a wonderful diversion from all
the stresses and responsibilities that do keep us just connected,
because it lets us slip back into a perspective that
is so uninhibited, that is so care free, that is
(26:06):
so just like energized for life. I really really implore
you to try it, even if you feel embarrassed or
you feel cringe. It's not about what other people think.
It's about what's going to leave you feeling your best.
I think the main thing here is that getting your
spark back after it's bin dulled isn't all internal. It's
(26:27):
also about the external environment you create for yourself. I
think partially what losing your love and energy for life
comes down to is a lack of inspiration. Is feeling
stuck in the norm and not having new thoughts, not
having new beliefs, not experiencing new sensations, new interests. I
(26:47):
think you just become very much numb and shut down.
When life starts to feel plain and colorless. That is
an invitation for you to add some color back in
by keeping yourself inspired. And I love doing this by
consuming content media, books, articles, music, anything that gets your
(27:10):
brain working and thinking and firing differently. Start your morning off,
you know, with a ted talk instead of social media,
with five minutes of meditation, instead of doom scrolling with
energetic music. Have like a wild dance in your bathroom
in the morning. Make that part of your routine. Listen
(27:31):
to podcasts like this one, or subscribe to like a
new site like The New York Times or The Atlantic
that is five dollars a month for priceless access to
a world that feels a lot more expensive than your
day to day life, to hearing about what everyone's doing
across the globe. I also want to recommend a book
here that I think is invaluable when you're feeling like
(27:52):
you're in a bit of a sparkless rut. The book
is called The Alchemist. I'm sure a lot of you
have heard about this before. It is so widely read
and known for good reason, because even if you're not
like a big reader, this novel offers such a simple, digestible,
(28:13):
inspiring kind of folk story about getting more out of
your life, about getting more out of your dreams, out
of yourself, and refocusing on your purpose on your drive.
I think that's something that we lose as life gets harder,
as we get older, we get stuck in our routines,
and of course we lose house Park. So I read
(28:37):
this book in like one or two sittings a few
years back, and I just started rereading it, and it's
incredibly ie opening. Even if you've read it before, honestly
read it again because the message, I think, becomes different
the older you get. You interpret it differently, And I
think it's really valuable to seek inspiration from other people's
ideas and their articulation of their mission and their kind
(29:00):
of how they see the world, whether that is the
same or different to your own. At least it challenges
you to think about your life differently. In fact, I
think obviously you know, reading a book is not a
huge task. Expanding the media you consume is mine, and
listening to ted Talks is pretty easy. Seeing joy in
(29:20):
your life is not that hard. You really only need
to pick out like three things a day. And I
really think that all of these things, the reason why
they're so powerful is because, time and time again, they
make you actually engage with what's around you. They make
you engage with your thoughts, with your life, rather than
(29:43):
sitting in the passenger seat. If you've lost your spark,
I would really encourage you to reflect on whether the
life you're currently living actually provides you with an opportunity
to be in touch with life, to be alive. Routine
is really great for creating structure and bringing order and
productivity into our lives, but that is not what life is.
(30:06):
Life is what happens around that. Life is what is
spontaneous and thrilling and what gives you new stories and
new feelings and new energy. So I would also say
break out of the monotony by really challenging yourself to
do one new thing this week, one new thing every week,
even if that's alone, a new gym class, a new
(30:28):
part of the city to explore, a new dish that
you're going to cook for yourself. New things are good
for our emotional health because it actually really opens up
our mind, I think, to the possibility of more like
They've done research on this, and the happiest people are
those who really expose themselves to new things, who challenge
(30:52):
the norm, who challenge their brains to think about things differently.
Because novelty also introduces excitement. There is a really great
article by Psychology today that puts it like this, when
we try something new, this actually opens up the possibility
for you to enjoy something new. There have been entire careers,
(31:15):
entire life paths carved out by people dipping their baby
toes into small ponds and suddenly discovering a love for
something they had no idea would capture their imaginations. It
forces you to grow, It forces you to choose to
live by kind of living heavy, and I think that
(31:37):
you just bear witness to the parts of your identity
that are allowed to kind of flourish in those moments
where life isn't like easy, life isn't familiar. The moment
that you're in you might not be comfortable, but it's
there that your spark really returns because you have to
rely on yourself and you have to really pull from
(31:57):
this pool of just innate joy and energy and capability.
I think is a better way to put it. All right,
I have two final tips for you, and we're going
to keep them short and sweet. The first is to
be practicing some form of movement every day. Now, this
is not movement to lose weight, it's not movement to
(32:18):
get fitter, it's not for a beauty standard. But it's
because of what it will do for your brain. Now,
I really despise when people say that exercises some like
magical cure for mental health problems. That's literally bullshit. But
we are seeing research that shows how protective physical activity
is for these kinds of ruts or periods of depletion
(32:41):
we might find ourselves in. There's actually a really special
research project that was conducted in Australia by the University
of Sydney, literally down the road from where I am
right now, and it published findings that unstructured dance, so
not dance for the purpose of exercise, even for getting
your heart rate up, just dancing around your living room,
(33:02):
dancing around wherever you are, it's actually one of the
best things you can do for your brain and mental
well being. Besides that, exercise boosts mental energy, it boosts motivation.
Those are two things that are really crucial for getting
our spark back. I think it's especially impactful and special
(33:23):
if you find time to move in nature. There is
a whole field of research called ecopsychology that talks about
how spending time outdoors promotes how we feel about ourselves
and our lives and the attitudes we bring into our
day to day. You probably already know this without me
needing to tell you. You know, Just think about how
(33:45):
good you feel after you take a swim in the ocean.
Have you ever felt bad after a swim in the ocean,
after a hike, after you walked by the creek near
your house. That's where humans are meant to be. So
it's no wonder that we're using our vibrancy and our
spark and our love for life when we are living
(34:05):
in a world that is focused on keeping us inside.
I think nature provides a lot of healing in that sense,
for reconnecting ourselves with what it truly means to be human,
what it truly means to be alive in our bodies,
how capable our bodies are, how much feeling our bodies
can hold, that spark that is spark right there, embracing
(34:29):
what makes us wild, embracing the beauty of the outdoors,
the beauty of what comes from that, and kind of
watching how your I don't know, it just instantly fills
up your cup and it keeps it full for days,
even weeks. After A final tip, I think, try to
spend less time thinking about what others have that you don't,
(34:51):
and think about everything that is wonderful about your life
and what you have. What are your own secret gardens?
I speak about this a lot, but this is a
concept it came up with while back, that essentially says,
each of us has this like secret part of who
we are locked in the back of our mind that
I call our secret garden. And our secret garden is
filled with the things that are special, unique, vulnerable, entirely ours.
(35:16):
It could be you know, the little hobby that you
haven't told anybody about, the little passion project that is
just yours, Your deep dives on Wikipedia, the poetry you
write in your notes app the fact that you still
love music from the early two thousands, the fact that
actually you're a really good singer, you just don't sing
(35:37):
in front of other people. That you can make us
like a really good lasagna or a really good birthday cake.
Those are parts of your secret garden. They are what
makes us special, what makes us happy. And we need
to spend time in that garden. We need to water it,
we need to share its kind of bounty with others.
And you'll notice how much more alive and connected you
(36:01):
feel when you spend less time looking over the fence
at someone else's life, and more time really like appreciating
what you have and also just seeking to elevate that
seeking to be grateful, but also seeking to build it
even further. Not for somebody else, not so that they
(36:21):
think you're accomplished or cool or whatever it is, but
because you actually want amazing things to come your way.
You want a life that you feel happy with. You
want your spark back, like that's the entire point of
this episode. You want to feel like there is a
fire that you have in your stomach for life. So
(36:41):
I want to finish off by saying, I'm really glad
that you are here. If you're feeling this way, I
feel you. I know this rut feels like it will
last a lifetime, Like you'll never be that kind of
fun person you were three four, five years ago, and
you know what, you probably won't be that person again,
but you are discovering and building somebody better. You will
(37:03):
feel excited by life again. You will fall back in
love with yourself again. I just think that it requires
a bit of a holistic change. It's really normal, I
think for us to find ourselves at this point of
just like shallowness and hollowness and emptiness. That's kind of
part of the journey, right, It's about rebuilding the things
(37:23):
that we have perhaps been neglecting. It's about being kind
of exhilarated by the mundane. It's about creating habits for
your life that it's going to mean that you still
feel vibrant and alive even if you're behind a desk
working nine to five for the rest of your life,
even if you're stressed, even if you're overwhelmed. There is
(37:45):
so much more to life than commitment, so much more
to life than responsibility, than what other people think, than
what you even think. There's a lot of beauty hiding
in I think the every day and hiding in our
commitment and the love that we've show ourselves that really
sets us a light, that really sparks a fire in
our belly to want to live successfully and beautifully and
(38:08):
filled with joy. So I just really hope that you
enjoyed this episode. I really hope that you've got something
out of it. I really hope that you are on
your path to getting your spark back, whether you've lost
it because of a breakup, because we've been burnt out,
because of whatever it is, you'll find your way back,
(38:30):
and I hope this will help you do that. If
you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave us
a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you
are listening right now. I actually really enjoyed this. I'm
going to be applying some of these strategies obviously I
already do, but really trying to bring more of this
into my life. I feel like I've lost my own way.
(38:51):
A little bit happens to the best of us. Make
sure that you are following us on Instagram, at that
Psychology podcast or at Gemispeg if you want to see
more behind the scenes content, see what's coming out. We
actually have something really special coming out in the next month,
so if you've made it this far, I guess you're
(39:11):
the first to know. I'm not going to tell you
exactly what it is, but keep your ice peeled because yeah,
I'm really excited about it, and I hope you are too.
We will, of course be back for another episode next week.
Until then, be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself,
and stay safe.
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode. Today's episode, though you may have
already noticed, is a rerun, So over the next two weeks,
I am putting out some of my best episodes from
(00:21):
the last four years of almost NonStop podcasting as I
just take some time away to launch my debut book,
Person in Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your Twenties.
Do not fret. I will be back on the twenty
ninth of April, but I just wanted to give my
book a little bit of extra love these next two
weeks because it's a big deal and I'm not going
to talk about it too much. I'm sure you're just
(00:43):
here to listen to the podcast and probably sick of
me talking about it, but I just want to say
thank you. I want to say a huge thank you
for allowing me to write this book and put it
out in the world. This is only possible because of
you all. Because of you, guys, the listeners. Literally, that's it.
That's the only reason I'm able to do this. And
(01:03):
I've wanted to be an author since I was five.
Twenty years later, you guys made that happen for me,
So just thank you, Thank you so much. I would
obviously love it if you could pre order it, buy it,
gift it to a friend, but you've already done so much,
and I just feel honored to have had this opportunity.
(01:24):
Most of all, I'm just really pumped for you guys
to read it. I hope that you learn something. I'm
sure if you love the podcast, you will love Person
in Progress as well. But it's a really exciting time
and the main feeling I have right now is one
of gratitude. So thank you so much. Without further ado,
I hope you enjoy this rerun of one of my
(01:45):
favorite all time episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
as always, Back for another episode as we dive into
the psychology of our twenties. So I want to talk
about something today that I have been struggling with recently.
(02:35):
You know, I'm just going to jump straight into the point.
I don't know about you, but I have been really
experiencing this strange sense of just dissatisfaction towards my life recently,
A lingering, kind of buzzing sense of exhaustion, an aimlessness,
a kind of like a boredom when it comes to
my interests, my future, my relationships, my health, my life,
(02:59):
and general. It's been really bothering me as someone who
is very proactive when it comes to just like actually
enjoying my life. I like feeling excited about things. I
like feeling optimistic about the future, and that just hasn't
seemed to be the case recently, and I've been really
looking into what it might be. The biggest thing for
(03:21):
me has been low energy, not being able to kind
of show up in my friendships as I would like.
I cannot tell you the number of plans I've canceled
in the last three months, and I've kind of just
reached the conclusion that I've lost my spark a little bit.
I've lost the buzz, the love the thrill for life,
(03:42):
and I don't think that I am the only one.
You know, our twenties come with a lot of expectations
that are hard to ignore. There is so much hype
around these being like the best years of your life,
filled with adventure and sleepless nights and random friendships and
relationships and these warm, brilliant memories you'll get to look
(04:03):
back on for years to come. And I think maybe
this is what we would define as our spark, like
an enthusiasm to go out and grab life and to
be interested and interesting. Our spark is the thing that
kind of keeps us passionate about showing up in the world,
and it keeps us passionate about who we are and
(04:26):
the experiences that we're having. It's what makes us inspired
and kind and engaged and motivated and present. But we
can't be that all the time. You can't really be
living in the golden bubble every minute of every day.
There will come a time, as I guess I'm experiencing
right now as we speak, where the energy and the
(04:48):
excitement for life kind of dips. You become very detached
from that person that you love, that person that you
are at your core. And everything around you seems to
lose a bit of color. You lose that kind of
energy that you bring into conversations, that energy that you
bring into your daily life. And for me, I've been
(05:10):
really reflecting on this, and I've been thinking about the
person I was three or four years ago who just
seems so in love with life and really wondering where
she's gone, whether I can get her back, but also
whether I want her back or whether it's just a
a general disconnection. So we're going to talk about that today.
I want to talk about why we lose our spark,
(05:32):
why it is such a common experience, the reasons behind that.
It may be burnout, it may have been a breakup,
but then also six tips for regaining that motivation and
that love for life. Losing your spark could be for
a number of reasons, but there are four main explanations
(05:52):
that I think stand out to me, especially in our twenties.
The first, the biggest one, really is burnout, pushing ourselves
too hard for too long and ignoring the warning signs
that we need rest and we need time to actually
process our lives, our emotions and all the activity that
(06:14):
is going on. We're seeing a lot of research that
burnout is becoming a lot more common during this day
and age, especially amongst people under the age of thirty. Now.
I think the reason for this is twofold Number one.
We're obviously quite new to the workplace, but also new
to life. We don't really know or aren't able to
(06:36):
express our limits, our points of exhaustion. But secondly, I
think it's because of this expectation to be doing everything,
to be constantly and always aiming for more. You have
to be focused at school or in your job, whilst
also having a lot of fulfilling friendships and then hobbies
(06:56):
and a loving relationship and perfect physical and mental health,
whilst also been able to you know, juggle your family
and a side hustle and your own needs. If that
feels impossible to you, you are not the only one.
Each of us has an individual threshold for how much stress, activity,
(07:16):
mental exhaustion that we can tolerate, and I think as
we slowly reach that threshold, we start sacrificing elements of
our wellbeing to keep up with what is expected of
us and what we expect from ourselves, and that includes
very tangible things like sleep, self care, exercise, down time,
(07:38):
those are normally the first things to go when we're
burnt out, and also more intangible things like mental rest,
thinking time, a space for imagination and creativity. You need
all of these things to keep your spark a light.
It's hard to prioritize the things that make you excited
for life, the small joys, or even the energy for
(08:00):
the big things, if you are struggling with prolonged you know,
prolonged exhaustion, prolonged fatigue, burnout from a lack of life balance,
or kind of academic or personal overload. We are seeing
so much of this recently, and it also is demonstrating
(08:21):
a lot of links to an increased vulnerability to illness,
increased feelings of pessimism, inadequacy, none of which I think
seem to go hand in hand with feeling like yourself
or feeling like your spark is a light and alive.
So the second factor that I think contributes to losing
(08:41):
our spark is a lingering or pre existent mental health
disorder or challenge that maybe getting out of control or
becoming a little bit unmanageable, whether that is anxiety, depression, ADHD,
some other condition when acts our cognitions, our mood, our emotions.
(09:04):
This condition is going to impact our so called spark
and most importantly, our way of relating to the world.
So many factors impact this, and sometimes there really isn't
an explanation for why your mental health is suddenly not
as good. But I don't think anyone really talks about
how physically tiring it is to have to put one
(09:26):
hundred percent of your energy into just convincing yourself to
do even the smallest of tasks. I think maintaining your
spark and all the activities that promote this part of
you is a luxury when you're just trying to get
by day by day. The third contributing factor, I think
is not spending enough time with your own thoughts or
(09:47):
operating from a place of external validation. I think when
we live for others, how are we really meant to
pull from that internal source of meaning and passion and mission.
How are we meant to feel like ourselves when we
are engaging in extreme people pleasing, when we do feel
(10:07):
unnecessarily guilty for other people's emotions or feelings, when we
say yes when we really want to say no, when
we have no social boundaries, when we take on others
opinions or try and impress people at the expense of
our own mental health. If our spark is cultivated from
our own internal mental energy source from being connected and
(10:30):
attached and knowledgeable about who we are. When all of
that time is devoted to thinking about others, that part
of us becomes neglected. And the final factor, this one
is a little bit different from what we've just spoken about,
but it is the end of a relationship. I really
do see that as a catalyst for losing a little
(10:53):
bit of your passion and your passion and your love
for who you are, and your love for life, and
the energy that you bring into literally just your daily activities.
So when we lose a relationship, whether that is with
a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a really close friend,
(11:15):
that creates a massive shift in us. It is a
complete severance from part of ourselves that was connected to
this other person. It would often, I would say, also
trigger a really significant dip in self esteem, feeling very
lost because we attach so much of our identity to
(11:35):
those we love. You know, they hold us up, they
make us feel seen, they bear witness to our lives.
But they can also I think cause us a lot
of heartache and a lot of disruption when relationships like
this end, often because there comes a moment of complacency.
So I think when we are in a long term relationship,
(11:57):
or we are in this long term friendship, sometimes we
become very It becomes very easy to just fall into
only seeing them, to only hanging out with them, to
sitting watching TV with them, to not exploring other parts
of you. So when that relationship suddenly ends, you kind
of experience an emotional vacuum where you have incidentally, accidentally
(12:23):
involuntarily given up parts of you for this relationship, for
the ease of this relationship, and when you come out
of it, you don't really know who you are. You
don't really know what the future holds, you don't really
know what it means to be you without them. And
I think that is a huge catalyst, as I said,
(12:45):
for feeling a sense of dislocation and disconnection from what
makes you you and from your spark. It also just
reveals so much about what we have perhaps been neglecting
in our lives, the parts of ourselves that have become
secondary behind the relationship. Maybe one of these explanations, one
of these situations is calling to you you can really
(13:08):
see yourself in these examples. Maybe you just feel like
there's just something missing. None of these really apply. There's
just a genuine lack lack of sense of effort to
be put into your life. It doesn't really matter because
I think that what is most important here is that
right now you are having this experience that makes you
(13:29):
feel like your life is less than optimal and that
there is something that you're missing out on and missing
out of getting from your life. So I'm going to
talk about six research based tips to get your spark back,
starting with the most simple but the most important. After
this shortbreak, you need to replenish your body and your
(13:57):
mind before you can start building back your interest in life.
That is why the biggest thing for getting your spark
back is prioritizing rest. It sounds so simple, but we
really don't acknowledge how much of a difference a good
night's sleep or a week off can be for resetting
our body, especially when this becomes a practice of scheduling
(14:19):
time to do nothing, of scheduling time to just relax
in your body, in your mind, and be present. When
you've pushed yourself to this cliff edge of complete exhaustion,
you reach a point of internal disharmony whereby your body
will literally start to shut down due to ongoing chronic stress.
(14:40):
That doesn't sound optimal, and it certainly doesn't help with
getting your spark back. Sometimes we think that we need
to be doing more to be more, but it's actually
quite the opposite. The people who know themselves the best
and get the most out of life, of those who
realize the value in giving their brain and their body,
(15:01):
even their soul time to replenish. If you've lost your spark,
you need to start by reintroducing rest back into your life,
and this includes by doing things like taking your sick
days when you need them without feeling like you need
to justify it, being okay with saying no to plans
to just chill at home, giving yourself a day every
(15:23):
now and again to just do nothing. It's those slow
moments that our brain finally gets to switch off, and
you'll really be surprised about how much comes up for you,
how many ideas, plans for the future, helpful thoughts arise
because you finally have space to hold them in space
to process them. I really do understand that it's actually
(15:45):
quite hard to do that and accept that we need
to slow down. We feel a lot of guilt towards
rest because of the societal association with laziness. If you
are not pushing yourself one hundred percent of the time,
if you if you don't want to do it all,
it's because you just lack discipline. It's because you're just lazy,
(16:07):
rather than actually listening to your body and recognizing that
this is actually more efficient. I think these attitudes are
especially pervasive if you're an overachiever, or if you put
a lot of worth into your external achievements. Resetting your
attitude towards rest kind of means unlearning everything that brings
(16:30):
you a sense of personal fulfillment or satisfaction, like your achievements,
like being somebody who can push themselves, being somebody who
enjoys the urgency of exhaustion. That is just not sustainable, though,
and it cause you to neglect the parts of you
that you need for that your future self really needs,
you know, it needs you to stay strong and to
(16:52):
stay healthy. Your soul, your sense of self needs you
to actually stop and pause and focus on who you
are and what you're getting out of life. I think
rest also just really increases our capacity for self awareness,
It improves our empathy, it improves our ability to imagine
the future. So I think that it gives us a
(17:13):
real creative and perspective vision for who we are and
what we want, and in turn really gives us our
life back. So my second tip for getting your spark
back is to shift from a passive agent to an
active agent in your life. So often the reason we
lose our spark is because we settle into living as
(17:34):
though we are on autopilot. I want you to pause
and think whether that's you. Things happen to us, life
happens to us. We just kind of accept that that's
the way it is. We aren't doing much steering when
it comes to our decisions to what might make us happier,
to avoiding or changing circumstances that are depleting us. And
(17:57):
it is a lot easier to live life way. It's
really tiring to have to wake up each moment and
live with the fact that you are creating your reality,
that you are creating your future. You are in control,
you have agency, because that kind of awareness of your
responsibility is naturally more effort right. It takes a lot
(18:18):
more from you. But I honestly believe that that expenditure
of effort pays off in its thousands and becomes easier,
becomes less taxing when we adjust to a way of
living that actually gives us what we want in the
long term, rather than like the instant gratifications more pleasures
in the short term. It's so much more exhausting living
(18:41):
every day at sixty percent and dragging the other forty
percent behind you than at one hundred percent and seeing
yourself really have purpose and passionately come back into your life,
getting your spark back. Now, this isn't to say that
you should be working hard at doing more one hundred
percent effort one hundred percent energy all the time, right
(19:01):
because I think that is a contribution to pure exhaustion,
which we know is a contributor to burnout. Rather, it's
about choosing to live light versus live heavy. When we
live heavy, we kind of borrow effort and time from
our future selves. I'm going to explain this a little
(19:24):
bit more. When you don't make active choices about what's
going to make your life better, whether that is choosing
to fuel your body in a way that feels good,
choosing to rest when you need. Choosing to turn off
your screen before bed, even though you want to scroll
for a few more minutes, choosing to keep good company.
You transfer all of those decisions into your future as consequences.
(19:45):
In the short term, you got to live light because
you made the easiest decision to stay in bed rather
than work out or see friends, to spend that extra
thirty minutes on your phone in bed rather than reading
a book, to sacrifice your sleep, to put things off
when they would seriously you only take about five minutes.
You're stealing joy from your future self and contributing to
(20:05):
exhaustion by taking what seems like the easier route, but
in the long term is the harder route. I think
good practices, fulfilling life habits are tiring, but they do
actually give you a sense of control over your life
and give you a sense that you actually get to
do the things you want to do and create a
life you want to live, and actually create meaning within
(20:26):
that life, meaning that when you show up every single day,
when you wake up, you have the energy in the
space to be yourself, to show love to yourself, to
get your spark back by actively engaging in decisions that
are all devoted to bettering you and to making your
life easier. I think at the end of the day,
(20:47):
what this shift from passive to active entails is noticing
the things that deplete your energy versus create energy for you.
Things that unsettle you versus comfort you. Things that make
you fatigued, make you tired, make you sad, versus things
that make you energized and excited and joyful. That's the
first step. I think the second step is really consciously
(21:09):
choosing the alternative to those energy takers in your life.
You typically, I think, see a difficulty curve oc here.
For example, if your big thing for making your life
easier or living life is choosing to do a creative
project before bed rather than just mindlessly watch TV. It's
(21:32):
always going to be hard at the beginning, because I
think that we become very adjusted and very comfortable in
what is familiar and what is easy, and any shift
or change to that kind of life structure, life routine,
it's going to just rupt that norm. But over time,
(21:52):
as you adjust, you'll see that it becomes a lot
more kind of habitual and automatic to do the thing
that is best for you and to do the thing
that helps you get your spark back. That the thing
that really involves showing yourself a lot of radical self
compassion by not giving into your immediate ons, but focusing
on your long term wellbeing. My next tip is perhaps
(22:16):
my favorite, and this involves getting back to that place
of passion, interest, and joy in life by creating excitement
in the mundane. The biggest thing that gets me back
in touch with my true self time and time again
is looking for joy rather than looking for things to
complain about. Actively searching for things that make me happy
and elated or surprised or grateful to be human, rather
(22:40):
than always buying into my negativity bias. And I do
this by connecting with my inner child and getting back
to a place of childhood wonder and curiosity. Your inner
child is the most alive version of you. There is
the least uninhibited, the most excited. And I think it's
one of the saddest things about getting older is finding
(23:03):
that everything becomes a lot more gray, that there is
a certain glimmer that we lose that feels like we
can't get back. But I think that we can. We
can reach We can achieve that sense of wonder that
we had when we were younger by looking for things
to be amazed about rather than things to be disappointed over.
(23:26):
You know, the leaves changing color, the cat you see
every day on your walk to work, eating a really
tasty pastry or a tasty piece of fruit, smiling at
a stranger having them smile back, like your favorite artist
playing over the radio at the supermarket, a cool bug
on a tree singing along to like the opening track
(23:46):
of your favorite TV show. Joy really is everywhere, and
it's a strange feeling because it's one of the few
emotions that when you search for it, you'll notice that
it wants you to find it.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
If you look for happiness, you can't always find it,
But if you look for joy, you most certainly will.
As you kind of train yourself to look for awe
and to discover joy, you also begin to notice that
your thoughts and cognitions begin to transform and become more positive,
and you slowly get that glow and appreciation for life back.
(24:21):
Another part of getting in touch with your inner child
is allowing yourself to be playful. Play is honestly so
much fun. That's like the whole point, right, to just
be free of everything else that's hanging over you and
to get into your body, to get into your joy,
to get into the moment. And studies have really shown
that play in adulthood lets us act in a way
(24:43):
that is unstructured and creative, and it reduces stress levels.
It increases creativity, of course, along with the number of
neural connections we have in our brain because we engage
in different kinds of activities that you different parts of
our brain that normally don't talk to each other. Anything
(25:04):
you do recreationally that brings you joy or excitement counts
as play. You know, it could be a video game,
it could be playing sport, especially if it's social sport.
Could be writing little poems in your spare time, painting,
I don't know, trampolining literally, going on the public swing
(25:24):
at like your local park, going for a swim at
the beach. That is play, and it once again is
an avenue for joy to enter your life and to
keep you feeling like wonderful and curious and engaged in
your environment and your surroundings rather than kind of stuck
(25:45):
behind like a glass wall of negativity, feeling like you're
watching your life go by and you're not able to
reach out and touch it. I think reconnecting with that
childlike version of you is a wonderful diversion from all
the stresses and responsibilities that do keep us just connected,
because it lets us slip back into a perspective that
is so uninhibited, that is so care free, that is
(26:06):
so just like energized for life. I really really implore
you to try it, even if you feel embarrassed or
you feel cringe. It's not about what other people think.
It's about what's going to leave you feeling your best.
I think the main thing here is that getting your
spark back after it's bin dulled isn't all internal. It's
(26:27):
also about the external environment you create for yourself. I
think partially what losing your love and energy for life
comes down to is a lack of inspiration. Is feeling
stuck in the norm and not having new thoughts, not
having new beliefs, not experiencing new sensations, new interests. I
(26:47):
think you just become very much numb and shut down.
When life starts to feel plain and colorless. That is
an invitation for you to add some color back in
by keeping yourself inspired. And I love doing this by
consuming content media, books, articles, music, anything that gets your
(27:10):
brain working and thinking and firing differently. Start your morning off,
you know, with a ted talk instead of social media,
with five minutes of meditation, instead of doom scrolling with
energetic music. Have like a wild dance in your bathroom
in the morning. Make that part of your routine. Listen
(27:31):
to podcasts like this one, or subscribe to like a
new site like The New York Times or The Atlantic
that is five dollars a month for priceless access to
a world that feels a lot more expensive than your
day to day life, to hearing about what everyone's doing
across the globe. I also want to recommend a book
here that I think is invaluable when you're feeling like
(27:52):
you're in a bit of a sparkless rut. The book
is called The Alchemist. I'm sure a lot of you
have heard about this before. It is so widely read
and known for good reason, because even if you're not
like a big reader, this novel offers such a simple, digestible,
(28:13):
inspiring kind of folk story about getting more out of
your life, about getting more out of your dreams, out
of yourself, and refocusing on your purpose on your drive.
I think that's something that we lose as life gets harder,
as we get older, we get stuck in our routines,
and of course we lose house Park. So I read
(28:37):
this book in like one or two sittings a few
years back, and I just started rereading it, and it's
incredibly ie opening. Even if you've read it before, honestly
read it again because the message, I think, becomes different
the older you get. You interpret it differently, And I
think it's really valuable to seek inspiration from other people's
ideas and their articulation of their mission and their kind
(29:00):
of how they see the world, whether that is the
same or different to your own. At least it challenges
you to think about your life differently. In fact, I
think obviously you know, reading a book is not a
huge task. Expanding the media you consume is mine, and
listening to ted Talks is pretty easy. Seeing joy in
(29:20):
your life is not that hard. You really only need
to pick out like three things a day. And I
really think that all of these things, the reason why
they're so powerful is because, time and time again, they
make you actually engage with what's around you. They make
you engage with your thoughts, with your life, rather than
(29:43):
sitting in the passenger seat. If you've lost your spark,
I would really encourage you to reflect on whether the
life you're currently living actually provides you with an opportunity
to be in touch with life, to be alive. Routine
is really great for creating structure and bringing order and
productivity into our lives, but that is not what life is.
(30:06):
Life is what happens around that. Life is what is
spontaneous and thrilling and what gives you new stories and
new feelings and new energy. So I would also say
break out of the monotony by really challenging yourself to
do one new thing this week, one new thing every week,
even if that's alone, a new gym class, a new
(30:28):
part of the city to explore, a new dish that
you're going to cook for yourself. New things are good
for our emotional health because it actually really opens up
our mind, I think, to the possibility of more like
They've done research on this, and the happiest people are
those who really expose themselves to new things, who challenge
(30:52):
the norm, who challenge their brains to think about things differently.
Because novelty also introduces excitement. There is a really great
article by Psychology today that puts it like this, when
we try something new, this actually opens up the possibility
for you to enjoy something new. There have been entire careers,
(31:15):
entire life paths carved out by people dipping their baby
toes into small ponds and suddenly discovering a love for
something they had no idea would capture their imaginations. It
forces you to grow, It forces you to choose to
live by kind of living heavy, and I think that
(31:37):
you just bear witness to the parts of your identity
that are allowed to kind of flourish in those moments
where life isn't like easy, life isn't familiar. The moment
that you're in you might not be comfortable, but it's
there that your spark really returns because you have to
rely on yourself and you have to really pull from
(31:57):
this pool of just innate joy and energy and capability.
I think is a better way to put it. All right,
I have two final tips for you, and we're going
to keep them short and sweet. The first is to
be practicing some form of movement every day. Now, this
is not movement to lose weight, it's not movement to
(32:18):
get fitter, it's not for a beauty standard. But it's
because of what it will do for your brain. Now,
I really despise when people say that exercises some like
magical cure for mental health problems. That's literally bullshit. But
we are seeing research that shows how protective physical activity
is for these kinds of ruts or periods of depletion
(32:41):
we might find ourselves in. There's actually a really special
research project that was conducted in Australia by the University
of Sydney, literally down the road from where I am
right now, and it published findings that unstructured dance, so
not dance for the purpose of exercise, even for getting
your heart rate up, just dancing around your living room,
(33:02):
dancing around wherever you are, it's actually one of the
best things you can do for your brain and mental
well being. Besides that, exercise boosts mental energy, it boosts motivation.
Those are two things that are really crucial for getting
our spark back. I think it's especially impactful and special
(33:23):
if you find time to move in nature. There is
a whole field of research called ecopsychology that talks about
how spending time outdoors promotes how we feel about ourselves
and our lives and the attitudes we bring into our
day to day. You probably already know this without me
needing to tell you. You know, Just think about how
(33:45):
good you feel after you take a swim in the ocean.
Have you ever felt bad after a swim in the ocean,
after a hike, after you walked by the creek near
your house. That's where humans are meant to be. So
it's no wonder that we're using our vibrancy and our
spark and our love for life when we are living
(34:05):
in a world that is focused on keeping us inside.
I think nature provides a lot of healing in that sense,
for reconnecting ourselves with what it truly means to be human,
what it truly means to be alive in our bodies,
how capable our bodies are, how much feeling our bodies
can hold, that spark that is spark right there, embracing
(34:29):
what makes us wild, embracing the beauty of the outdoors,
the beauty of what comes from that, and kind of
watching how your I don't know, it just instantly fills
up your cup and it keeps it full for days,
even weeks. After A final tip, I think, try to
spend less time thinking about what others have that you don't,
(34:51):
and think about everything that is wonderful about your life
and what you have. What are your own secret gardens?
I speak about this a lot, but this is a
concept it came up with while back, that essentially says,
each of us has this like secret part of who
we are locked in the back of our mind that
I call our secret garden. And our secret garden is
filled with the things that are special, unique, vulnerable, entirely ours.
(35:16):
It could be you know, the little hobby that you
haven't told anybody about, the little passion project that is
just yours, Your deep dives on Wikipedia, the poetry you
write in your notes app the fact that you still
love music from the early two thousands, the fact that
actually you're a really good singer, you just don't sing
(35:37):
in front of other people. That you can make us
like a really good lasagna or a really good birthday cake.
Those are parts of your secret garden. They are what
makes us special, what makes us happy. And we need
to spend time in that garden. We need to water it,
we need to share its kind of bounty with others.
And you'll notice how much more alive and connected you
(36:01):
feel when you spend less time looking over the fence
at someone else's life, and more time really like appreciating
what you have and also just seeking to elevate that
seeking to be grateful, but also seeking to build it
even further. Not for somebody else, not so that they
(36:21):
think you're accomplished or cool or whatever it is, but
because you actually want amazing things to come your way.
You want a life that you feel happy with. You
want your spark back, like that's the entire point of
this episode. You want to feel like there is a
fire that you have in your stomach for life. So
(36:41):
I want to finish off by saying, I'm really glad
that you are here. If you're feeling this way, I
feel you. I know this rut feels like it will
last a lifetime, Like you'll never be that kind of
fun person you were three four, five years ago, and
you know what, you probably won't be that person again,
but you are discovering and building somebody better. You will
(37:03):
feel excited by life again. You will fall back in
love with yourself again. I just think that it requires
a bit of a holistic change. It's really normal, I
think for us to find ourselves at this point of
just like shallowness and hollowness and emptiness. That's kind of
part of the journey, right, It's about rebuilding the things
(37:23):
that we have perhaps been neglecting. It's about being kind
of exhilarated by the mundane. It's about creating habits for
your life that it's going to mean that you still
feel vibrant and alive even if you're behind a desk
working nine to five for the rest of your life,
even if you're stressed, even if you're overwhelmed. There is
(37:45):
so much more to life than commitment, so much more
to life than responsibility, than what other people think, than
what you even think. There's a lot of beauty hiding
in I think the every day and hiding in our
commitment and the love that we've show ourselves that really
sets us a light, that really sparks a fire in
our belly to want to live successfully and beautifully and
(38:08):
filled with joy. So I just really hope that you
enjoyed this episode. I really hope that you've got something
out of it. I really hope that you are on
your path to getting your spark back, whether you've lost
it because of a breakup, because we've been burnt out,
because of whatever it is, you'll find your way back,
(38:30):
and I hope this will help you do that. If
you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave us
a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you
are listening right now. I actually really enjoyed this. I'm
going to be applying some of these strategies obviously I
already do, but really trying to bring more of this
into my life. I feel like I've lost my own way.
(38:51):
A little bit happens to the best of us. Make
sure that you are following us on Instagram, at that
Psychology podcast or at Gemispeg if you want to see
more behind the scenes content, see what's coming out. We
actually have something really special coming out in the next month,
so if you've made it this far, I guess you're
(39:11):
the first to know. I'm not going to tell you
exactly what it is, but keep your ice peeled because yeah,
I'm really excited about it, and I hope you are too.
We will, of course be back for another episode next week.
Until then, be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself,
and stay safe.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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