15 Ways to Get Your Spark Back (The Nervous System Science Behind It)
Lost your spark? It's stuck in your nervous system.
Often, we move through our days without paying much attention to the signals and sensations our body is sending us. We override them. We push through. We convince ourselves that our body doesn't know what it's talking about.
You meet someone who looks lovely on paper and matches all your lifestyle criteria, but your body feels drained around them. Instead of taking distance, you suppress that signal and go for them anyway.
Your job is draining every ounce of your energy. Deep down, you know you need to speak up and set boundaries. But instead, you just get on with it. Head down. Keep performing.
Or there's that family member who somehow never sees your side, who gaslights you into believing that whatever quarrel you have is always your fault. Instead of putting in the boundary, you believe them. You shrink. You accommodate.
Little by little, these moments add up.
And then one day you notice: you used to feel excited about life. You used to have ideas and enthusiasm and that spark that made everything feel worth it.
Now everything feels flat.
You're still getting things done. Still showing up. Still achieving. But the spark? Gone.
When Numbness Becomes Your Normal
The numbness within is hard to ignore. Regardless of your achievements, it's hard to celebrate them. Hard to believe them. Hard to feel anything about them at all.
Your body starts to feel like what's the point. She's been sending you signals for years and you haven't listened. You've looked for answers outside of yourself while ignoring the wisdom she's been offering all along.
So she stops trying. She shuts down. She goes numb.
This is what's actually happening: your nervous system is stuck in survival mode.
And when you're in survival, there's no room for joy, pleasure, or spark. The fragments of your inner self that you ignored over the years don't trust you anymore. All that creative energy, all that aliveness — it gets redirected into simply keeping you alive.
Because here's the thing your nervous system doesn't understand: it can't tell the difference between being chased by a bear and confronting a toxic boss. Between actual danger and emotional threat. So it responds the same way to both.
It freezes.
High-Functioning Freeze: The Achiever's Trap
High-functioning freeze is specifically prevalent in high-achieving women. On the outside, you look successful. You have it all together. You're the one everyone relies on.
But inside tells a different story.
The numbness is so prominent that feeling rest or joy — actually savouring it in your body — feels like a distant memory. You can't remember the last time you felt genuinely excited about something. The last time pleasure landed in your cells without guilt chasing it.
There is nothing wrong with you. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do. It's protecting you the only way it knows how.
But that protection has become a prison.
The Science of Your Missing Spark
To understand how to get your spark back, you need to understand what's happening neurologically when you lose it.
When your nervous system perceives threat — whether it's an actual bear or just your boss's tone in a meeting — it activates your sympathetic nervous system. This is the fight-or-flight response. Cortisol floods your system. Your heart rate increases. Blood flow redirects away from digestion and pleasure centers to your limbs so you can run or fight.
But when the threat is ongoing (chronic stress, toxic relationships, jobs that drain you, family dynamics you can't escape), and when you can't fight or flee, your nervous system does the only thing left: it freezes.
This is the dorsal vagal response. Shutdown. Conservation mode. Your body essentially says: if I can't fight this and I can't run from it, I'll just go numb until it passes.
The problem is, in modern life, the threat often doesn't pass. So you stay frozen. And while you're frozen, your spark — that aliveness, that joy, that enthusiasm — gets buried under layers of protective numbness.
Why Your Spark Needs Oxytocin
Here's what most people don't know about getting their spark back: it's not about motivation or willpower or forcing yourself to feel excited again.
It's about nervous system regulation. Specifically, it's about inviting oxytocin back into your system.
Oxytocin is the primary regulator of the female nervous system. It's the bonding hormone, the safety hormone, the hormone that tells your body: you're not in danger anymore. You can let your guard down. You can feel pleasure again.
Oxytocin counteracts cortisol. While cortisol keeps you in survival mode, oxytocin brings you back into a regulated state where spark, joy, and aliveness can exist.
When we've been in high-functioning freeze for months or years, our oxytocin production has essentially shut down. We've been running on cortisol and dopamine (the seeking/doing hormone) for so long that we've forgotten what safety feels like in our bodies.
To get your spark back, you have to start metabolising the frozen energy. In most cases, this frozen energy is wrapped up in shame — shame your body feels deep within, often without your conscious mind even knowing it's there.
There's no need to dig into trauma or replay the story over and over. But we do need to acknowledge all the aspects and attachment patterns that are playing out within your system.
The good news? There are simple, practical ways to start this process.
15 Ways to Get Your Spark Back Through Oxytocin and Nervous System Regulation
These aren't just feel-good tips. Each one is designed to signal safety to your nervous system, invite oxytocin production, and start melting the freeze that's keeping your spark buried.
1. Legs up the wall for 5 minutes
This simple position activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Blood flows back toward your heart, your body gets the message that you're not running from anything, and your system begins to downregulate. You don't have to do anything. Just lie there and let gravity work.
2. Shake your body for 2 minutes
Animals shake after a threat passes — it's how they discharge survival energy. We're animals too. We just forgot. Put on a song, shake your whole body, and let that stuck energy move.
3. Hum while you cook
Humming stimulates your vagus nerve, the main communication highway between your brain and body. It sends a direct signal of safety to your nervous system. No meditation required — just hum while you chop vegetables.
4. Dance in your kitchen
Playful movement is medicine for a stuck nervous system. Not exercise as punishment. Movement with pleasure. Put on something you love and move however feels good.
5. Take your shoes off and walk on the grass
Your feet have thousands of nerve endings that rarely get stimulated when you're always in shoes on flat surfaces. Grass and soil send sensory information to your brain that says: you're here, you're safe, you're alive.
6. Cold water on your face
This triggers your dive reflex — an automatic response that slows your heart rate and calms your system. Splash cold water on your face or hold a cold cloth there for 30 seconds. Notice what shifts.
7. Breathe out longer than you breathe in
Your exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Try breathing in for 4 counts, out for 6. The longer exhale tells your body the threat has passed.
8. Laugh (even if you have to force it at first)
Your body doesn't know the difference between real and fake laughter — it responds to the physical act either way. Start with fake laughter. It often turns real.
9. Sing in the shower
Like humming, singing stimulates your vagus nerve. Plus it requires breath control and engages your whole body. Belt it out. Your nervous system doesn't care if you're in tune.
10. Jump on your bed
When did you stop being playful? Probably around the same time your spark disappeared. Jumping and bouncing aren't just for kids — they're nervous system medicine for adults who've forgotten their body can be a source of joy.
11. Stretch like a cat when you wake up
Before you reach for your phone and start scanning for threats, stretch. Yawn. Let your body wake up slowly. Cats know something we've forgotten.
12. Say no to one thing you don't want to do
Every time you say yes when you mean no, you're telling your body that her signals don't matter. Start small. One no. Notice how it feels.
13. Eat something slowly and actually taste it
When you're in survival mode, eating becomes mechanical. Slowing down to actually savour your food is a powerful signal of safety. Your nervous system gets the message: we have time.
14. Look at something beautiful for 2 full minutes
Not a glance. Really look. Let your eyes soften. Let your nervous system register that there's beauty here, not just problems to solve.
15. Let yourself cry if it comes
Sometimes the spark is buried under grief you haven't let yourself feel. Tears contain stress hormones that literally leave your body when you cry. If they want to come, let them.
The Small Sips Approach
We need to start dissociating pleasure and oxytocin from anything sex-related and start incorporating small sips of it throughout our day. If the list above doesn't resonate with you, sit down and write your own 15 small things that bring you pleasure.
The goal is to approach this with a small-sips strategy so your nervous system doesn't get overwhelmed. Titration, not flooding.
When you've been in freeze for years, your system can't handle huge influxes of pleasure or joy. It's too much, too fast. Your nervous system will actually reject it as unsafe because it doesn't match your baseline state.
That's why we start with micro-doses. Five minutes of legs up the wall. Two minutes of shaking. One song in the kitchen. These small invitations to safety, repeated consistently, are what rebuild your capacity to hold pleasure and joy again.
Beyond the Basics: EFT and Somatic Practices
If your body feels heavy and numb, I've seen incredible results from incorporating a vibration plate into morning routines before starting the day. It helps move the stuck energy and allows you to orient towards pleasure before the demands begin.
Another powerful way to release survival mode from your nervous system is EFT — Emotional Freedom Technique. We tap on acupressure points along our energy meridians using aspects connected to the story our body is holding, and start moving that energy out of the system.
I've just finished my EFT Level 1 and 2 practitioner training, and as a result, I'm offering the first 20 people who book a 15-minute discovery call with me a free EFT session to start looking more deeply into why your nervous system is still stuck in survival mode.
You Deserve Your Spark Back
Whichever way you decide to move forward, I need you to know this: you can't change the past. You can't undo what happened back there and then.
But you can use the tools available to help you get unstuck. You can slowly bring your spark back. One small sip of pleasure at a time. One signal of safety at a time.
We all deserve to live a life filled with joy and pleasure — the way God intended for us. It's up to us to finally choose that route.
Book your free discovery call here
—Tania
