Lack of Joy? How to Revive Your Passion

Passion, what lights you up currently? When you are passionate you allow yourself to explore your desires and to go towards the things that make you feel joyful.

I am all about fully enjoying my life these days, I didn’t used to. I used to lack joy. In fact, I was so apathetic and fearful that I used to just spend hours fantasizing about life, instead of actually living it. There’s a long history there that stems from trauma and abuse that caused me to not feel safe. This created a lot of blocks in my entire being as a whole, but I’ve done a lot of inner healing to overcome that.

Listen to this blog post as a podcast - Episode 123: Lack of Joy? How to revive your passion - Find: A Joy To Be Me - On: iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or Spotify

There have been many times in my life that I have sunk into 'lack of joy' mode and lost my passion. I'm not alone in this. I know a lot of women struggle with this lack of joy, apathy, boredom, no motivation. This also shows up in the physical body with stagnate energy, constipation and more.

Thankfully, I’ve learned how to prioritize fun and joy filled living so I never go back to that dark space and stay there. If I find myself feeling that 'stuckness', I am now able to more quickly recognize it, feel it, process it and then shift out of it. Even when there are challenges in my life, I can still keep my passion alive and not shift to a sense of lack.

How A Lack of Joy Shows Up In Your Health & Life

If you enjoy learning about your chakras, lack of joy correlates with a blocked sacral chakra.

I stumbled across the human chakra system many years ago after learning from Dr. Deanna Minnich’s work in her book ‘Whole Detox’. Then again when my boyfriend found my sacrum. Then again when I started going to a cranio sacral therapist.

The sacral chakra is the second chakra. It′s found behind your pubic bone, immediately above the root chakra and below the solar plexus chakra. It′s called the sacral chakra, because it corresponds to the sacrum in the spine.

The normal function of the sacral chakra is to regulate your moods and inspire your creativity. this chakra is what keeps your sex life and your attitude towards sex healthy and balanced.

When your sacral chakra is functioning well, you′re joyful and content with your life in general. You know what you want, and have a plan to pursue acquiring it. 

Because of its close physical connection with the pelvis area and the reproductive organs, the sacral chakra is also the center of the search for pleasure, whether sensual or through your daily life experiences. Abundant creativity and strongly felt intuition are two additional facets of an open sacral chakra.

“I enjoy life fully” could be the sacral chakra’s motto.

An open, balanced sacral chakra allows you to experience intimacy and love freely and fully. Also, to be honest and non-judgmental about your desires, and to live as your authentic self without fear.

YES, yes, yes  now don’t we all want more of this!

When your sacral chakra is not functioning well and out of balance the symptoms you can experience include; attachment issues, sexually-related guilt, timidity, emotional volatility, hypersensitivity, and trust issues. You may find that you can act both completely disconnected and cold towards others when this chakra is under-active. Or you may feel needy and emotionally dependent if your sacral chakra is over-active. Your sacral chakra is your most important emotional center.

Find Your Sacrum & Give It Some Love

Never underestimate the power of touch. It can heal more deeply than you may realize. It's important to be open to receiving loving touch. I had a lot of unloving touch in my lifetime, and I never realized how much harm it did.

It took being open to and believing I could have that kind of love and touch in a safe accepting relationship. It's actually something I included on my vision board from the summer of 2016. I wanted the kind of saturation love I had learned about long long ago.

Thankfully, my boyfriend (the kindest soul on the planet) gave (and still gives) me loving massages. Early in our relationship he would rub and caress me for hours as we’d lay in bed and just talk. Mostly I would talk and he would listen. I found out that I really loved it when he just gently hovered his hand around my sacrum. Just holding it there.

As we spent more time together, I found that my sacrum being touched or even just held allowed me to release a lot of trapped emotions and stuck energy. I began to feel pulsing energy in the area whenever he would hold his hand there for awhile.

He made me feel so accepted and safe and in that environment of just allowing I healed deeply and profoundly in a way I never knew was possible.

The more I released trapped emotions and trauma, the more I began to revive my passion and creativity. The more I allowed space and time to just receive and be open to his love and adoration, the more free my mind and body became.

If you've never had a chance to enjoy cranio-sacral therapy I can't recommend it enough. 

Or perhaps you and your partner can learn more about where your sacrum is and how to gently touch/massage it to allow for the healing energy to flow.

How To Revive Your Passion

This kind of touch opened me up to so much more. I began to see how allowing for this kind of time to receive it brought so much healing as well. So I decided to ramp up my own self care.

Journaling became a non-negotiable because of course I had to write these experiences down. And as I journaled more frequently, I was able to release things I needed to let go of. And as I released things I had been holding on to my body became more aligned, more capable. My mind held less blocks, my motivation to create a vibrant life soared. I began to give myself permission to not only think about things I wanted in life but to actually go for them. One of those was to allow myself to go experience healing modalties such as the cranio-sacral therapy. That was something I would have felt was indulgent years prior, I now saw it as an incredible opportunity and gift to myself.

I found a cranio-sacral therapist near me and began to go regularly for awhile. I told her what I was releasing during intimate times with my boyfriend. She shared how touching certain points in the body can liberate trapped stuck energy. During my sessions, my body experienced energetic pulses, kind of like electrical currents running through that were almost shocking or like a sudden shudder that I couldn’t control.

Our bodies are full of electrical potential my friends but so many of us are carrying around stagnant blocked energy. If you want to go really deep into this and are open to understanding energy as it pertains to more of a spiritual awakening, read this article; 'Energy-cause muscle spasms or kriyas'.

She also checked my chakras and helped me to see where I might be blocked and I began to dig in at home to creating more flow in my entire body through all of my chakras. Chakra work and healing is now something I incorporate into my routine as well.

You can do so many amazing things to support your overall healing and unblock yourself, alleviating physical ailments, as well as mental, emotional issues.

I believe life is meant to be fun. I believe you and I should truly enjoy our lives.

If you feel unmotivated, apathetic, ‘constipated’ (physically or mentally), or like you can’t seem to have fun anymore and like your libido is stuck in the mud… listen up, I’m gonna share just a few things you can start to do right now to shift you into a better flow, so you can revive your passion.

Give yourself a fair chance and find the ones that light you up the most. Then be sure to do them regularly.

Ways You Can Revive Your Passion & Enjoy Life More

In addition to loving touch, especially of your sacrum or even working with a cranio-sacral therapist, here are just a few super simple ways you can support yourself to unlock energy and enjoy life more!

Dance 

I love to dance! I dance every chance I can, and no I don't mean by going OUT to a club or a party. I dance when I do the dishes. I take dance breaks in my room when I've been sitting at the computer too long. I silly dance with the kids just because. The power of dance, is that you are allowing your body and mind to LET GO and just let it flow. There is no right or wrong way to dance either -just move your body however it wants to and can and have fun.

Journal

I know, I know, I've said it a lot and I'll keep saying it. Why? Because it's one of the most available tools everyone has to process how they feel safely.

It's important to recognize and release how you feel. Don’t hold it in, when you hold things in they can become trapped and block the flow of energy in your body. It’s ok to Feel how you feel and let it out. You can then process it or just leave it there and come back to it later. Whatever you need to do. Journaling has been my best therapy. You can always find a therapist or counselor as well, but a journal is basically free and you can go to it whenever you want or need to.

Emotional Detox

There are so many ways to approach emotional detox. If you are new to the concept and need a safe space for support, check out my post on emotional detox where I interviewed my friend Marie Houlden an EFT energy worker. She also has a really amazing emotional detox program you can use on your own to heal your emotions.

"Emotional trauma can get stuck in the brain, causing your emotional circuits to overfire - sometimes for years. Explore healthy ways to eliminate the hurts that haunt you." ~ Dr. Daniel Amen

Move Your Body

I can't say this enough. When you feel lack of motivation and joy it's hard to want to move your body, but I promise it will help. Start with a brief daily walk or some stretching at first, if it's all you can do. But please, DO something every day. Your body was designed to MOVE. Of course, dancing counts too!

Walking is great, but also specific yoga sequences or moves. You can probably find a yoga instructor familiar with opening the chakras through certain poses or just focus on the hip opening yoga poses. If you are new to yoga be sure to take a beginner instructed class first.

Sitting too much and too long, creates 'stuck' energy. Your lymphatic system and lymph needs to flow, so you can get that passion flowing again too!

Eat The Rainbow

Specifically orange foods and spices for this chakra. But overall, real whole organic foods that are colorful can be so powerfully healing. It’s so much more enjoyable to eat food that is beautiful and savor their flavors.

Food can be powerful medicine and a form of artistic creativity. I let my body guide me to the foods I’m attracted to in my health food store and then find creative ways to enjoy them. It makes eating such an adventure, instead of a chore or bore.

Include things like; carrots, winter squashes, sweet potatoes, citrus fruits.

I enjoy a chicken coconut curry with orange peppers and carrots, which combines several orange veggies and spices. Notice if your body seems attracted to orange foods when you go shopping. Or if you crave more orange foods.

I love the starchy orange veggies for women in burnout, they are such a great source of nutrition, carbohydrate, antioxidants and beta-carotene. See if you can find some new recipes or foods from different cultures to try that spark your creative flow in the kitchen.

Make Time For Creativity In Your Life

Over the years, in my work supporting women to recover their health, many have told me they stopped doing the things they loved. Decorating, knitting, painting, writing or creating in a way that they used to love. The stress of life and responsibility took it's toll and they found their creative, playful side went by the wayside.

Ladies, here's where you get to give yourself permission and create space in your life to express creativity. Sometimes it just flows and when it doesn't you may need to be more intentional about it.

Write down 3 creative ideas or things you want to do and then create an action step or schedule something this week. See how giving yourself that time for creativity makes you feel overall. I bet you will want to keep giving yourself that time for creation.

Wear More Color

Play with more color in your wardrobe, jewelry and make-up. Do you tend to wear dark colors, a lot of black maybe? Or have you noticed you tend to lean towards the same colors on repeat?

Try dressing yourself up in a shade of orange that you like and works for your specific coloring. Orange is not a color I ever used to wear but I decided to give it a fair shot and really enjoy the energy I feel when wearing it. You may be surprised how fun it is to try a new color or new shade.

If you are looking for support with a mentor and coach to empower you further than you can on  your own, so you can radically transform your health & life... I invite you to book a breakthrough session with me.  A breakthrough session is designed to provide you with clarity, confidence and effective tools to move beyond the challenges you are facing (in your health or life) and a simple action plan to follow so you can start creating a life you love.

So tell me, did this post resonate for you? Do you feel emotionally blocked and imbalanced, like you lost yourself and can’t seem to have fun anymore? Is there one of the above suggestions you want to try out soon? Let me know in the comments below.