Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships podcast, the
podcast where we are not just unfucking your love life, but
unfucking your relationship to yourself and your entire life.
Around here. We raise your standards, we
break patterns, we upgrade yourself concept.
We are talking about boundaries, money, shadow work, your
relationship to your body, sex, all of it.
We are covering your entire life baby.
Think of this podcast as like Big Sister Energy where I am no
fluff, no bullshit, but I am also very open with my heart and
I'm going to share all of me with you and that will be able
to transform your entire life through you listening to this
podcast. So if you are ready to stop
settling for the bare minimum and actually be the woman that
you can wake up in the morning and be proud of, you are in the
right place. Let's get into today's episode.
Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the Unfuck Your
Relationships podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Panning,
and this is episode 230. And today I'm going to be
talking about how to get your spark back.
If 2025, if your year was anything like mine and like most
people's, it was a lot. It was a lot.
And this year, 2025 for me was starting to get my spark back.
Yeah. So for everyone, this was the
year of the snake. It is a year 9.
So in numerology, that is like the completion of a nine year
cycle. So as we head into 2026, that is
a year 1. So that is all about renewal,
rebirth, fresh energy. Thank fuck for that.
So 2025, if it felt like you were in a tumble dryer, you are
not alone. And that this was the space
where like I lost, I lost friendships, like I ended
friendships. I went through a breakup, I
started a new relationship. That was obviously not a
shedding. That was a good thing.
But shedding of old patterns, like so much has happened.
I've retired like a million offers in my business.
I'm retiring. The retreats like these are the
last ones that I'm ever running. So like just so much has been a
completion. And honestly, like the the first
half of this year was me learning how to get back my
spark. And then the second-half of the
year was like me actually enjoying the fruits of my labor.
And especially like I've told you guys, my word for the year
is discipline. And I'm so excited for that.
And I didn't wait till January 1st to start that.
Like I hired, I hired a coach, I hired a health coach.
I've been hitting my my macros and my calories consistently.
I have been going to the gym consistently.
I've been hitting my steps every single day.
So it's like I didn't wait for that to happen.
And this has given me already so much confidence and I'm feeling
so good about myself just because I'm doing it.
Not even for the like, losing weight or like, I, you know,
I've already lost centimeters off my waist and all the things.
And it's like, yeah, that's cool.
But that's a byproduct of the woman that I've become through
this process. And I'm literally only a few
weeks in. So let's get into how to get
your spark back. I'm going to take you through 5
tips on how to actually get your spark back this year.
So tip #1 is that your spark comes from your aliveness, not
the things that you think you should be doing.
So we can get very, very caught up in work, errands, Netflix,
sleep, work, errands, Netflix sleep, like just very caught up
in the monotonous day-to-day. This is what I should be doing.
Or I'm going to the gym because I should, or I'm doing this
because I should, or I'm dating this way because I think I have
to, or I'm communicating this way because I have to.
When if you want your spark back, it comes from your erotic
current and that comes from your aliveness.
And that doesn't mean sexual turn on, although it could
absolutely look like that. It is about following the
impulses of what feels good and this is where most people go
wrong, particularly when they get into relationships.
And I've said this before, people lose themselves in
relationships all the fucking time because they forget that
they are an individual in a relationship.
So I've said this before where I'm like, act single in a
relationship. I don't mean go fuck other
people and don't honor the boundaries and limitations of
your relationship. What I mean is, where's the
woman who took herself on solo dates?
Where's the woman who still had hobbies?
Where's the woman who saw her friends or just read for
pleasure or, you know, did these things that just gave her joy?
People get into relationships and then they completely become
consumed by the relationship and they lose themselves entirely
and then wonder why they're miserable because they've fallen
into codependency and they're like, Oh my fucking God.
So follow what feels good and experiment.
You know, one of the greatest tools that I ever did and I
didn't even finish it. I kind of half assed it to be
honest, was The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.
It's a book, the 12 week kind of program, if you will, about
creative expression. And that when I did that
protocol, it was honestly the happiest time of my life.
I think I'm going to actually bring it back, particularly the
morning pages and I would take myself on solo dates every
single week. And honestly, like I've, I've
kind of dropped off on that a little bit actually since being
in a relationship. So that's one of the things that
I will absolutely be bringing back of like how to be single in
a relationship so that you never lose that aliveness and there
will be things that you want to try that your ego is going, Oh
no, that's cringe. No, don't do that.
That's too much. That's fucking weird.
You're going to be the only one there.
You don't know anyone who cares. Who cares if it's fucking
cringe. Do the things that bring you
joy. So for instance, for me, I was
like, I just feel so self absorbed.
Honestly. It's like my business, my
friends, my, my podcast, my, all the things were about me, me,
me, me, me. And so I applied to, to
volunteer at like a domestic violence charity essentially.
So that's something that I'm going to be doing.
So my application just got approved last night.
So that's really, really exciting.
So that I will be starting whenever they tell me.
So I'm like because that feels good for me to be in service and
in contribution and something that is outside of myself.
Yes, I'm in contribution here. I'm in contribution to my
business. But there's obviously like a
return on investment, like a direct ROI on that versus
volunteering somewhere like that just feels good.
Me going for ocean swims, that feels good.
Now I'm going to need to take a fucking course on ocean safety
because y'all, I don't I don't understand your girl grew up in
Toronto, well outside of Toronto in Canada.
I didn't grow up on a fucking ocean.
I don't understand RIP tides and the currents and all the things.
I literally went for a walk the other day with my bestie and we
were going to go for a swim but there were 1,000,000 blue bottle
jellyfish everywhere like on our walk.
Honestly there must have been 100 plus on the on the beach.
So this has nothing to do with anything, but it's the fact that
I'm like, OK, cool. I like ocean swims.
I want to get better at that. I really want to take singing
lessons. I love to just sing in the car.
I love to go for drives. I love to take myself to the
movies. I there's so many things that I
love to do. And that is where your aliveness
comes from. And I have always said the more
fun I have, the more money I make.
And I swear to God, it is fucking true.
So that is tip #1. Tip #2 is stop trying to
resurrect the old you. I hear this so much.
I miss who I was when I was 23 or this is in relationships.
I miss the honeymoon phase. And this is the truth that no
one wants to tell you because what you actually mean is I miss
the version of myself before I experienced heartbreak or
betrayal or perceived abandonment or rejection, or I
missed the version of myself before I tried and failed.
I missed the version of myself where before I let my
insecurities get the better of me.
That's actually what we miss. It's not a period of time in our
lives. You know, when we think about a
relationship, it's not, oh, I miss like the, the, you know,
the spark in the beginning. No, it's I miss who I allowed
myself to be. I allowed myself to be on.
I was excited, we were having fun.
We weren't complacent. And that's something that can
happen very, very, very easily. Like I've seen it a million
times in my clients relationships, in my own
relationships where it's very easy to become complacent.
And it's fucking hard when someone gives you that
reflection of like, you're being fucking complacent in your life.
And it's like, oh fuck, OK, cool.
I see that and I can recognize it and I'm going to do better.
But this thing of I want to be who I was before XYZ or I want
the old version of me back. This is what no one's going to
tell you. She's not fucking coming back.
It's not coming back. She's dead, but you can create
an equally incredible version. It's just different.
This is called evolution. So it's not about trying to be
who you were when you were 20304050 years old and you see
like older people, you know, in their 50s, sixties, 70s.
I say older because I'm 36, like grasping for youth grasping for,
and I don't mean even just like externally, although that can
obviously happen, but even just internally, like just trying to
like replicate the quote UN quote, the good old days.
And it's kind of sad, right? Because what is so magnetizing
about someone is someone who is present.
So stop trying to resurrect the old you and create a new version
of yourself that is even better. Tip #3 is stop leaking your life
force energy into men, partners, social media, your phone, other
people's opinions, everything outside of yourself.
It is very easy to become consumed by the external.
What is going on? What's he?
What does he think of me? Why hasn't he texted me back?
What does this person think of this post that I put out?
What about this, what about that?
What about that? Your energy is being pulled in a
million different directions. And what is so attractive about
someone is someone who is self-contained, someone who is
connected to themselves, someone who is connected to their body.
They value their own opinions. They're not getting sucked into
the lives of everybody else. They're self focused.
And I don't mean self absorbed, but they're actually like locked
in, focused, driven and can actually focus on on their
internal world as well. When people say that they've
lost their spark, they're saying I've lost connection to myself.
And I would argue that that's not necessarily true.
It's just that your energy is scattered as fuck.
And so it's bringing that energy back into center.
And that's, you know, I didn't know it at the time when I, when
I named the connected woman, the connected woman, I didn't know
really what that meant. I mean, obviously I know what it
meant, but I didn't know what it was going to mean in the grand
scheme of things in my world and my business.
Fun fact, the first round of the connected woman used to be
called the sultry Sister. I know, I know, this is proof.
Let yourself be cringe. Let yourself evolve.
Oh my God the fucking sultry sister lol.
Shout out if you were in that round, how fun.
But the connected woman, it's like I couldn't.
I could have never anticipated what those words were going to
mean because that is my entire brand ethos.
That is fully what I believe, that if you are not connected to
yourself, it doesn't matter if you have the hottest body or you
have the best or you you you have a relationship or you know
you have a business or you're making money, whatever.
If you're not connected to yourself, none of it is going to
bring you true fulfillment because what's the fucking
point? If you can't feel it, who cares?
So part of getting your spark back is pulling your energy back
to yourself and bringing it back home to your body where you can
feel and you're not absorbed in your phone, absorbed in what
he's doing. The amount of times I have to
tell clients, OK, I get it, he's done XYZ or she's done XYZ.
They're not in this container right now.
I'm not coaching them. I'm coaching you.
So we need to focus on you and what you can control.
Because no matter what you do, I could give you all the
communication tips in the entire fucking world and it wouldn't
make a lick of difference. If someone is not open to
change, not willing to change, not willing to come to the
table, right? I ended a friendship because I
was like I'm literally the only one fucking leaning in here and
for me that doesn't feel reciprocal so I'm not willing to
do that. But if I got so consumed in the
energy of what does she think and what is she doing and why?
Why is she doing this and why is she being avoided?
Don't get me wrong I had those thoughts but I had to
continuously pull myself back of like it actually doesn't matter
and I've communicated. And if that's not shifting, I
can only control what I can control.
So I'm going to pull my focus back to me.
I'm going to regulate myself and I'm going to make a choice
that's in alignment with what I value and what I need in a
relationship or a friendship. If you're the woman who has
consumed all of my podcast episodes and other podcasts and
you've read the self help books and you have done little master
classes and you've dabbled here and there, but you still keep
repeating the same patterns in your love life and in
friendships and in money and all of the things.
And you're like, fuck, why do I keep doing this?
I need to put you on to something that is the awakening
retreats. They're happening in January
2026, and they are the place where you get to actually
transcend this behavior and finally get to do something
different. So your first retreat is going
to be awakening her. And this is where you are
connecting to your feminine energy, your pleasure, your
devotion, your joy, your ecstasy, your rage, your grief,
all of these pieces. So you get to live in totality
of the woman that you are. And also where you're going to
have an opportunity to heal your relationship with women.
Because the more I work with women, the more I realize how
many women have felt betrayed by other women almost more than
they have felt betrayed by men. And you're really focusing on
healing your relationship to yourself, to your body, to your
sexuality, to your joy, to your confidence, to your
insecurities, all of the things. And then your second retreat is
awakening him. And this is where we're
anchoring into your masculine energy.
So your relationship to responsibility and integrity,
following through on the things that you say that you're going
to do, discipline, discernment, direction, all of these things,
and healing your relationship with men, as well as then
bringing this into a focus of how do you then bring this into
relationships? So everything that you learned
at awakening her and about expansion and emotional
expression and all of these things, how do you then hold
that containment and bring that into your romantic relationships
and your friendships? And that is really the focus of
awakening him. You can choose to do either or,
but I've designed them to go together as a pair and that is
what most women who have decided to do the retreats are have
chosen to do. I do want to say these are the
last retreats that I'm going to be running.
If you've been saying I'll go to the next one or when you come to
the States, I'll do it. I'm never running one of the
states. I can tell you that right now
and I'm not running more retreats in the future.
This is your time. Make a fucking holiday out of
it, come to Australia. Most of the women who have
signed up are coming from the US which is very cool.
DM me on Instagram if you have any questions, otherwise the
link will be at the description. I cannot wait to see you there.
Let's get back to the episode. Tip #4 is to stop isolating
yourself. This is one of my biggest
patterns is when I am stressed, overwhelmed, when I just feel
like there's too much going on, my tendency is to withdraw.
So I used to be very anxious where I would like, you know,
immediately need to pick up the phone and and talk to someone.
Oh my God, this thing has happened.
Oh my God, I'm so stressed in all the things.
And now it's kind of the opposite where I noticed a lot
this year, I would just isolate. I would just be by myself and
not want to connect with anyone. And there's still, obviously
there's still times where I'm like, OK, I need to actually
just be in my own energy and I need to be alone.
But that's very different from isolating yourself.
If you've lost your spark, ask yourself, am I meeting my need
for connection? And if you're like, I don't
really have, I don't really have a need for connection.
We all have a need for connection.
Every single person on the planet as human beings, we are
wired to need other human beings.
I know all you avoidance are going to be like, absolutely,
fuck that. I don't need another person.
I can just hear my strong independent women like burning
inside like I don't need anyone. But it's true, you actually do.
And we're wired for connection on a daily basis in that, though
we all have varying degrees of how much connection we need,
right? So someone might have like a 10
out of 10 need for connection and someone might have like a 7
out of 10 need for connection. So that's fine.
But watch the part of you that's like, no, I don't need that.
I don't need that at all. And if you have no, and I, I
work with so many clients on this.
If you have no friends and you have let you don't have a
partner, you don't have a support system, you're going to
feel pretty fucking depressed. So it's, and it's not about
having massive community. I'm not a big community person,
which is like, which is I feel like I get a lot of my need for
connection met through my business of like connecting with
the women inside the connected woman or the experience and
getting to chat to you guys on Instagram and and like you guys
message me about the podcast and stuff.
Like I get a lot of my need met for kind of community through
that. But in my day-to-day life, like
I have my, I have my partner, I have my close girlfriends,
That's it. I don't want 1000 friends.
Like that feels like a nightmare to me.
But we do need community. So if you've lost your spark,
ask yourself, am I getting out into the world?
Am I connecting with people? Am I having conversations?
A piece of homework that I gave one of my clients who was
struggling with this very thing, I was like, right.
She lives in New York City, which is like.
In in Manhattan, like just from from what I've seen, right, I've
only been to Manhattan once, but I was like 16 from what I've
seen on the movies in the movies, it's not the friendliest
of places, right? So I was like, cool, I want you
to compliment a stranger every single day for the next week.
Why? Because you're in contribution,
you're connecting with someone and you're giving.
It's going to make you feel good.
And of course she was like, Oh my God, Oh my God.
Oh my God. And at first it was like, fuck,
this is so hard. And like, this is, this is
really scary. And I'm like, I know.
And then it started to get easier and I was like, hey,
babe, like how are you feeling in general in your life?
And she was like, I feel so much better.
Like I've just been feeling like really good the past couple of
weeks. I'm like, interesting.
So if you want to get your spark back, stop fucking isolating
yourself. Put yourself out there, be in
community. And This is why I love spaces.
Like, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to plug my spaces
particularly like the connected woman.
And then the experience for sure, because you're in there
for a year, you develop these friendships, but you know, the
women are like some of a lot of the women from the connected
women and the experience are coming to the retreats and
they're like, Oh my God, I can't wait to see you, babe.
I can't believe we've been talking for like, you know, 8
months now and now we're going to get to actually finally meet
in person. And do you want to share an
Airbnb together for like the time in between the two two
retreats? And I've had clients who like
literally, you know, one will be in, I'm just making this up, but
like California and the other ones in Florida.
And they like fly to meet each other.
And I just think that's like the cutest thing ever.
So don't underestimate the power of online spaces because I don't
want to fucking hear it. If you're like, oh, but I live
in a space where like we don't really have those things.
Like go do things that interest you, you know, go do breath
work, go to a meditation class, go do pole dancing.
Go I'm, I'm this, there's this chick.
I don't even know if she listens to my podcast, but she's
messaged me on Instagram and she runs this like sexy and sensual
Pilates and yoga on Saturday mornings.
And just like every fucking Saturday I've been busy, but I'm
like, I, I want to go to these classes so bad because I'm like,
that is so fun to me. One, it's moving my body, it's
exercise. It's good for me.
Like I've talked about my back pain on here and my chiro was
like, you need to be doing like yoga and Pilates.
I'm like cool, but if I can make it sexy and I'm wearing like
little like bra and undies, like fucking hot.
Yes. And then I get to be with other
women who are embodying their feminine energy and their
sensuality as well. So it's like, get out of your
fucking house. And I am, trust me, like pot,
kettle, I'm the pot calling the kettle black because it's like
it is so easy for me to just stay home and like rot.
So I have to force myself to get out of the house as well.
So you're not alone in that. And also one more thing, Tiktok,
scrolling Tiktok is not connection.
That's consumption. And finally, tip #5 your spark
is hidden in the thing that you are avoiding.
Let that land. Your spark is hidden in the
thing that you are avoiding. What creates a lack of spark is
stagnation is stillness. It's like just, I just have this
image of like pond water that's just, you know, like sat there
for ages and there's bugs and mosquitoes and like algae and
fucking. It's just like dirty, scummy
pond water versus an ocean that is like full of aliveness and
there's a current and waves and like, you know, all of this like
a marine, like a wildlife and there's just so much aliveness
in there. So what creates aliveness, what
creates that erotic current, that erotic pulse that we were
speaking about is action is motion is friction.
People are allergic to fucking discomfort.
And I've been one of those people.
To be honest, one of my highest values is comfort.
Is why? Like, I don't know if anyone
follows lazy millionaire on Instagram, but I fucking love
her. And I'm like, damn, I wish I
coined that like lazy millionaire because that is me.
I can be so fucking lazy. I value comfort so much.
Like I if I can outsource it, I absolutely will.
Like I want to spend my life just in full pleasure.
But I also saw where I took it too far and I got into like a
lot of complacency and, and stagnation.
And so that energy of creating friction and moving through
discomfort like this fitness journey that I'm on, I'm like,
it's fucking hard. It is hard.
But every time I'm like, yes, I feel so good.
I feel so, so accomplished. I feel so proud of myself.
And there's a spark, there's an aliveness.
People can feel my magnetism in that.
So that's this doesn't have to be fitness for you.
This could be your spark is hidden in the boundary.
You're refusing to set the difficult conversation that you
are avoiding the business that you are not ready to pull the
pin on the investing into the connected woman or the
experience or the retreats. It's like, what's the thing that
you know that you need to do or the note, the thing that you
know you want to do, but you haven't pulled the pin on it
yet. When I this last round of the
Connected woman, everyone does an intro video and I was asking
what drew you to this program? And everyone was sharing, you
know, I've been listening to the podcast for a year, 2 years,
three years, four years. And I finally pulled the pin on
the Connected Woman and I was like, this is really curious.
I'm so interested in this. What took you so long?
Like not from a space of judgement, from a space of
curiosity. I was like, what was the gap
between you finding the podcast and then it taking you 3 years
to sign up? And you know, people were like,
oh, like I was just scared of who I was going to become on the
other side. I was scared of the investment.
I was scared that I wouldn't be able to do it.
All of these things and every single person was like, this is
the best thing I've ever done. I'm so glad I did this.
I can't believe I didn't do it sooner.
And the reason I share that is because we've all had moments
like that where the anticipation of doing The thing is so much
worse than the actual thing. And we do the thing and we're
like, Oh my God, why didn't I do that sooner?
That was literally like so much easier than I thought it would
be. And I feel so relieved now that
that's over. So the more that we can take
action and we don't sit in deliberation forever, the easier
it is going to be for you. And that is going to help you
get your spark back. Now, if you're listening to this
thinking, Oh my gosh, all of those, I do all of those things,
that is me. I feel like a shell of myself.
You guys know that trend. That's like people think I don't
know ball. Trust me, I know ball or
whatever it is and people show like they're like glow up.
If you're still in the I'm a shell of myself era, then you
are going to want to make space and time to come to the
awakening retreats. They're happening January 16th
to the 19th and the 23rd to the 26th. 2006, 2006, 2026, yes,
we're time traveling to the past.
So literally in a couple of weeks, you've still got time if
there's still spots left because this is the space where you stop
abandoning yourself. You find your fucking spark,
you're in community, you stop isolating yourself.
You take action on the things that you say that you want.
You connect to yourself and you're connected to your body.
You pull that focus back to yourself.
All of these things that I just said about how to get your spark
back, these are the spaces where we do it in real time.
So you don't need to take seven years of therapy for this to
happen. You get to do it in literally 2
weekends. So if you're feeling that
internal pull of like Oh my God, should I, shouldn't I, oh can I,
can I, can I afford to do this like it should?
Can I take time off? You know, but the kids all.
But This is Money to invest in myself.
Time to pull the trigger and take action.
The link will be in the description in the show notes.
You can DM me on Instagram if you have any questions and I
would love to support you. I will see you in the next
episode. I love you so much.
Have a fantastic week. Wow, bye.
All right my love. Thank you so much for listening
today's podcast episode. Take what resonates and leave
the rest. There is no obligation, but you
do have a responsibility to yourself to actually do the
work. So implement what you have
learned here. Let this episode be a reminder
that you are built for more. You are not built for the bare
minimum. You are not built for mediocre.
You are meant to live a big beautiful old life and if you
want to go deeper, come follow me over on Instagram at Michelle
Panning. The link will be in the
description. That is where I share all the
behind the scenes content and you will get to follow me and my
journey as I raise my standards alongside you.
So I love you, I believe in your next level and I will see you in
the next episode. Now go unbuck your life, babe.