The Vital Spark

Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire

By: Lisa Marchiano LCSW

Narrated by: Lisa Marchiano LCSW

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

A renowned Jungian analyst shares a call to action for women who dream of reuniting with their brilliant, creative, and fiercely independent nature.

Within every woman lies a powerful force: a vibrant, sizzling spirit that lives life to the fullest. For so many of us, the burdens of responsibility, caretaking, and social expectations cause us to bury this essential part of ourselves under six feet of niceness. Yet as Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano says, “Our inner flame of embodied wisdom, sharp-witted cunning, burning passion, and empowered confidence is never truly extinguished.” With The Vital Spark, she invites us on an immersive journey to reclaim the split-off parts of ourselves that enliven and rejuvenate us—and allow us to become who we were meant to be.

Combining personal stories, intercultural mythology, and guidance for inner exploration, Marchiano shares invaluable resources for breaking free from the conditioning that has kept us confined to rigid roles and muffled the sound of our souls. Here she invites us to explore eight core aspects of ourselves: shrewdness, disagreeableness, desire, trickiness, sexuality, anger, authority, and ruthlessness. Each chapter reinforces the truth of our relentlessly human narrative in the truest sense—allowing us to retrieve our “outlaw” energies, our discarded talents, and the deepest parts of our authentic selves. 

“When we try to domesticate our wild, assertive, and liberated spirit,” says Marchiano, “she flies away to some shadowy part of our soul, where she waits for us to find her again. Though she can be a bit savage and uncivilized, she is also the very best of us—and what we need to become whole.” The Vital Spark is a guide to recovering our courageous inner spirit so we can access her wisdom, her fire, and her burning aliveness.

©2024 Lisa Marchiano, LCSW (P)2024 Sounds True

Critic reviews

“The Vital Spark is the badassery bible whose time has come. It is essential medicine for what ails a woman’s soul. Jungian therapist Lisa Marchiano has offered up a treasure trove of insights and practical guidance for women on how to access their inner passion for life—but even more remarkably, on how to embody it with confidence in the world.”—Sil Reynolds, RN, coauthor of Mothering and Daughtering

“With brilliant, fresh readings of fairy tales and other familiar stories, Marchiano guides us through how we lost our inner fire and how to get it back. The Vital Spark inspires me to become strong, wild, and whole: the kind of woman I admire. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know. I loved this book; I needed this book; I’ll be returning to these pages over and over again. Marchiano’s work is essential.”—Anna Hogeland, psychotherapist and author of The Long Answer

“Using myths, fairy tales, and clinical anecdotes, Lisa Marchiano describes how many traits that are essential for women to thrive get banished into the unconscious shadow. As a result, the vital spark that connects us to our aliveness, power, and authenticity is snuffed out. She takes the reader’s hand and gently guides us through timeless tales to refind our essential selves.”—Connie Zweig, PhD, author of The Inner Work of Age, coauthor of Romancing the Shadow

Extremely helpful for my mid-life journey

Compassionately written, this book emphasis the importance of growing into our "outlaw" qualities that help keep us alive and help change our fates. I didn't think I would enjoy the fairytales, but they are very well selected and explained from a psychological perspective. I enjoyed every chapter.
I got this as an audio book, and plan to buy hard copies for a few of my friends. Essential book for all women, but particularly those nearing 40.

Coming home isn’t easy

Lisa threads fairy tales, lives experiences, poetry and Jungian wisdom into a perfect book for any wo-man who is ready to live more fully from their essence! Beyond all the labels of identity and pain, this book offers so much wisdom and inquiry for each person’s soul.

Transformative Tool of Empowerment

I loved the contemporariness Lisa brings into her wtiting. Her brilliant analysis of 'Howl's Moving Castle' was so refreshing and contemporary. Her voice is pure honey, I am an avid fan of her podcast 'This Jungian Life', this was a double treat.

Insightful and thought provoking!

I loved Lisa’s insightful interpretations of fairy tales paired with examples for her practice as a Jungian Analyst. I’m looking forward to digging in via the thought provoking questions for consideration at the end of each chapter. Every woman entering midlife should read this book!

Learning to recognize my feminine shadow - and fueling my spark

While I don’t agree with all aspects of the author’s assessment of women’s innate tendencies, I find great resonants in the areas she has identified as the feminine shadow. I very much appreciated the stories shared and metaphorical analysis that accompanied each. I am so grateful for this book, for the life and likeness it has shown me and for what it has awakened in me.

My background for context of my post: I am a cisgendered, female-identifying person. My belief is that each of us has a mixture of both masculine and feminine energies, but it is not clear to me that these energies are as tied to our biological gender as is our current understanding.

Touched me to the Core

I loved this book, so much so that I have already given it to five other people and started a family book group to talk about it. I really enjoyed the weaving of fairy tales, mythology, analysand cases, and the author’s own journey as companions to thinking about these qualities she enumerates as important to claim or reclaim.

Step Into Your True Power

A compassionate and revelatory exploration of female conditioning, how to become aware of it, and how to step out of it into true freedom. Insightful and life-changing.

Fresh assertive take on the power within

I loved Lisa’s narrative on the lost power within, her skilful storytelling through archetypal fairytales and myths, giving it extra credibility and depth. Thought provoking and inspiring, evoking a sense of agency and courage to stoke the fires that may alter the shape of things around irrevocably, freeing us to boldly pursue out true destinies.