“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
― Joseph Campbell
Are you afraid of following your bliss? A lot of people are. People are afraid of doing what they love, of being happy. They are afraid if they come across as too happy or full of too much joy that people will dislike them, or they will be thought of as selfish. I’ve got news for you. You can’t fully give your gift to the world until you are following your bliss.
It is a trap of society that makes us feel like we just have to get through to the weekend, or that we have to be with partners we don’t fit with any more, or that we can’t move to a new country, or that we must stay in the job we hate. If you aren’t happy, if you’re not following your bliss, then you aren’t giving your true self to the world. When you aren’t giving your true self to the world, everyone suffers.
There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss.-Joseph Campbell
If you aren’t feeling happy about your job, you aren’t going to be giving your best you to that job. The thing is many people sleepwalk through their lives and don’t even stop to realize they aren’t really happy. I knew someone who worked so hard and had such a hectic travel schedule with their job that they actually had to be hospitalized because of stress. Still this person proclaimed that they loved their work. This was while their drawers and cabinets were full of bottles of Xanax that they took each day just to get through it.
Today, we medicate ourselves with drugs, alcohol, the internet, TV, and many other things, so we don’t have to feel our own unhappiness. I invite you to take an honest look at your life and to ask yourself if you are really present.
And, no, following your bliss doesn’t mean you will feel blissful 100% of the time. It takes hard work to make your dreams come true. Relationships aren’t always easy, and working out the challenges won’t always feel blissful. But, if we know we’ve reached the end, we do ourselves and the other person a favor by letting them go, rather than stringing them along when we could be keeping them (and ourselves) away from a person that is a better match. If our heart is no longer in the job we are doing, we start working on doing something that we can fully put our hearts in. Trust me, your coworkers will appreciate that!
When you choose to live a life of following your bliss, you become immediately aware when things in your life aren’t working the way you want them to. And, you begin the work of creating the life you want to be living. You become present in your life instead of numbing yourself and trying to escape from it.
The Consequences Of Following Your Bliss
“It is my opinion that enjoying yourself in the present and loosening your definition of time slows the aging process.”
― Frederick Dodson, Parallel Universe of Self
When you start radiating bliss, something incredible will start happening. Bliss is a frequency. Our bodies actually respond to bliss on a cellular level. Have you noticed that certain elderly people look nothing like their age? Have you noticed that these certain people are also living a blissful life? They have chosen to be happy, and it shows up in the cells of their body! Have you noticed the extra energy that you have when you are following your bliss? It seems like you don’t get tired or even hungry. You don’t want to stop what you are doing! This is our body responding at a chemical level to bliss.
You also start feeling fully the true pleasures of things because you aren’t using pleasures to medicate yourself. There is a difference between the feeling of tasting a glass of wine and truly tasting it with pleasure and merely drinking it to get the buzz that takes you away from reality. There is a difference in having a sexual experience with someone in which you are truly present and one in which you are just using as a means of escape.
“There is no need for us all to be alike and think the same way, neither do we need a common enemy to force us to come together and reach out to each other. If we allow ourselves and everyone else the freedom to fully individuate as spiritual beings in human form, there will be no need for us to be forced by worldly circumstances to take hands and stand together. Our souls will automatically want to flock together, like moths to the flame of our shared Divinity, yet each with wings covered in the glimmering colors and unique patterns of our individual human expression.”
― Anthon St. Maarten
You are also going to attract people and circumstances into your life at the level you are at. Life will seem to flow effortlessly, and give you exactly what you need. You will be more in touch with yourself, so that you will hear the messages of your soul more clearly. You are going to love and accept yourself more easily, and as a result, will start to accept and love others more easily, too.
Bliss is the pathway to love. When we allow bliss to flow through our bodies, we will want give freedom to others to be exactly who they are. This will be easy because we are giving ourselves the freedom to be who we are. We won’t stop at allowing. We will actually support others and help them to follow the calling of their souls. This is the greatest love we can give. We won’t need to control them. We will realize that we were the selfish ones for expecting them to show up a certain way.
Following your bliss gives your life meaning, belonging, and a sense of purpose. So, tune into your deepest dreams and desires. They are there for a reason. Stop treating them as mere fantasies. That is your soul calling. How are you going to answer?
Do you want to follow your bliss?
Do you want help getting started?
I can help!
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