Freedom Friday: Follow Your Bliss
“Follow your bliss.
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 you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn’t know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”–Joseph Campbell, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, 1988
Recognize your bliss. “Following your bliss” does not mean following some hedonistic lifestyle, although some people have misinterpreted it that way. Your bliss is actually your rapture: something which fills you with ecstatic joy, so that when you are doing that thing, it almost seems to transport you; you lose all sense of time or worry while participating in that thing. It can be something as simple as birdwatching, as deep as practicing your spiritual path, or as seemingly mundane as the occupation you’ve chosen. Find that thing for you–find your bliss.
Let your bliss guide you. Finding yourself suffering under the same stale routine, day after day? Is that starting to affect your health, and/or your relationships with the people you love? Follow your bliss. Let it guide you towards a new job, a new routine, a new way of life. Your bliss would be considered a hobby by other people, you say? There’s no money in that, you say? What about the countless people who write books about various hobby industries, the crafters who create things for people in specific hobbies, or the numerous small business that crop up to serve those who participate in specific hobbies (model train books, magazines, stores, crafters; birdwatching books, magazines, stores, crafters; comic book stores, you get the picture)? Your bliss is focused purely on the spiritual? There’s no money in that (or there shouldn’t be)? What about the countless authors who write books on spiritual topics, or the soul-proprietors out there running their own businesses in yoga, reiki, massage, Tarot, etc.? If you don’t think you have the proper skills or training to follow your bliss, it is never too late, so long as you’re still breathing, to gain those credentials. All that’s stopping you is you!
Let those doors open! Have enough faith, when one of those doors opens, to actually step through it! Again, all that’s stopping you is you. Believe and you will receive.
This is not hippified hooey. For the past three years, I have attempted to become successful as a writer and artist. For two of those, both my art and my writing stopped being blissful, and became “my day job”. I became a workaholic, and everyone around me hated it, including me. I was literally working my butt off, every minute of every day, attempting to produce art and written works, based on what I thought people wanted to buy. At the end of September, I decided to give in, and follow my bliss: what has always filled me with ecstatic joy, to the point that when I am doing that thing it transports me, has always been teaching spirituality. Since I made that switch, and started following my bliss, doors have steadily opened for me. I have met people and made contacts I otherwise likely never would’ve met or made, and my financial situation has gone from dismal to promising. Speaking from personal experience, this is not pleasant-sounding B.S., it is a method that actually works.
Go for it! The value of your life will not be measured by your level of financial success. There are no hearses with luggage racks! The value of your life is measured by the lives you have touched, and that includes your very own. Get out there; follow your bliss, and learn to live generously, instead of remaining chained to a grindstone, breaking your health, your relationships, and your faith.
