Follow Your Bliss
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We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
~ Joesph Campbell
American mythologist, writer, and lecturer, Joseph Campbell, studied universal themes and patterns in world mythology and religion. In this work he discovered a “monomyth”, or pattern, hidden in every story ever told from ancient to modern times; a story within all the other stories.
He called it, "The Hero's Journey".
The movie Finding Joe is a beautiful tribute to Campbell’s work, and “takes viewers on the ultimate hero's journey: the journey of self-discovery.”
Joseph Campbell popularized the term, Follow Your Bliss as a guidepost to finding one’s most authentic path in life. Philosopher and entrepreneur, Brian Johnson believes following your bliss means having the courage to look within yourself and ask the questions:
What am I here to do?
What am I most passionate about in life?
What are my greatest gifts?
And, how do I give these to the world?
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It's listening to your heart, trusting yourself, and following the deep desire within to do what makes you feel most alive. Rashida Jones echoes, "you can’t follow your wallet; you must follow the thing that's presenting itself as your most serene and fulfilling state."
That's the path.
That's the essence of The Hero’s Journey.
Deepak Chopra cautions, however, that following your bliss doesn't mean hedonism, escapism or selfishly following sensory pleasures.
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After decades of running and self-medicating my mental health struggles with alcohol and drugs, (now 11 years sober) I’m finally following my bliss. Paramount to this process is stepping out and sharing my story about an unbelievably strange, but equally magical, spontaneous Kundalini awakening I had on January 5th, 2017.
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I’d never heard of Kundalini at the time, but linked is an excellent study from the US National Library of Medicine, published in 2021. A quick read of the abstract and/or introduction explains much of what I've been experiencing. It’s only now, over six years later, that I’m finally able to share about this esoteric, challenging, yet beautiful experience with complete candor.
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Am I scared of what others will think of my tell-all? Hell, yeah! But, as Terence McKenna said:
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Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.
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