Follow your bliss

Just found a box of candles I had ordered from zena moon and the one scented with strawberry says, Follow your Bliss.

I love that quote from Joseph Campbell, and the meaning behind it - do what you love and the money will follow.  It means taking risks, or feeling your way out of the comfort zone, often, stretching yourself into a new space, using your imagination.

But think how your life would be without it? Once I got some help in visualizing this from a counsellor. She had me imagine myself leading retreats, the faces on the women after finishing a restful creative retreat, the thanks they gave me, the way I felt. Then she had me imagine down the road a ways, perhaps a book tour, or a publicity tour of some kind, opening up the country, then the continent, perhaps the world to my retreats.

At the end of five minutes of visualization, I felt energized, alive, happy, fulfilled.

Then she had me imagine the opposite: if I stayed where I was, doing what I was, hiding my light, not sharing it with the world, cooped up in my little room, in a funk of mild depression.  What did it feel like in my body? my shoulders sagged, and my head drooped. Five years down the road, I was more anxious, withdrawn, depressed, and my health was deteriorating.  I had no energy, no vitality.  I surprised myself in seeing my mother's body in this future.  That's how she looks now.  A person who so gave herself to what was expected of her, that she lost herself somewhere along the way. I could see myself ending up bitter, tired, unwell, battling fatigue and depression.

Back to that candle - the sticker's on zena moon candles always have great quotes. This one says,

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it., Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  Friedrich Nietzche.

Wow! I want to feel alive, that's what I want.

happy May, spring of all possibilities

musemother