The greatest quest you can go on is to find and follow your bliss, for when you do so you will set your innermost self free, live your life to its highest potential and inspire others.

But what does “following your bliss” actually mean?

What does it look like?

How does it feel to follow your bliss?

Your bliss is the pure expression of you. It’s your essence in action. It’s what lights you up so much you forget time and space. Following your bliss is an experience of total immersion, a loss of ego, an absence of a sense of separateness.

For reader, substitute dancer, business entrepreneur, violinist, teacher, doctor, aid worker, and a thousand other variations.

In the phrase “follow your bliss” lies the core idea that each one of us has a particular skill or gift that is totally in harmony with us, that feels so natural to us that there is no room for analysis or self-doubt.

Your bliss is an extension of who you are at the deepest level. The dancer becomes the dance, the teacher is lit up and consumed by her work, the aid worker finds endless energy to help others.

What Stops us Following Our Bliss?

Your bliss is already within you but if this is so why do so many people feel unfulfilled, lost or empty? Why do only a few people in life follow their bliss? It seems that so many of us live day by day getting by, surviving, paying the bills. We’re existing but not lit up. Another day, another dollar.

Research shows that the majority of people don’t like their jobs and yet how many of us strike out on that ultimate quest to find and follow our bliss, to find our true self and live a shining life? How many of us have dreams when we’re young only to see them fade away into middle age or sooner? How many of us settle for the ordinary when the extraordinary is waiting for us?

Following your bliss can be challenging. It doesn’t mean that you are insanely happy all the time. Quite the contrary, many obstacles and challenges are likely to arise. These can be seen either as a warning to turn back, to stop following your bliss, or by contrary as tests to strengthen your resolve.

Following your bliss will separate you from the crowd, lead you down your own path. It means sometimes not going to a pub or party but staying home to write or build or plan or research. We are social creatures and we fear rejection from our community, our friends and family. To follow your bliss requires determination and focus.

To follow your bliss is also to reject a the message that permeates society that life is risky, that danger awaits us at every turn and that we should live lives that minimise risk rather than maximise courage, adventure and vision. Contract! contract!

Furthermore, our educational system trains our conceptual left hemisphere, our rational brain, whilst largely ignoring the creative right brain. Yet it is in this rich, creative part of us that the path to our inner self and our individual bliss lies.
Connect! connect!

How to Find Your Bliss

You may already know what your bliss is even if you have not yet followed it. Many, however, are disconnected and have little or no idea what form their bliss wants to take or even that they have a bliss. So here some clues to help you.

1. Often what you loved to do in early childhood is a strong indicator of your bliss.

• Did you love to sing or build things?
• Were you consumed by a fascination with the stars or played countless games making homes?
• Did you so love to look after animals or paint and draw?

In early childhood we have not yet developed a self-limiting voice, echoed in the cautious disapproval of our parents or teachers, a voice that says “no” or “you’re not good enough”. We can express ourselves naturally and without inhibition. What you naturally loved to do as a child may be your bliss as an adult.

2. Ask yourself this one question: if you had all the time and money in the world what would you do with your life?

Many people put off following their bliss on the pretext that they don’t have the money or the time to pursue it. This is rarely an authentic answer. But let’s say these things, time and money, aren’t a problem. What could you do with your life?

3. If you can’t think of anything that you would dearly love to do under these new conditions, wait, be still, meditate on the question and see what ideas and images come to you.

Explore these possibilities, see how they feel. Does one thing stand out above all? Make a choice and take some action, read, take some classes or courses, find a mentor. When your new form of self-expression fits like a glove and you begin to light up then you have found your bliss. Just don’t stop here. Keep going! keep going!

Another interesting strategy is this: let the Universe show you what your bliss is! Often we – that is our conscious self – cannot see very far and wide. Our thinking mind has a very limited field of perception. Frustration and confusion can cloud our vision and understanding. So why not surrender to your confusion and throw open the windows and see what comes in?

Often the Quantum Universe – Life – will bring something to us that we need because at some level we have sent out a request for help. A proactive approach that utilises the subtle yet powerful relationship between Self and Universe, inner and outer, is to go on a Hero’s Journey. Consciously set off an adventure to find your bliss. What shows up? Does it feel like a fit, feel like you? Keep going.

You will find it, you will find your bliss.