Follow your bliss . . .

BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden hands?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that 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. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open 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.

Oh, to follow your BLISS . . . follow your BLISS . . . listen to your divine inner guidance and follow . . . your . . . B L I S S. Even just saying the words sparks a little joy within doesn't it? Say it out loud and see how it makes you feel. "FOLLOW YOUR BLISS"

I'm sure I had heard these famous words before but the one time I read them and truly felt them touch my core was when I was reading Anderson Cooper's book, Dispatches from the Edge. He writes about one of the most important things his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, ever told him, and that was "follow your bliss." I remember reading these words and thinking, "Wow!! What a fucking phenomenal thing to tell your child. 'Follow your bliss.'" This was at the very start of my search for my own personal bliss so I hadn't even heard of Joseph Campbell and his outstanding work.

Since then I've read, heard, and felt these words many, many times. They are the driving force behind my art and my life. They encapsulate the ultimate secret to a joyful life! Once we start to follow our own beautiful, precious, stunningly clear and simple BLISS, then it's all downstream from there. Downstream and fast without oars. Life becomes the incredible adventure it is supposed to be.

Like Mr. Campbell says above, once we start to follow our bliss, we are then connected with that path that has always been there. I'm a strong believer in how we come into this amazing world full of the knowledge that we need to flourish and shine throughout our physical experience. That's our BLISS right there. Along the way, the majority of us get distracted and subsequently thrown off course and following our Bliss doesn't even enter our minds. But, what we are born with, that brilliant inner light that I've been writing about this past week, that light is always there. No matter what we go through or all the things that have made that light get so dim it's almost gone out, no matter what, that light is still there because it is divinely connected to our Source. Call it God, Universal Energy, the Universe, Divine Light or BLISS . . . no matter what you call it, this connection is never broken. Our job then is to get with it and start to follow this bliss by letting this inner light guide us there.

The big question for me at one point was HOW?!! How do I follow my bliss? Shit! At one point I wasn't even sure what my bliss was let alone how to follow it. How could I follow something I couldn't identify? I mean, I had a few things I knew I loved doing and wanted to do, mainly my music and some acting, but it just seemed as if I wasn't motivated enough to follow them with passion. So, there came a point when I basically started asking for the answer. What was my bliss? What was I meant to do? I wrote a little bit about this here: Inspired Action (I) & Inspired Action (II) And this is how I finally came to following my bliss. I came to understand what would make me so incredibly happy and filled with joy. Once I started on that path to connecting with my inner light, slowly and carefully raising that dimmer switch on it, then it became easier and easier to see the path that would allow me to follow my own personal bliss.

I'm still on that journey. Some days I make it easier on myself than on others. But, the majority of the time, if I focus my attention on all the good in my life and on the things that make me happy, then I know I'm still following bliss. I hope to continue on the path and write about it along the way. I invite all of you to start your own journey and really tapping into your very own special inner light. Allow it to then illuminate your way towards bliss. It can be a little scary at first, but the more you trust, the easier it gets. I promise. FOLLOW.

Peace and Light to you and KEEP DREAMING!

Gene-Manuel