“You don’t become blissful by simply knowing about bliss, but rather you become permeated through and through with an ineffable quality that energizes, inspires, guides and connects you to the larger whole.”
bliss defined
Bliss is usually defined as an emotional state characterized by perfect happiness, or at the very least by contentment, positive feelings, joy and pleasure.
My own definition is pretty straightforward and practical: it’s simply doing more of what makes you happy and less of what doesn’t.
However, what makes you truly happy can be a rather thorny affair. Odd, isn’t it? You’d think that would be the easy part. Unfortunately, the intricate and often mystifying dynamics of body, mind and spirit, all mixed up with cultural beliefs and rules, family dynamics, social pressure and our own limiting beliefs of “shoulda, coulda, woulda”, create quite a distance between what you think will bring happiness and what you end up with.
cutting through the complications
So, how do you cut through all these complications and get to the heart and soul of personal happiness? Well, most of time we do nothing and hope for the best. Hoping that something, someone, somehow, someday will come along and change everything. This is probably not the best use of a human life.
the benefits of obstacles
For me, personally, I was blessed with panic “disorder”. My only choice was work with this or let it take me down. I had a deep sense that the progressive frequency of the panic attacks was throwing my body into a physiological danger zone. The constant flooding of stress hormones probably wasn’t a good thing. My mental well being was also at risk. I felt like I was losing my mind several times a day. It was all exhausting, frightening and seemingly out of control.
One of the things that counteracted this fear, trembling and dread was paying attention to brief moments when things were OK. I learned to lean into simple moments of joy. I figured out how to expand these sensations through the body and make them my own. I started doing gratitude practices through out the day, just noticing how amazing it is to be alive, to breathe, walk, talk, enjoy food and company… things like that.
It started slow. It didn’t seem to be making much of a difference. But now I am so permeated with this practice, it’s just part of the way I of think, interact and live my life. Such a small thing, such a big difference.
practice
This simple practice is about pay attention to the ordinary. This could be anything: the way the sunlight warms you in just the right way, a thankfully cool breeze on a hot day, the flavor and warmth of your morning coffee, the precious smile on your child’s face… you get the picture.
Then, stay with whatever joyful moment shows up for a few seconds longer. Imagine the sensation filling your body. You can give it a color or texture if you like. Play with it. Experiment. Pay attention to the changing feelings and sensations. Watch it dissipate and notice if you chase after it trying to make it permanent.
It just takes a few extra seconds, but the cumulative effect is nothing short of transformational.
questions:
Where do the small moments of joy in your life show up?
Can you stay present with whatever brings joy without telling yourself a story about it?
Can you let joy fill your body, heart and spirit; again, without making a big deal out of it?
Can you expand this joy… making it bigger, more intense, brighter?
Do you notice that as you engage in this practice, it simply occurs to you to engage more often?
Make a list of all the moments from the last week that were joyful, fun, connected or magical? How many of these moments did you cultivate on the spot? How many just passed you by?
Imagine how different life would be if you spent more time cultivating happiness… really, just imagine.
“The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy — not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This is what is called following your bliss.” Joseph Campbell
We all want to feel passion coursing through our veins. And sometimes it does. But as an internal feeling, it’s very confusing. It’s here, then it’s gone, leaving us feeling disappointed and even bewildered.
What’s happening? Where’s the disconnect?
the disconnect is not our fault
Well in a nutshell, the disconnect exists because we’ve built up all kinds of unrealistic expectations about what passion should feel like, think like, last like and be like.
It’s not our fault. As with the “happiness myth”, we were set up… set up to expect lasting greatness, fireworks, magical transformation and a ticket to easy street. But ask yourself; “has this ever happened”?
feelings come and go
Truth is, feelings of passion come and go. They are not sustainable over the long term. Like all feelings, they are transient, moving, flowing, fleeting and changing. If you want them to be different than they are, you are the one who suffers.
So our only recourse here is to change our attitude. How do we do this? We cultivate the “aspiration” to be present with whatever shows up and then we work with it. (This doesn’t mean we can actually do this… but we can aspire.)
So, when passion shows up, we watch it arise, question it, expand it, play with it, watch it as it changes and then let it go when it naturally dissipates.
And then after it goes, we watch how our minds deal with all this. Are we chasing after the feeling, beating ourselves up for not being passionate enough, sinking into a negative mind-set, giving up? This too, is all part of the experience. In fact, it’s a very important part. It’s the part that shows us where we’re stuck.
being stuck has it’s benefits
Being stuck has its benefits. It presents the opportunity to clearly see how we create our own misery. It has a feel about it. It usually feels bad, uncomfortable, and yucky. Funny, but in a weird way, this seems to be the feeling we fixate on, enhance, practice and perpetuate.
But what if it were the other way around? What if we enhanced, practiced and perpetuated passion, joy and bliss? After all, we have the strategy down pat. Why not simply apply it to something that benefits us?
we want our good feelings to last longer
Part of the reason we don’t do this is that we really want feelings to last. They don’t. But somehow it seems much easier to get the bad feelings to last longer. In fact, we’re masters at this process. Perhaps because negative feelings have more energy, or are evolutionarily expedient, or are unconsciously internalized from early childhood. Or maybe it’s the deeply embedded hope that we too will be permanent, if our experiences are. All this ties into our unconscious fear about death. But that’s a another post.
Getting back to the point: if we’re so good at making matters worse, how can we use some of the same strategies to make things better? Even though feelings are fleeting, is there a something we can do to foster a more stable sensation of passion? Yes we can. It’s almost too simple.
when passion shows up, just feel it
When passion shows up, just feel it. Focus in, stay with it, sit next to it, give it a hug. Observe what it feels like in the body and notice the thoughts and images around the feeling. Breath it in and see if you can play with it as it expands on the inhale. Can you move it around the body or even outside the body? Can you drop the thoughts and just feel it? Can you use it as a vehicle of compassion, wishing that everyone, without exception, could feel this?
And finally, can you let it go when it naturally dissolves?
it’s about natural stabilization
Yes, letting go is paradoxically part of the stabilization process. Our willingness to allow experience to melt away can be freeing, liberating and healing. When you think about it, how could this not add to passion?
So, when passion shows up; lean into it, savor it, play with it, then let it go. As you do this, you’ll gradually notice the beneficial results and it will simply occur to you to keep doing this. In the end, it will become a habit; your brain will be rewired, your attitude will be adjusted and bliss will abound.
practice:
Make an aspiration to notice. lean into, savor and expand passion whenever it shows up. Further aspire to let it go when it naturally dissolves without chasing after it.
Physically write down this aspiration and place it by your bedside. You can use a post-it, create a vision board or paint it on the wall. Make it simple. One sentence simple.
Read the aspiration every morning for a month. Let your words be heartfelt, let them sink way down to the bone.
Check in at night and review how you did. Don’t criticize, judge or compare. Just review and fortify your commitment to continue.