“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
― Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell coined the term, “Follow your bliss.”
So what is bliss? Why is it so important to find your bliss?
The simple connection for finding bliss is to find true happiness. You get a deep satisfaction of knowing you found meaning and value in life. When you find your bliss, you get to live a strong and Ku life. You become that symbol of strength and your mana becomes contagious. You make strength contagious.
Now, Why is it so important to find your bliss? Because bliss is the pathway to happiness.
You bliss gives you a sense of purpose, belonging, and self-awareness. But just knowing your bliss isn’t enough.
For me, some of the activities that bring me bliss are training my body, writing, and being creative through design. You know you are in your bliss when time seems to not exist because you are so immersed an this activity that brings you bliss. But you have to take action.
First how do you find your bliss? Some people know right away, some of us have to spend time searching within ourselves.
It could be a dream that we had since childhood, a burning desire or calling. It’s something that may scare you, in my past interview with Ku Athlete, Kamaehu Naipo he said, “If you are looking at something that scares you, but you know it’ll be good for you – jump right in.”
That’s why it’s important to build a ku body because it gives us courage to follow our bliss. You need courage, because there is danger in knowing your bliss, and of knowing what truly makes you happy. But the real danger is not following your bliss.
Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
Finding your bliss is a journey and building a Ku body helps you along the way. It’s the journey, not the destination
What can help you find your bliss is to find your sacred place or what Hawaiians call - our wahi pana.
Joseph Campbell calls this the need for a “bliss station” - we see it as a need to create or reconnect with our wahi pana.
Campbell said, “[Sacred space] is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
Remember its about the journey. Its about building a ku body to live a ku life, but you can’t sit there thinking about things. you have to take action.
As James Allen wrote, “Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.”
If you are not happy with where you are today, then it is your kuleana to take action to find you bliss and be courageous enough to go for it.
Mahalo for listening in to Single Tasking on this Aloha Friday, where we focus on one thing and one thing only to end the week strong and kick the weekend off stronger.
I would love to hear what you thought about this episode and if it empowered to take a stand, to be ku and follow your bliss. You can reach out to me on twitter @thekuproject.
And if you enjoyed this episode and you believe it brought strength to you, then please share this with your friends and ohana and help make strength contagious.
Until next time, that’s pau ka papa, aloha, and a hui hou. Keep it Ku and make strength contagious.
