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[OptimalPerformance] Following Your Bliss
Optimal Performance
Newsletter Published by Christine McDougall International
Coaching Optimal Performance in Business, Leadership, Sport and Life.
Editor. Christine McDougall
Email. CmcDougall@usa.net
Web site: www.christinemcdougall.com
P.O. Box 950
Surfers Paradise
Queensland, Australia, 4217
Tel. 61 7 55384948 Fax 61 7 55384272 SEND SOMETHING TO SHARE TO: CmcDougall@usa.net
If we use it in a future edition, you'll receive full credit. May, 1998 In this issue; We will be looking at "Following your Bliss." What does it mean to follow your bliss, how do you know that it is your bliss, what will the journey be like, and why would you want to undertake this journey? News:
* The Coaching Clinic is scheduled for May 23-24 on the Gold Coast, Australia. If you would like to discover coaching as a powerful and impactful model of management, mentoring and leadership, learn the skills and tools of coaching so that you can perform like a seasoned coach almost immediately, and make major advances in your own professional and personal connection with others, then I invite you to participate in this Clinic. Cost is $395 AUS. Call 61 7 55384948 to register. * Becoming Irresistibily Attractive Teleclass begins on 28th April for one hour per week, for 10 weeks. You may pick the program up if you have missed the first class or two. This is possibly one of the first teleclasses conducted in Australia, bringing together people from all over Australia to study, in the comfort of their own homes, the operating system based on Attraction (in distinction to promotion/seduction.) Ultimately this class is about getting more of what you really want in life, what really matters to you, easier. In order to do that, we work on who we are in the world. Take a look at the life, career and the people that you have attracted to you. If they are not what you want, if you would like to attract better quality, more time, a life built around your values, higher standards, a reserve of money, more truth......join us on this class. Cost $150, includes workbook. Call or Email to register. Follow your Bliss
Joseph Campbell, master of mythology, said these words over and over. Follow Your Bliss.
What is our bliss? The dictionary defines bliss as supreme happiness, or delight. How many of you reading this can honestly say that you follow your bliss? And why not? Why is it that we so often choose a path that is far from our bliss?
Often it is because we don't know, or we have forgotten, just what our bliss is. It is so buried in all the shoulds, have to's, obligations, expectations.... doing things to please others.
Think back to your childhood. What gave you the most pleasure, the most joy in doing. Was it painting, dancing, longing to fly, building things, pulling things apart.....What did your dreams whisper to you, about the possibilities for the future?
Somewhere along the road from child to adult, many of us lost touch with our bliss. We were told "you will never make money from that.", or "what a silly idea", or "Dad always wanted me to be a .....so I am."
How did you get to where you are at now? Who were you in the choosing?
Look around at your life and see how much of it is by your choice, and how much of it is because it is the way they said you do it. Get a job, buy a house, get a mortgage, do the right thing..... And where is your spirit. Do you even know your spirit, who as a child used to sing so loud and clear in your heart?
Step One
If you're not following your bliss, and you would like to, then the first step is to start putting into your life the things that you love to do, the things that nourish you, that make your soul sing. Take painting lessons, singing lessons, go ride your surfboard, fly a plane, race a car. Begin to give yourself permission to do the things you love. If you think that you don't have the time, think again. Who said you don't have time? Or ask yourself, "Why don't I have the time to do what matters most?" "Where do I come in my life?" (most people put themselves last.)
Step Two
As you give yourself permission to do the things that matter most, the universe/ God/ Great Spirit, recognising that you are finally being more truthful to your authentic self, will conspire to keep you moving in that direction. Miracles will happen, people will notice, opportunities will arise.
Take them, with one simple rule to remember, "Am I following my bliss?" What happens next.
Because we follow our bliss, it does not mean that life will become eternally joyous and happy. It does not mean that we will reach paradise on earth. That is the illusion. Life will still happen, people will die, be born, go hungry, suffer. You will also suffer, experience loss, and pain. Following your bliss does not mean choosing the easier road. Often times it is the harder road, and the lessons can be more painful.
So what is the point?
The point is what is true for you, what is authentically your unique expression, needs to be expressed. The world is dying because people are afraid of standing in their own authenticity. Of standing up and proclaiming, "This is my gift, which I have to offer. This is my bliss, and I will gladly give it, because it expresses the very best of who I am. And if I am to share myself with the world, then I choose to share the best of me, and nothing less." You will show up in life, not some manufactured image of what "you" should look and be like. What happens if we don't follow our bliss?
Go stand out on a busy street and watch the people go by. How many of them are following their bliss? How many of them are expressing their unique talents and gifts? Feel that ache in your chest, the hunger in your belly, the pain in your joints. This is a body that has been whipped into servitude, broken and defeated, by rules and expectations, shoulds and have to's. So broken that even the question "what is my bliss" arouses panic and fear. Do you wish to live out your life with this ache in your heart, this emptiness and pain?
Or would you prefer to embrace life and live it on your terms, live in the joy of that, knowing that even when the world seems to turn upside down, your lover leaves you, your house burns down, your child dies, that you still have purpose, an unfinished task. You still have your bliss to share with the world. And in the doing, you will leave the world a better place. Sometimes, along the way, we get distracted. Something shows up that tempts us to leave the path of bliss. Don't worry, the universe will send you warnings, gentle ones at first, that soft whisper in your ear "don't do it." Often times, we don't hear the whisper, so the messages get louder. We loose some money, we stub our toe, we catch a cold. Still if we don't hear, the messages get louder. We get sick, we break a leg, we get fired. Finally, if we refuse to hear, we end up on or knees, at rock bottom, nowhere else to go but up. It is the most wondrous thing, when you see the workings of the universe from these eyes. "Ah!", you say, "that is why I got fired, it was because I wasn't paying attention. The universe has something better for me to do."
We are so afraid that following our bliss will not pay for our needs, like food and water and a roof over our heads. When it all comes down to the final word, what is more important to you, that you have food and clothing and a nice car, and a job/life that has no meaning to you, or, that you have a simple life with the basics for survival, and you get to do exactly what makes your heart sing, every day?
All the great poets have written of this simple principle of life through all of the ages, in words far more eloquent than mine.
What I am most passionate about in my life, is coaching people to uncover their bliss, and to build their life around that. That is what gives me the greatest joy, to see the joy in others. Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, in his latest book, The Fifth Mountain, will provide more insight into the journey of following your bliss. It is a great read. I will leave you with the words of some of the great poets. "We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."---e.e.cummings "Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distatse, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feed but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison into the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night."
Kahlil Gibran From Demian by Herman Hesse
"Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself....His
task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out
wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would be
existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the
masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness." Follow your bliss,
blessings,
Christine (This newsletter is free and may be shared freely with friends and
colleagues, provided that you share it in its entirety. If you would like to receive this newsletter send an Email or call me, or go to my web site and the autoresponder will automatically put you on the mailing list.)
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