Where's my bliss? A spiritual journey.

Where's my bliss!?!?

I ask myself this question all of the time, but maybe a better question for me to start with is, "what is bliss?'  The dictionary describes it as "extreme happiness" or "ecstasy".  Wow! Extreme!  and Ecstasy!  How often do those two things occur in a persons life?  I mean aside from being an X games athlete or a raver?  Real ecstasy?  Not the tawdry form of excitement one gets from a roller coaster ride or a really good chili dog, but the kind you feel when you fall in love for the first time, when you bought your first car, saw the view from a mountain top you just concurred, a race you just won or seeing a new born for the first time?  It would seem that bliss is just something that happens as a blip on the radar of life, some people experiencing it more then others amidst the trudgery of every day activities like school, work, grocery shopping, paying bills, etc. etc.  Some would say. "thats just life, it's a struggle, it's work, we aren't suppose to be blissful all of the time!!"   But my question would be, why not?  Why can't we always be in a state of bliss?  Even in the rough spots?  Where we feel everything fully, happiness, sadness, grief, joy, but we feel it on the back drop of a low level of bliss, or excitement, or wonderment of what surprises are to come next?

Joseph Campbell used to teach his students, "follow your bliss!"  he said that it was the most important thing to do in this life.  But what is this?  And how do you find it?  How do we find our personal bliss let alone follow it?  This is what I plan on finding out, this is going to be my journey.   I came to the conclusion that with all of the distractions in life like television/movies, video games, advertisements along with a host of other shiny glitter, some of us lose that connection to true bliss.  It's almost like it's an atrophied  muscle that you have to work out at the gym, or a part of the brain you have to exercise with mental activities in order to get it back into focus.  You start slow, with baby steps, small excitements at first, whatever it takes to get your bliss pumping again!  This maybe be as simple as a roller coaster ride, or a road trip, or even just reading that book you've always wanted to make time to read but always made excuses, each human is different and unique along with their own personal bliss.  I suppose that would also be a very important element in all this, "the excuses", I must pay attention to the excuses, all those things that say "no", "you can't" "wouldn't be prudent" or "you're not smart, brave, rich, important enough" all of these limiting beliefs that somehow we agree to subconsciously that stand in the way of us and our bliss, our true calling, our love.   These beliefs are things that someone(maybe even ourselves?) agreed to be true without ever questioning there validity, sometimes even for a life time.

In short, I'm going to, "practice" being blissful, like playing the guitar or training for a marathon, small steps, start from where I'm at.  Get reacquainted with that blissful little soul that we all start out with that is mesmerized at the wonderment of all that life has to offer, when something as "simple" as a butterfly captured our imagination and this was enough to make our young hearts flutter with excitement.  Through meditation and introspection I'm going to get to know myself, not on the conscious level that most of us think we operate from, but from the subconscious level where 95% of all of our choices are actually made whether we like them or not.  I'm going to choose what is true for me and I'm going to discard all of the "should a" "would a" "could a's" out of my storage space and make room for my bliss to shine through so I can spend more time acting from the heart rather then from the mind.  Joseph Campbell also taught that every ancient human tribe had myths about heroes that went on journeys to slay monsters.  I guess this is my own heroes journey, to go and slay my own dragons, maybe this is actually where bliss lay, at the feet of a dragon, and what little boy wouldn't want to go on that adventure?  Maybe I'll even get a chili dog on my way.