When the great American mythologist Joseph Campbell first used the phrase, “Follow your bliss,” he inspired many people. He held out a vision that was radically different from the notion that hard work, persistence, and keeping your shoulder to the wheel was the key to success. But actually, achieving this new vision didn’t prove to be easy.

Campbell’s underlying intention had mythical and spiritual roots. This is clear when you read a bit more about his advice. “If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you.” This is where people get confused and frustrated, however. They have something they love to do, but the invisible track doesn’t show up. Or what they love to do might have absolutely no financial aspect. What then?

Did you know that unconscious thoughts trigger chemical messengers in your brain, which in turn trigger your cells to take action? 

Let’s break it down... 

You may be familiar with the “fight-or-flight” response.

This response is something we all have.  On an evolutionary scale, it was intended to be triggered when we are faced with a predator, one that may kill or eat us. 

In this situation, we have two choices: to fight the predator or to RUN. 

Our bodies are flooded with adrenaline that gives it the ability to do one or the other. 

That same response is triggered in humans every single day. 

We are not running from tigers any longer but…

Do you want to know what makes me swoon?

Beautiful, insightful, profound writing.

I recently discovered this essay on Facebook, written by Taylor Rose Godfrey and have gotten her permission to share it with all of you. She really dives deep into the heart of true spirituality.

“I don’t care how spiritual you are. How long you can melt in the sweat lodge. How many peyote journeys that have blown your mind, or how well you can hold crow pose. Honestly. I don’t. I don’t care what planets fall in what houses on your birth chart, how many crystals you have or how vegan your diet is.

What would my life be like without me? Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t be “my life.” It would just be life—being, expanding, evolving. Exactly what it is without the filter I apply to it with “my.” As I continue along the path my soul has chosen for this lifetime, I see more clearly the limitations of language. “My” is a convenience for conversation, but the possessiveness we feel about so much in life is reinforced by that simple two-letter designation. In fact, nothing is mine. Even my soul is not really mine, nor is God. There is a limitless universal Spirit that we are one with, beyond description or possession. Caught up in “me,” “I,” and “mine,” our vision is restricted, dead-ended. Many times, our identity is so busy defending itself and its viewpoint that we can’t see the beauty and wonder around us or the love in the hearts of those closest to us. We lose friendships in arguments and misunderstandings.

Holistic health, diet, and medicine have made the term “holistic” more familiar today. The era when anything “holistic” was considered fringe is long past. But the central concept of wholeness remains misunderstood. You cannot aim to be whole, learn to be whole, or make yourself whole. You are already whole as far as your body is concerned. There is constant unified coordination between trillions of cells that organize thousands of organic processes into a working whole.

Understanding organic wholeness in complete detail is beyond anyone’s current intellectual grasp, and is likely to remain that way. The only working model of a neuron, it has been said, would be a neuron. The brain resists any simple reduction, in other words. But the wholeness of mind and spirit is even more baffling, as I address in a new book, Total Meditation. I based the title on practical consideration, to distinguish how meditation can be holistic rather than occasional.

Countless people start meditating only to quickly drop it or else to return to it when their day is particularly stressful. I think this high dropout rate can be turned around simply by offering simpler techniques that encourage the mind to do what it naturally wants to do, which is to stay in balance all the time, regardless of daily pressure, stress, worries, and overwhelm. These challenging times make the need even more urgent.

Ups and downs are a natural part of life, but the roller coaster of emotional realities we’ve been riding lately calls for us to pay special attention to our well-being. If you don’t have a self-care routine in place, or you’re looking to refine or refresh the one you’ve got, allow me to recommend the simple yet powerful practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness can help us offer ourselves some much-needed love, compassion, and peace of mind as we continue to navigate the realities of the ongoing pandemic. Here are five ways you can use mindfulness to comfort yourself, even amidst chaos.

No one can deny that there are a lot of challenging things going on in the world right now. 

Here in the United States, unprecedented wildfires are spreading so quickly that containment seems out of reach. Racial unrest and political tensions show no sign of diminishing. Across the globe, coronavirus cases continue to spike while explosions, collapsing mines, earthquakes, and monsoon rains are overpowering our human desire for stability and safety.

It’s no wonder that a lot of people feel at a loss as to what they can do to help or make a difference. But there’s always some way we can assist another or nurture our planet, and when we decide to offer ourselves in service, it’s always a blessing, never a sacrifice.

Have you heard the saying, “You are what you think”?  

That simple statement is more true than you know!

Everyday you experience unconscious thoughts that sabotage your success… 

Energy blocks that lay the groundwork for dis-ease… limit your capacity to access your authenticity, soul gifts, and joy.

Every day you are unconsciously reacting to these unconscious thoughts - these energy blocks.

They control your actions by keeping you 

Feeling small

Lacking in confidence

Afraid to make the big decisions and take the next steps…

They steal your joy by reminding you of past mistakes, preventing you from forgiving yourself and others. 

Although meditation has become widely popular, higher consciousness baffles and intimidates people. It seems like a faraway exotic attainment, and perhaps more myth that reality. But higher consciousness is just a convenient catch-all for expanded awareness. Reaching any higher state depends on a simple, very basic axiom: You cannot change what you are not aware of. Grasping this statement takes only a minute, but the point is critically important.

To be aware is also called being mindful. It is very desirable to be mindful. It keeps you in the present moment. It involves being alert and open to new experiences. Mindfulness is detached: you are open to the present moment but are not attached to any outcome that you either desire or fear.

Yet mindfulness has a built-in catch. How do you remind yourself to be mindful when you have drifted away from the present moment? Mindfulness is the very state you are not in. Telling someone to be mindful is like saying “Don’t forget to remember.” Fortunately, you can get past the catch. It involves the simple act of noticing. Your mind is designed to notice things all the time and sending the signal to you.

When you notice a friend in the crowd or something appetizing on a restaurant menu or an attractive stranger, what actually happens? You flick a switch and start to pay attention. The thing you notice is selected from lots of other things you are not noticing. When you see a friend in the crowd, you ignore the other people all around.

You are here to feel. You are here to bring into completion everything that every human being before you that did not have the courage to resolve or complete. 

Your purpose on this planet is to embrace everything within you that needs to be embraced. By liberating your personal vibration and frequency, you become one less place in the world that perpetuates separation. The reason you are so sensitive, and so deeply empathic, is because you are here to feel, not just on behalf of yourself, but on behalf of a planet of people who have yet to remember who they really are. 

Your role here is to give up the need to understand what's happening and to just simply be available, to feel what there is to feel within you. Recognizing that every time you are feeling an emotion, you are setting humanity free. Every time you are thinking, you are setting humanity free. Every time you're examining a belief or a story, you are setting humanity free. 

We have a responsibility, those of us born on Earth at this key transitional moment in the planet’s history. A powerful and sacred responsibility. And that is to hold the dream of a harmonious world and a loving human species in our hearts at all times and to act accordingly: with love, with kindness. To keep our minds clear of fearful thought forms and influences, which are becoming more and more prevalent and strident now. Conspiracy theories of all kinds are beginning to dominate social media, and hatred of “other” is growing. Divisiveness is encroaching on compassion in the human experience. When we separate off into smaller and smaller groups, suspicious of one another, we are falling further and further away from our purpose in being here.

Did you know that you were born psychic? It’s true. In fact, we were all born psychic. Some people have more extrasensory abilities than others, yet we all possess this innate natural power.

You don’t have to be a transcended master or meditation guru or a TV celebrity. Being psychic isn’t about fortune-telling, crystal balls or predicting the future, it isn’t just something we possess—it’s more a way of being.

Let me tell you a little about what the word psychic means. Put simply, it comes from the Greek word psychikos that means “of the soul.” By definition, this means that as spiritual beings, we’re able to access, receive and transmit information that reaches beyond our natural five senses.

We’re all equipped with a complex and highly tuned inner guidance system, which we can regularly tap in to, using our intuitive and psychic abilities. Believe it or not, you use these special psychic abilities all the time.  You’re probably not even aware that you’re doing it. Take a few moments and answer the following 6 questions:

We live in a stream of a living light that never stops pouring down upon us, even as it ceaselessly wells up from within us. The first part of this opening comment is obvious: sunlight streams down moment to moment upon our earth, vitalizing and nourishing all that it touches. And while this order of light allows us to see all the marvelous forms and colors that our physical eyes behold, there is another kind of light that is of a higher order. 

In much the same way as sunlight reveals the world around us, this interior light illuminates the worlds within us and more. It is through the revelations that it alone makes possible—as it discloses whatever may be concealed within us—that we find and are nourished by an ever-expansive understanding of who and what we really are. We begin to realize our possibilities in life are as endless as this light that reveals them. Slowly it dawns upon us that standing in this light is the same as realizing the promise of an always new and self-liberating revelation. 

Last week I wrote to you about how the choice we make to be in true, conscious Relationship with the Divine manifests not only as a covenant with the One Presence, but also with one another. 

I also talked about how being in conscious Relationship inspires a decision to be in service to all of life—including other people, nature, our planet, and our own Divine Self. 

Ever since I put those words to paper (so to speak), I’ve wondered about the people in our community, and in the world, who aren’t yet sure what that broader view of service looks like.

They may sometimes feel uplifted and inspired…

They may have experienced an inkling of personal transformation…

They may even have developed a mental strategy of what they might do.

But do they have the willingness to go from a deep feeling of Relationship and a personal plan for change into a mature and disciplined life of consistent asking, receiving, and giving?

I woke up this morning feeling a sense of great loss, loss for so many things…the loss of civility in our country, the loss of life from Covid, and cancer, and guns, and innocent black men and women being killed, innocent protesters being gunned down, the violence in our streets.

The seemingly impossible divide between left and right.

The loss of stability and security.

The loss of freedom to hug our friends, and so much more.

Later, when I looked at my Facebook feed I found more loss.

Friends mourning the loss of loved ones, beloved pets, careers that were once promising that have disappeared.

Grief. Mourning. Fear. Uncertainty.

Hilary wrote:

I am eating very clean and working out five days a week. I try to meditate every day. Despite this, I feel disconnected and unloved by my Higher Power. I know this is just how I FEEL and not reality. I tell my little girl it’s not true…but I can’t seem to change this belief. I know connection will help me. I need some guidance from you to hear my Guidance!

It’s wonderful that Hilary is eating well, exercising and meditating. But taking loving care of herself involves much more than that. The fact that she feels disconnected from and unloved by her higher power indicates that she is disconnected from her feelings and not loving herself – that she is operating from her wounded self.

Telling her inner child that something isn’t true is not at all the same thing as living from the truth. If she is abandoning herself by ignoring her feelings – staying in her head rather than in her heart – by judging herself, by turning to various addictions (even meditation can be an addiction if the intent is to bliss out and avoid her feelings, or to control God), or by making others responsible for her feelings, then she is operating from a closed heart. There is no way to connect with her guidance when her heart is closed.