Saw a very sad young lady today. (Let's call her Nina.)
Stuck in a dead-end exhausting job, with very good pay, but very little life.
She could not get her eyes off a small figurine of a skeleton, sitting beside a tombstone, among some sandplay miniatures lying in a tray.
She said, "This is me. This is me, in this dead-end life. It's like i exist, but i'm not alive. It's like i'm alive, but i'm not living. If this is all that life is about, I'd rather be dead."
Funny how our clients trigger our own processes, stimulate us to think... Just at the same moment that we ask them...
What do you want?
What makes you happy?
If you could choose what you would like to do for the rest of your life, what would it be?
What do you want to give to the world?
As i asked her these questions; as i explained to her about the "Unlived Life;"
As i explained that,
"We can really become very good at what we really like, and if we can become very good, then we have something to give to the world; because that is your gift; that is the best of who you are, and it is something that no one can do, better than you;"
As i saw her face light up to my words,
As i watched her beam when i said, "There is no limit to what you can do"...
I found myself listening,
And listening, intently.
And asking myself the same questions. And wondering at the answers. :)
I told her about Joseph Campbell.
I told her about "Follow your bliss."
"Follow your bliss" is not just an aimless wandering, i told her.
Because your "bliss" is your compass.
Your "bliss" is a good compass, because, deep inside, your bliss is who you really are.
Which brought me back to this blog, and the whole field of creative therapies, and how it just fascinates me no end, and how exploring it and chewing on it, collecting insights and experiences from kindred spirits and kindred places all over the world, fascinates me. Drives me.
I am in the middle of "driving" myself to complete an overdue writing job.
It is a big chore for me, because i am very distractible, and i can get bored after 10 minutes of technical writing. To be able to just sit and write, is a great big accomplishment for me.
So this morning, as i was getting dressed for the day, i was telling myself what i can and cannot do today.
"You will go nowhere near your blog."
"You will not research on anything today."
"You will not Google anything today."
But I had to check my email, and my Firefox was programmed to open the tabs i had open last night, and before i knew it, i had wandered into websites on writing as therapy. :) (Which i will post about when i finish my deadline!!!) So wandered a bit, then told myself, "This is as far as you go!", saved all the tabs into a bookmark folder, and dutifully went back to task.
But the little notes on "writing to find your life" had wandered into my heart.
Then, i saw Nina.
It helps that i just saw my mentor* the other day, and i was telling her, "I feel like i'm pushing this girl (another young girl, who's anxious about school) to force herself to do some things, even if she's not ready. " And Tita Honey said, "If it feels like it's going against something fundamental deep inside you, then don't do it."
Follow your bliss. :)
Where this obsession with researching and exploring the creative therapies will take me, I do not know.
I only know that it answers a deep need to understand, to make sense, to bring together and develop all my understanding about it, all my understanding about what a person is, and what he can be.
I only know that art is my language, that images and words evoke places and movements inside me, and that i need to keep going, keep learning, keep putting it all together.
And i will need to trust this voice,
Just as I told Nina to trust hers;
Just as i need to tell all my clients, to trust "that knowing place inside."
We are travellers, on a journey.
We are travellers, on a journey to the core of our beings,
Where exists life and the sun, and nourishment for everyone.
We journey together, just as we journey on our own.
Parallel journeys of joyous discovery. Parallel journeys to life.
We are all on a journey
To find ourselves,
To live who we really are.
To live the authentic life.
May the Heavens and all of nature smile on our journeys. :)
--- Read how other peoplehave followed their bliss at... Bliss Stories
*(My most wise and generous teacher, Dr. Ma. Lourdes Carandang, better known as "Tita Honey")
** photo "Broken Wings" by Inkblots at Flickr
