{"id":30610,"date":"2023-01-29T22:51:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T06:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30610"},"modified":"2023-01-29T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T07:03:10","slug":"follow-your-bliss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/follow-your-bliss\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow Your Bliss?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(Note: I have no idea why the font changes from a light black to a bolded black. I played with all the options to change font and boldness, etc and nothing would work.)<\/p>\n

Most of us have probably read the quote by Joseph Campbell, \u201cFollow your bliss.\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve seen it on many a bumper sticker or on someone\u2019s t-shirt and thought, \u201cWell, wouldn\u2019t that be nice but I\u2019ve got these four kids, a husband, and a job that all require my full attention right now.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019re the churchy type you may have heard the Reverend Frederick Buechner\u2019s quote, \u201cThe place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n

The idea of both quotes is the same. Find your purpose and live your best life. According to Campbell, \u201cAlong the way some doors will open that wouldn\u2019t have opened for anyone else,\u201d[2]<\/a> and you even might meet the \u201cworld\u2019s deepest need,\u201d according to Buechner.<\/span><\/h4>\n

But what happens when rather than following your bliss this so-called \u201cbliss\u201d is thrust upon you? What happens when the place where God is calling you is NOT anywhere you\u2019d ever want to go?<\/span><\/h4>\n

What happens when your spouse, or your child, or your best friend or your parent, cannot lift the weight of depression to get out of bed? Or, they won\u2019t stop talking, talking, talking, flinging ideas around like confetti, some of them very far-fetched? What happens when voices speak to them, some of them shouting, yet nobody else can hear them? Or, what happens when their paranoia makes you, their once beloved partner, their best friend, the enemy, the one out to get them?<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

This is not bliss.<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is not deep gladness.<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is hell.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Campbell claims, \u201cthe life that you ought to be living is the one you are living\u201d[3]<\/a> but what if you want NO PART of the life you all of a sudden find yourself living?\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is how the hero\u2019s journey began for me.<\/span><\/h4>\n

(As I\u2019ve been reading up on the hero\u2019s journey I\u2019ve read contradicting ideas about whether we should be the heroes of our own stories but if the hero\u2019s story is universal\u00a0<\/span>then it only makes sense that we would be a hero in our own journey. I also believe we will experience many hero journeys throughout our lifetime. This post is about one particular hero\u2019s journey I experienced.)<\/span><\/h4>\n

One day I was happily married with three young kids and the next I was trying to find my missing husband who had flown off to the other side of the United States on a whim. (Thankfully, he went to see his parents so he was easy to track down.) One day we were a \u201cnormal\u201d American family driving our Honda Odyssey to soccer games and the next were driving that minivan to the psychiatric unit of the hospital. One day my husband was healthy and the next he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Of course, the timeline is a little off. Mental illness rarely strikes all of a sudden. Usually it is a slow burn building into a firestorm if not doused early on. But I think you get the point. We were living a \u201cnormal\u201d life, until we were not.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I think we can understand how the hero\u2019s journey might be a perfect metaphor for those who encounter mental health challenges. One day you are living your normal life but then comes a moment, a crisis. Your mind is confused or sad, dull, or overly active. The journey begins. You are forced into the unfamiliar, thrust into a dark cave of the unknown where trials and hospital stays await. You must reach deep inside, slay the dragons, stabilize the neurotransmitters, and find yourself a really good psychiatrist. Friends, family, and hopefully a wise therapist come alongside you and with their guidance and your own fortitude you begin to rise from the abyss. Through this journey you are transformed, returning home with new life experiences, wisdom and a bigger heart.<\/span><\/h4>\n

But what about those who love the one with mental illness? What about their hero\u2019s journey?<\/span><\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t say this to belittle the journey of those living with and managing their mental illness. Their hero\u2019s story is one of reaching the depths of hell and coming out stronger, but there is often another hero\u2019s journey happening at the same time. It\u2019s the journey of those who love them.<\/span><\/h4>\n

When my husband first fell ill I was forced onto this journey, very unwillingly, but dammit, love and belief in a person will keep you walking, sometimes running, step after step through the journey. True to the structure of the hero\u2019s journey, as I walked the path, friends, mentors, and guides came alongside me. I\u2019m pretty sure without them I would have curled up in the fetal position and refused to go any further.<\/span><\/h4>\n

As I build a mental health ministry and as I teach classes for NAMI, I see my role as a guide and friend walking with those newly embarking (or being shoved) onto this journey. I hear about their journeys and can truly say, \u201cWhile the details of my journey are not the same, I have walked this path and I can walk alongside you as you navigate yours.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n

Because of the Topical Expertise essay, we have to write I\u2019ve been thinking about the story from Mark 2, of the friends who lower the paralyzed man through the roof to get to Jesus. I wonder if the paralyzed man was on his own hero\u2019s journey. In the scripture, friends carried this paralyzed man, perhaps miles, to a house where Jesus was teaching. When they saw there wasn\u2019t room to carry their helpless friend into the house, they climbed on top of the house hoisting their friend up along the way. Finally, they cut a hole in the roof lowering their friend through it. Jesus healed him and told him to arise, take up his bed, and walk.<\/span><\/h4>\n

According to the website, Good Reads, Joseph Campbell says, \u201cThe cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.\u201d We don\u2019t know how the paralyzed man felt about his condition but I can imagine it was uncomfortable, even scary, to seek help. His friends helped him to approach the \u201cinmost cave\u201d (quite literally, the inside of a crowded house) to sit in front of Jesus, to be healed.<\/span><\/h4>\n

That\u2019s the kind of friend or helper I want to be for others on this journey.<\/span><\/h4>\n

When my husband got sick I was shoved off the cliff, hurtling through the threshold, straight into the abyss but I was never alone. From the very first shove helpers, mentors and guides came alongside me. I wonder if they knew as they walked with me they were meeting one of the world\u2019s greatest needs.<\/span><\/h4>\n

One of those helpers was my husband. I know that sounds strange. He was the one who was sick. How could he be one of the guides or helpers? It\u2019s because he wasn\u2019t afraid to travel his own journey all the way through. He was thrust into the abyss, slaying dragons I can\u2019t even imagine, but he came out stronger, more compassionate, determined to be the best version of himself possible. Because he traveled his own journey he wasn\u2019t afraid of mine and the honesty and wisdom he shared with me was transformative.<\/span><\/h4>\n

That\u2019s the thing about this journey, about following your bliss or going where God is calling you. It\u2019s not a matter of simply doing whatever you like. Instead it is about discovering who you are and Whose you are, about giving yourself entirely to the One who calls you and the path to which you are called, trusting you won\u2019t journey alone. In doing so, you might even meet some of the world\u2019s greatest need.<\/span><\/h4>\n

[1]<\/a> Buechner, Frederick. 1993.\u00a0Wishful Thinking: A Seeker\u2019s ABC<\/em>. Expanded edition. San Francisco, Calif.: HarperOne. P. 119<\/span><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

[2]<\/a> Joseph Campbell Foundation, \u201cFollow Your Bliss, Interview with Bill Moyers,\u201d accessed January 28, 2023, https:\/\/jcf.org\/about-joseph-campbell\/follow-your-bliss\/<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n

[3]<\/a> IBID.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note: I have no idea why the font changes from a light black to a bolded black. I played with all the options to change font and boldness, etc and nothing would work.) Most of us have probably read the quote by Joseph Campbell, \u201cFollow your bliss.\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve seen it on many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2535,789],"class_list":["post-30610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlpg02","tag-campbell","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30613,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30610\/revisions\/30613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}