Following Your Bliss Can Feel Like Grief

I had a friend who was going though a painful time of making a decision. She was trying to decide between two different towns and situations to live in, after a lot of searching and eliminating options. 

Freedom of choice comes with a burden of saying no, over and over again, as we move toward the right fit. A contrasting idea floating around is that "following your bliss" means saying yes to everything good, and doing whatever makes you happy, like chasing after a butterfly. But the originator of that line-- Joseph Campbell, himself-- used the example of Christ's crucifixion to explain the concept. Jesus followed his bliss all the way to the cross, and was "a servant unto death." There's nothing ephemeral about that.

The tragic drama of the crucifixion and the comedic resolution of the resurrection speaks to millions of people, regardless of how they interpret the literalness or historical accuracy of the story. At the very least, the Garden of Gesthemane reassures us that wishing away a cup of bitterness that has been served up along with our freedom is an acceptably distressed state to be in. Bliss doesn't always reflect placidity.

Most of us will never face the kinds of soul-splitting circumstances recounted in religious texts, but most of us will be faced with decisions that can feel agonizing in their complexity. All of us friends, who were trying to help the one caught up in suspended indecision over where to live, recognized a common theme emerging from our shared individual experiences. We had often known the right move in our hearts, but our minds kept trying to talk us out of it. The heart comprehends the full meaning of bliss and its revolutions better than the mind does.

Reflecting on my own experiences, I was often aware at a deep level that I was going to make myself do something that was painful and difficult, but right for me and my situation. That didn't mean that I could foretell a satisfactory outcome of going forward with that decision, but realizing that I was going through the cycles of grief helped me to understand why the process was so difficult, even agonizing at times.

illustration by Charles Dana Gibson, 1903

Around fifteen years ago, due to a back injury, I had to choose among: a series of deep injections that would be administered over several months, a painful surgery with a long recovery, or doing neither and remaining in pain. None of these options felt good or happy or joyful, which is what we associate with bliss. Instead, I was faced with more pain to get out of pain, which didn't fit with my idea of freedom at all. But freedom was what I had, even while immobilized physically, scrutinized and handled by all sorts of doctors and practitioners, and even while I felt like a bug on a pin.

During this constrained freedom, as I was moving through the emotions of fear, sadness, anger, and bargaining (trying to talk myself out of what I was going to make myself do), I was also an observer of my actions. I seemed to be reading a lot about the surgery, and listening to other patients tell their stories of improvement, yet feeling afraid to read about the injections. It turns out that my fear surrounding the injections kept coming up because I knew that they were the right course for me, and I didn't want to do them. Reading about the surgery and its benefits was a distraction for me. Reading stories of how the injections had failed people was also a distraction.

Acceptance did not come with a peaceful feeling. After observing my own behavior-- that I was actually preparing myself for the injections-- acceptance came with a jarring realization of "Damn, I'm really going to do this." I became despondent with dread. But then my physical therapist suggested the same kind of injections, without knowing that I was already aware of them. I didn't hesitate to consent.  Within moments, he was on the phone to a highly skilled specialist and I had an appointment with her. Sometimes when you're finally exhausted with trying to be perfect in your choices, the right person appears who can point you in the right direction. The repetitious inner spinning on the wheel of fretfulness begins to cease and desist.

I already knew that these needles went all the way down to the bone, would number up to twenty in repeated sessions, and could not be administered under sedation. I understood that I only had three months to ready myself for them, which is not as much time as readying for a baby. It had already taken me months to get appropriate drug relief, and now I would also have to learn pain management on a more sophisticated level. The time had come to leave rumination and to enter into discovery.

I consulted a referred psychologist who specialized in non-pharmacological pain management, and was alternately hooked up to a biofeedback machine, an alpha brainwave stimulator, an accupressure ear stimulator, and a specially ordered back support. My husband traded in our car for the dreaded symbol of responsibility-- the mini-van-- so I could get in and out of it more easily, adjust the seat, and lie down in the back if necessary. In spite of having pre-schoolers, I had resisted making this change of vehicles, but now I was the one who was the catalyst for this dubious upgrade.

Just as in my childhood, I was transported around town while looking up at the ceiling as traffic lights and treetops passed by the windows above me. Surrounding me were all of my hopeful comforts. The inside of that van could have been mistaken for a Victorian peddler's wagon containing cures and contraptions for all that ails ye. Together, these things did help. There was no one fix to get me through the bigger fix. What lacked in effectiveness was more than made up for in imagination by inventors I am grateful to.

Frida Kahlo, who went through more back trauma, surgeries and fixations than anyone I have ever heard of.
Photo image by Nickolas Muray, 1946

I also dredged up everything I had learned surrounding childbirth, with breathing, visualization, meditation, relaxing music, homeopathy, and aromatherapy. I had a lavender and rose scented washcloth rolled up to bite down on. I came into that doctor's room April fresh and loaded for bear. I'd like to say that I roared like one only in my mind, while keeping serenely silent on the outside. Howling is closer to how I reacted. The physiatrist had to stop because she didn't want to feel like she was running a medieval torture chamber. But by the next time, I had more practice at all of my borrowed methods and tricks, and I could bring down the volume to a whimper. The final sessions, happily, I can't recall.

Each session was about three weeks apart, and I spent some of that time trying to talk myself out of going back, but kept preparing for them all over again. Sometimes the mind has to pay attention to where the body is steering itself. And I had a lot of help from loved ones. A lot of help. A lot. I can't stress that enough. A lot. Help that could be measured in miles. Bliss requires a Simon of Cyrene to carry your cross for you before you get to that awful place of resolve. Sometimes these helpful people get forced into it along with you.

All of this could have failed me. I could have gotten nothing from the procedure but traumatic memories. But it did turn out well for me. I was a good candidate for it, and I did my part of the work. The bliss came on the day that I showed up for my life. Not as a martyr, a savior, a legend in my own time, or anything noble at all. I simply was able to drive myself to my daughter's school, walk the length of it, however slowly, and then hold her hand all the way back to the car. The sun gleamed off of the parking lot so brightly that she became nearly invisible right next to me.

My disoriented friend, who didn't know where should live has yet to know. I sometimes receive updates from her as she has moved around southern Europe and then returned to the States. No one in our group could foresee or choose her path for her, even if she had wanted us to. There are many variables that none of us can helpfully predict. But we could help her by holding the tension of uncertainty while she grieved each possibility that she tried to talk herself into, and accepted the one that she had been trying to talk herself out of.

Heart album cover: Greatest Hits 1998

The beautiful singer KT Tunstall says, “I’d always had this yearning to crack open my ribcage and be able to let everything out." Follow her to the next post to hear her sing about how the heart decides and how it feels when we don't heed it.