Follow Your Bliss

Gail was a quiet, shy, young lady. She has been quiet and shy for as long as she could remember. As a child, every time her mother introduced her children to someone, she would always introduce Gail as the shy, quiet child.

Gail had one sister and a brother and both of them were outgoing and quite sociable. Gail, on the other hand, kept to herself and found it quite difficult to make friends. But that didn't bother her much. She didn't really care about having friends. It never was anything that she strived to do.

She did quite well in school, but she never participated in any extra curriculum activities. She was too shy for that. She had simply accepted her mother's and other's "description" of her-the shy and quiet one.

It was easier to be quiet in college and sort of blend into the background without much effort. The classes were large; everyone went about his or her Business-not focusing on her and that was all right with Gail.

When she graduated, she was hired as a librarian in a large, public library. The job seemed quite fitting for Gail because one of the requirements were to be quiet for the most part of the day. Not only was she not allowed to talk much, but others in the library were encouraged NOT to talk either. That fitted right up her alley.

However, there was a part of Gail that no one else, but Gail, knew about.

The secret that Gail had been holding inside all these many years is the fact that Gail loves to dance.

She has never had an opportunity to dance in public, but behind closed doors, she danced and danced and danced.

Ever since she was a small child, she had a great desire to dance.

From the age of 5, she would often lock herself in the bathroom, turn on her little transistor radio to the classical music station, and dance for hours. Her mother always wondered what she did in the bathroom for so many hours, but she never felt comfortable enough to share her "secret" with her mother. She told her mother that she was reading and the bathroom was the quietest room in the house. With her two very loud siblings, her mother accepted this explanation. The truth of the matter is, she would turn on the music and simply dance.

Gail never had any formal training in dancing, but she felt she was quite good at it. She had watched anything and everything that she could possibly watch on television or in the movies that related to dancing. She had also read books on dancing.

There was something about dancing that simply liberated Gail. She felt free. She felt excited. She felt as if she was lifted out of that "shy, quiet" exterior and was at one with the universe whenever she danced.

Now that she was an adult, she couldn't wait to get Home from work each day to dance. She would dance all around the apartment. She would blast her classical music and put on comfortable clothing and would dance all night. She simply couldn't believe how she would feel each night after a bout of dancing. It was amazing. It would make her forget about all of her worries, troubles and stress that she was feeling during the day. It was so exhilarating and invigorating she could hardly contain herself.

She often thought about taking lessons but the shy Gail would take over and tell her that she couldn't do it while others were around.

Dancing is Gail's BLISS.

What is your BLISS?

What is it that gets you excited?

What can you get so involved in that you lose track of time?

What is it that you do that exhilarates you?

If you really think about it, you will find you bliss.

As a coach, I often have clients who tell me that they have no idea what their purpose in life may be. After working with them for a brief period of time, they realize that there are several things that they are interested in, they simply never thought about it before.

Once you discover YOUR BLISS, you will discover a way to live an exciting and invigorating life.

What's stopping you?

ACTION POINT: This week make it a point to discover your bliss. Spend some time thinking about the one thing that gets you excited. Think about what you presently do that you can easily lose track of time while you're do