Hong’s Stories: Finding Bliss

“Let's say you never had to think about money and you never had to think about time. With all of the money in the world and all the time in the world, how would you express yourself and how would that benefit the ecosystem, the larger web of being.” Deepak Chopra

Amituofu friends! Though it may sound egotistical to say, I have been on a “hero’s journey” for the last five years, breaking down my ego with the help of guides, living and dead. Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” is one of those guides, particularly recently as I have begun to feel more solid in my seat.

Its funny. If I look back to before I started my journey I was in fact trying to be someone else’s hero. My mother made it very clear growing up that she was unhappy with her lot in life, and that my father had failed her. In the face of this, Dad checked out, and it was left to me and my siblings to try to make her happy.

We all catered to her whims, and I as the eldest helped her with her business and became her confidante. Eventually I spent twenty years on Wall Street trying to make enough money to make her and the women I replaced her with happy.

Theoretically I suppose in retrospect by giving these women happiness I would finally earn the freedom to pursue my own. But the problem with my mother, and any narcissist for that matter is that the only real happiness they feel comes from being able to control and manipulate the people around them, people like me.

She was the masochist and I her sadist. I became a professional bitch. I pursued “her” happiness with mad commitment, working hundred hour weeks, taking on more pressure. The more I gave the more she wanted. I worked harder and harder.

And I too wanted more and more. I enjoyed the spoils of my relentless work even as I felt empty inside. I traveled first class, bought fine wines, sat with movers and shakers of the corporate world, enjoyed it when people took me seriously, when they cared about what I was saying.

But what was most important ultimately was what I wasn’t saying, which was in truth I was a bitch. Though I of course didn’t admit this, it showed up all over the place. I could be a tough guy on the surface, but below was an incredibly insecure and fragile person who just wanted to be loved.

And no more fallow ground for love than Wall Street. The further I progressed in my career, the more powerful and ruthless were the people I came face-to-face with. But I didn’t have the inner strength to play the game at that level. As good as I was at investing, I couldn’t outrun my psyche and as a result inevitably my business and life failed.

That failure five years ago ironically signaled the beginning of my hero’s journey. Out of the ashes of trying to make others happy, I found the gold of my own happiness. I was forced to give up my prior way of being completely because I had failed so hard that my old path had gotten entirely blocked off.

How can I take any “credit” for creating a complete crisis for myself and my family? Is the fact that out of that crisis I found myself of value to those whose life I turned upside down? At least my ex-wives chose to marry me. But my children? How can I ask them for forgiveness? And for what? For building a house on matchsticks, or for the blaze that finally brought it down?

At this point there is no turning back, even if I still have no idea where I am headed. That is the nature of the hero’s journey, embracing the uncertainty that is at the foundation of the human condition. That my children have had to experience that lack of “security” has been tough for them. But on the other hand I am not running away.

In fact I am here to say to them that this is life. Embrace it. You don’t need to be scared. What good would it do anyway. The only freedom is learning to trust yourself, which we all know first and foremost requires listening to ourselves. Not judging, not figuring out. Just listening. We all just want to be heard, and in the end the only one who can really hear you is you.

More chi! Train harder!

Hong

P.S. What if the crazy rich people in the world are doing us all a favor by hoarding their wealth. That the more difficult they make it for us to climb the ladder of success, the more they force us to give up. And when we truly give up, we have to look somewhere else for satisfaction.

Really all we have to do is give up.

SELECT QUOTATIONS: The Timeless Tale of the Hero’s Journey

Each of us is golden by nature. We were born golden, we were born high, were born knowing, born connected to our bliss, born knowing truth, we were born knowing everything that every great spiritual master has said. We were one with Christ, with the Buddha. Then we went to school, and they taught that this is what white people do, black people. We built a stone covering and we believed we were the stone. Then someone, financial setback, knocks off a piece of the stone, and then we see the gold. Once you see the gold the armor and concrete will never satisfy your again. And then all you want to do is pick away the stone because the gold is so much more fun.

JC dissected and diagrammed all of our stories. He found this one story within all stories that we can all relate to. Despite all the stories we tell, there is really only one, and he called it “the hero’s journey”.

The hero’s journey is a pattern, you could almost think of it as an algorithm that has three basic parts: separation, initiation and return.

Separation: you are in one kind of reality in one kind of a place, you are separated from it.

Initiation: you are put in a new place and initiated.

Return: you come back

The call to adventure; a vision, a quest, trials and ordeals, meeting obstacles along the way.

Doors will open for you where there are no doors for others, dragons will appear that are your dragons alone

You get to the innermost cave where you are really challenged, the greatest crisis, and you find yourself.

That is not the end. Then the return to the community to tell the story.

That is the heroic story. All stories are in there. Because they are all in here (us). If you look you will see his outline in every story you read.

You go on a journey in which you have to face certain tests.

Storytelling is typically about people learning something. You go to someplace that is dark and mysterious. You are faced with yourself. There is a difference between facing fear and this kind of soul game. You acquire a quality, a hidden strength, a value. Moments when someone is tested, it feels like a crisis point, they are restored, redeemed, made better through that trial, and we call them heroes.

If all of these stories boil down into one map, we can use that map.

We are not separate from the characters we see in our movies and novels. They are us. It is one journey.

The whole idea of a hero’s journey, a journey of life, clear patterns to guide you through. You are born, you have a childhood, you have an adolescence, and you try to find a place for you to become an adult. You go through adventures, you struggle with your inner conflicts, and finally you become a hero, you slay the dragons, you succeed in conquering all the demons, and you step over the threshold, and finally you have arrived. We get old, we die. But within this short span, we have to have some meaning some reason for this existence. It doesn’t have to be high and might, fantastic. You can have a very simple life. It still goes through a similar pattern.

The greatest selves are still hidden, and the future is the prospect of coming to terms with that self.

She had the ability to get back home but had to go through the tests to realize it.

The function of mythological symbols is to give you a sense of Aha! Yes. I know what it is, its myself — JC

If you bargain your life away now for security, you will never find your bliss

Just because you don’t know what the call on your life is right now, doesn’t mean play ostrich and stick your head in the sand and say just because I don’t know it I shouldn’t move towards anything. The very fact that you are looking for your bliss means you are in the process of getting to your bliss. Part of life and the whole journey is exploration.

When you follow your bliss, the universe will open doors where there were only walls.

The most important thing that the myths teach us is to go beyond what we perceive as the limits of our possibility.

Myths are a narrative of the psyche, of the self.

Many of us are metaphorically impaired. We don’t realize that this thing they are talking about is actually a metaphor for atransformation process.

And so if you look at a book and it says you will go to heaven, and you don’t realize that they talking about heaven on earth, in the body, heaven right now in the now, you might l fall into a trance that you will literally go someplace if you follow the rules.

Archetypes are primordial encapsulated stories or mythologies in the form of a seed in consciousness. When you plant that seed in consciousness, that archetypal seed, that mythical journey then the seed starts to sprout and as it sprouts, and the patterning forces create the situation, circumstances and relationships for the unfolding of the story.

It is better to have a story to look through at life than an explanation. The reason it the story is richer.

If you are a tiger living among sheep, you are a pretty poor specimen of tiger, and we are all tigers living among sheep. We are all individuals with a self that we don’t even begin to understand. And the food we get from the culture around us is food for sheep, not food for tigers.

Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame. JC (note: I mistakenly typed dong. Freudian slip lol)

You have to catch at least the spark of what your life is going to be or you may spend your life climbing the corporate ladder to find you are climbing the wrong wall. You get to the top but who cares.

If this path of a hero’s journey is simple in design why isn’t everybody living it. The answer is most people live under a kind of mass hypnosis.

The mass media keeps people trances out consumers. A trance of comfort. Of not sticking your head above the crowd. It keeps the enterprise going. Its about collecting things, and stuff. You end up on that treadmill and cannot get off.

Most people unfortunately because they are so victimized by their environment they have no time to think, or be themselves. They become bundles of conditioned reflexes and nerves that are constantly being triggered by people and circumstance into very predictable outcomes and patterns of behavior. There is no creativity.

Those ideas imposed from the outside about what we should and shouldn’t do.

It is very difficult for a person who is brought up this environment of instant gratification with the media, advertising all of the promises of buying things, of having a certain level of affluence, you lose contact with this mythical domain that is part of your soul, it is in everyone, it is their passions, their gift , their unique skills, their unique way of expressing themselves is their song which if they sing they could do anything.

The world that we thought was reality was all an illusion. The dominant values and beliefs. Reality is we are full of potential.

Separation begins with the call to adventure. The universe dialing you up and ringing. Asking you to step out and live your journey.

Something makes it impossible for you to continue. Or you can run away but he will keep coming back until you answer the call.

Oftentimes it comes in the depth of our despair. In losing a job, getting fired, getting divorced, having your house foreclosed on. These things that you would never want to have happen are often the exact thing we need to catalyze us into the next version of ourself.

Bad things happen to good people. They are thrown for a loop. The universe just upended you.

The Chinese symbol for crisis is danger and opportunity.

You are ripe for a sledge hammer blow from the universe.

Sometimes you are shoved.

I could see down through all of the layers of myself to this pure consciousness inside. I could see how how all of the fat I had was organized around a whole bunch feelings that I didn’t want to let myself feel. Sadness from childhood, grief from my family, anger. The fat was there to keep me from feeling those feelings. As I came back to normal conscisouness I made a vow that I could live in that state of consciousness instead of having to have all of that armor around me.

Once you make the decision to hear the call, and being willing to take on the challenges of that new awakened life, once you do that you begin to feel a power that a lot of us are plain old afraid of that.

People wake up to the fact that they are the hero of their own life when they get tired of being the victim of their own life. At the point where you say enough.

You can either surrender to victimhood, and a lot of people do, or you can surrender to a fundamentalism, basically give your responsibility to someone else and say tell me what to do and I will do it, or you can say I have a choice here and I am responsible. What does it mean to be the hero of your own life? It means to be responsible for your own adventure.

The snake that does not shed its skin must perish.

No death no life, no death no transformation, no death no change.

You want a new birth, a new revelation, a new insight into life as you grow as a human being, you will learn to keep dying.

We must learn to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The proof is in our ability to transcend the worst things that happen to us.

It’s not what happens to us, it’s what we do with it.

The forest represents the darkness, the unknown, the edge of your world. It takes the courage of a hero to go into that forest. The people in your community don’t understand why you want to go into that forest. And in fact they are pulling you back asking why can’t you be happy with what you have here. But there is the urge to go and explore

If you go into a forest where there is already a trail, that is the one sure sign you are not on your path.

You need to find your own path, and that comes from that impulse to go and discover who you are beyond how you have been conditioned.

The hero’s journey is having the courage to look within yourself and ask what am i here to do

Listen to your heart and follow your truth

Your bliss is the thing you can’t not do

I don’t know what my beingness is, I don’t know what my consciousness is, but I know what my bliss is.

Sometimes its hard to let go of the resistor and follow your bliss.

How do I follow my bliss? What am I passionate about?

Find out what you most love to do and do more of that thing.

Write in a journal

Don’t do what daddy says. He only wants your security. If you bargain your life away for security now you will never find your bliss.

It’s important to do things that make you happy. Every great inventor, businessman, scientists didn’t do it for the money. They were chasing their bliss.

When you truly step forth and trust your bliss, unseen forces have the power to rearrange things to accommodate your step of faith.

Truth is I kept writing until I got lucky. If I had stopped writing I never would have gotten lucky. There is no luck coming to my house saying heh here’s a book deal. You just keep doing it and you are likely to get lucky.

Why do most people not follow their bliss? One word. Fear. We are literally overwhelmed by fear. Primarily, fear of what other people will think of us. Joseph Campbell says “what will they think of me” must be put aside for bliss. This is one of the biggest inhibitors of bliss. Will I look like an idiot if I follow my bliss and I fail.

Your friends and family can be well meaning, but will collude with you to create a story that you cannot get out of.

We are each our own greatest inhibitors. I am not going to do that means YOU have decided.

Rumi wrote “I want to sing like birds sing. Not worrying who listens or what they think.” If you can do that you can achieve the impossible.

Find a place where joy is and the joy will burn out the pain. JC

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging JC

JC talks about when we go on the hero’s journey there is a dragon we must slay. A dragon is the most challenging fierce creature that is in mythology. JC described the dragon as a beast covered with scales and on every scale it says either THOU SHALT or THOU SHALT NOT. The beast is construction of all of the rules, regulations, social obligations that make you feel like you have to or cannot do certain things.

The one thing that keeps people from their mountain tops, that keeps people small instead of allowing them to present their genius to the world, its their fears, as JC says their dragons.

Fear that is un-faced has a tendency to creep. It moves through your experiences. It starts to toxify your perceptions.

Love is what we are born with, fear is what we learn.

Fear is an inherent part of the human experience. Its not about getting rid of fear. It is to have courage. It to to move forward in spite of the fear you feel.

The courage is not a lack of fear. The courage is dealing with your fear.

Courage is when you know what to do and you do it. Lack of courage is when you know what to do and you don’t do it.

Courage is the ability to get up after you have fallen and try again. Exploring the unknown that people thought was impossible.

Courage is like a muscle. You need to train. Think of it like a courage gym. You have to consistently go up to your fears and go one step past them. And your comfort zone expands.

There is power monsters get by being in the closet, and diminishment by facing them head on.

Rather than running away we shuold go close to it.

Do the things that scare you. Courage is what comes after. It is ok to be scared but it shouldn’t stop you.

What is outside is a reflection of what is inside. You have chosen your monsters.

You have to stop fighting it.

Slaying the dragon is really coming to terms with that part of yourself that you think is bigger than you. However, loving your dragon is the most efficient thing to do. And it feels better.

When you do that whatever you were hording the dragon steps forward and gives it to you becuase now you are open to what might come to you.

As we overcome our fears, we gain power.

What we do with our lives is what makes us heros or not. There is grace in knowing that and a gift in believing that.

At a certain point in the hero’s journey you are going to love and accept yourself as you are. As that gap heals you gain an awesome power in life.

The way we think of time is as linear. I am born. I am going to go through these things and I will die. The hero’s journey says no. It is a leaving home and returning and leaving and returning.

There was no concrete thing. The story of getting the treasure is the treasure. The giving of the story is the invitation for other people to make the same journey. That is why it is a circle that never ends.

The ultimate end is not slaying the dragon, it is giving back the essence of that journey.

If you speak to somebody at the level of the mind you will speak to their mind, if you speak to their heart you will speak to their heart, but if you speak through your life, your life is the story and you will change lives.

We all have it in us to think that we cannot give up.

That choice to not give up is a story you are telling yourself that makes you feel immortal, that makes you feel like you can overcome anything, that makes you feel transcendent. That is all we got.

Mick Fleetwood — I love that he is here and his story. His drumming his the heartbeat of Fleetwood Mac.

Laird Hamilton — Surfing is a great metaphor for the journey, learning to ride and enjoy the waves no matter what the surf or weather brings, and whether you stand or fall to turn around, paddle back out and ride another.