The great Joseph Campbell taught something he called the Bliss Station.

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.”

‘Bring forth what you are and what you might be’

Without realizing it, I created a bliss station for myself a few months ago when I started working part time as an employee after being self-employed for the past 8 years. I jumped into a world utterly foreign to the identity that was known to be Jenn.

One Saturday, I awoke with a sense that the pillars of my identity – the components I was clinging onto – were holding me back from the opportunity to live my way into more of the “what I might be” realm. The following are the very pillars I had sturdily cemented into the foundation of who I believed I was:

1. I am self-employed and will reluctantly become an employee in order to move, BUT I want to maintain everything I have become used to
2. Work from home
3. Autonomous
4. I don’t wake up early
5. I don’t go to bed early
6. I have to get my 2.5 of outside time each day
7. I need lots of alone time
8. I don’t have minutes of the day without allocation to projects, chores, work, etc., so I need a predictable schedule
9. I earn a minimum of $X amount per hour

We all have these pillars. These guideposts. This list of non-negotiables about who we are and what we’ll accept. These are not the same as standards. They’re also not the same thing as values. A discussion of that distinction will come in another blog post.

These pillars of identification, when discussed or thought about, hold a certain feeling about them. There’s a restriction in their energy, a contracting of options. This rigidity is often mistaken for “this is just who I am. Take it or leave it.” Notice the defense in that statement? The refusal to move?

I don’t know football, but in defending the goal thingy with the posts, I believe the team on defense and the goalie is pretty well positioned, heels dug in, and moves only in response to the offensive players’ whereabouts. There seems to be little opportunity for new potential when on defense. The offensive side holds the openness to explore new strategies and step into new possibilities for scoring touchdowns or goals.

In my position of convenient comforts and declarations of “I am” statements, I had become pretty rigid and was trying to create change with a laundry list of expectations. That defies the very physics that powers this world. I wanted to continue to work from home, be autonomous, wake up and go to sleep when I wanted, have lots of free time, and I would only consider a position if its pay was commensurate with what I’d come to expect for myself. Oh – and I didn’t really want to be an employee again, but I needed to become one.

I was defending my turf. With expectations so restrictive, almost nothing could fit through the teeny, tiny opening left by the solid construction of my pillars of expectations. I severely limited possibility in my steel substrate. In hindsight, it might have been helpful to be more like one of those wind-catching dancing flag thingys that we see affixed with stakes in the ground. Movement and sturdiness combined.

That beautifully fateful Saturday morning, I had a conversation with the Universe. Having sensed that my rigidity and inflexibility was a hinderance to the change I was working to choose, I released every last one of my pillars. I gave it all up and surrendered fully. I invited inspiration that would lead me to the next step along the path of my evolution.

After a few hours, I emailed about a position I randomly discovered, and by Tuesday, I was hired. This part-time job would soon become my bliss station.

Everyone who learns what I’m doing simply cannot believe it. It’s puzzling to most because it doesn’t fit in the box of who they have known Jenn to be. There is so much liberation in breaking ourselves out of the prison we put ourselves in with our pride, expectations, judgments, and comforts of convenience.

Now, I wake up earlier than I ever have in my life. I go to bed early. (Except since starting this daily writing practice – I underestimated how much time this would add to my days. Now I’m going to bed late and getting up early.) I get paid less than I have in a bajillion years. I have no free time. I never know what time I’ll get off work, thus inhibiting my ability to plan every minute of my day. I’m not working from home. Let’s see… did I miss anything?

Only that I LOVE IT. When I first started, I felt a rush of liberation so ecstatic that I was given the nickname of being “effervescent” by Mike. Tom wondered when they’d see my “other” side because surely no one is that happy. And Dennis asked me what I was on because no one should be that chipper so early in the morning. I responded, “Raw milk and gratitude.” Hahahaha!

This position FREED me from the prison of identity I’d put myself in. Even as it obliterated the must-haves I had thought were critical to my happiness, I became elated. What a worthwhile experiment of tremendous significance.

In this place of temporary lack of identity, I’m now playing offense. Where possibility lives.

To my friends who are committed to this way of being – driven by self-evolution and actualization – my advice is to play offense. Play bliss. Play possibilities. Change things up. Be radical.

People will 100% misunderstand you. They will make judgments of you. Some will become uncomfortable with your departure from the you they are used to. Others will soften in their reviews of you and suddenly see you in a new light. The world is fickle AF, and you just can’t care about the stories others tell themselves about you as you change. Trust that the right people will show up at the right times, and others will absolutely fall away. Let it all be ok.

We’re all just operating from within our openness, or our closedness: our offensive posture or defensive stance. The nature of offense allows for many possibilities, while the nature of defense requires restriction. We all believe in our way and believe it to be the ideal. So let it be. And let ‘what you might be’ come into form.

Much love to all.