Mindfulness Mode

Today I’ll talk about bliss and how to find it. My wife, Darlene and I were reminiscing last night. We were talking all about our amazing trip to Colombia we enjoyed back in 2017. There were so many vivid memories about people we met, things we did, and places we went. It was blissful thinking about those incredible memories. Then today, we did it again with our son, Ben. He was about to turn 17 at the time, and it was interesting to hear his version of the same memories. One of the things we did was climb to the top of the La Piedra.
La Piedra is listed in an article called The 10 Most Stunning Staircases in the World. The La Piedra Del Peñol in Colombia is a monolithic formation located at the town of Guatapé in Antioquia, rising from the bottom of the hydroelectric dam of Peñol-Guatapé. Also known as the El Peñol Stone, or simply as La Piedra, the huge and heavy stone, made of quartz, feldspar and mica, has some rock breaks, used for constructing 650 stairs that lead to the top. A viewing spot on top of the rock, which offers the view of the surrounding area, can be reached by climbing 740 steps. We laughed and reminisced about our many memories and it felt so blissful to be sharing these memories.

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Discover Bliss

I think bliss is fleeting and comes at unexpected times and sometimes in places you’d never expect. The dictionary defines bliss as “perfect happiness”. Great joy. Typically to be oblivious of everything else. Here are some ways I believe you can achieve bliss in your life.

1/ Celebrate & Be Grateful

Last night our son, Ben, finished a lab report he’d been working on. Darlene and I asked him to tell us when he was finished and when he did, we cheered, had a group hug and just talked about how great it was that he was finished and had this work handed in. He looked a little puzzled, and said, it’s only a lab I’ve handed in. I said, yeah, but it’s one more thing checked off on your journey to earn a physics degree. I think it’s important to celebrate the small things on the journey. He smiled and we had one more group, family hug.
Bliss is spending time with family that you relate to and you can celebrate with.

Bliss is reaching a point where you don’t feel judged by others and you don’t judge them. In other words, I feel like learning to be non-judgmental is not only an important aspect of mindfulness, I think it’s important in life because becoming less judgmental ultimately has made me a happier and a more blissful person. This is monumental aspect of bliss and happiness in general.

2/ Quiet Time

Bliss is making sure your life includes quiet time. Some will call it meditation and some will call it prayer. It might be the solitude you find when you run, swim, or walk. Quiet time can be a daily time spent in nature or just in a quiet space with some incense, essential oils, or a candle.

Without quiet time, your life becomes chaotic, hectic, and you lose your sense of being grounded and centered. A lot of lives have become harried and dramatic. For me, losing the drama and making sure I have quiet time every single day is a big part of finding bliss.

3/ Quality Company

To make sure my life is blissful, I find it’s important to choose the people I spend time with very carefully. I notice how I feel when they’re around. I notice what they say and how they react to what I say. If we have similar goals and ideals, that is important to me. I also love being around people who have loftier goals, who think bigger than I do and who raise me up. Some of my most blissful moments have been around people that fit this description.

4/ Be Active

One of the ways I find bliss is by making sure I am active every day. I take a one hour run every morning. For the last three months or so, I’ve been running 6.6 kilometers or 4 miles. It feels good to be outside, no matter what the weather. I love the cold, frosty mornings, but I’ve learned to appreciate being outside no matter what the weather’s like. This morning there was a light, misty rain – it actually felt refreshing and the temperature was cool and there was a calming quiet to the air. I feel grateful to live in a fairly rural, slightly remote community where I can run every morning and seldom see a vehicle or person. It’s beautiful solitude. I look at the sky, the hills, the fields, the road pointing towards the horizon. It feels empowering and somehow extremely calming.

I know there is science that talks about how there is a connection to being active and having positive and healthy thought patterns. I don’t have references, but I believe that’s true. Creating a habit to be active everyday is a way to make sure you enjoy bliss more often. 

5/ Choose Happiness

I once subscribed to a training program about finding peace and happiness. The presenter on the CDs was so interesting. I think he was a psychologist and I loved psychology in university, although I specialized in music and didn’t take a lot of psych courses – Anyway, the guy kept saying that finding true peace in your life all boiled down to 3 words. He kept referring to the 3 words, but didn’t reveal what the three words were until the very end. He kept me in suspense, although he kept giving clues and cliff-hangers. I kept guessing in my mind what those 3 words could possibly be. I kept questioning, “could it really be that simple?” It didn’t seem to make sense that being happy was actually as simple as 3 little words.

When he finally got to the end of the several chapters in the training sessions, he revealed the 3 Crucial Words. Be Happy Now.

That’s mindfulness. Be Happy Now. Live in the moment. Don’t be so focused on the past or the future, simply remember to Be Happy Now.

If you stop what you’re doing at any moment in time, if you stop thinking about what you’re thinking at any given moment, and you think those three words, there’s usually nothing stopping you from choosing to Be Happy Now. In my opinion, Choosing to Be Happy Now will bring you bliss. Maybe that will be on a family trip like we took to Colombia, or maybe it will be a fleeting memory of a special time in your life. Maybe bliss will be thinking back to a group hug with your family when your son or daughter achieved something that didn’t seem major at the moment, but represented a moment of bliss, because it was a small achievement on the way to something life-changing.

Enjoy bliss in your life. Choose to BE HAPPY NOW..

Suggested Resources

• Book: Wild World, Joyful Heart by Laurie Warren
• Book: Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment by Moneeka Sawyer
• App: Insight Timer

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