There are times in our lives when we are called to step forward to embrace something new. Perhaps “new” is the promotion we didn’t think we were capable of taking on and which still seems to be calling us. Perhaps “new” is the approach or behaviour that we know is needed if we are to be successful yet which stimulates fear or “just doesn’t feel like me”. Perhaps “new” is to recognise the relationship that isn’t working or the time to move on.

Amongst the most challenging callings is the call to recognise the need not just for a minor tweak in our lives but for a major re-examination. Such times have included the moment of recognising that all the actions you have taken have done nothing to make your unhappy marriage a place of mutual understanding or the moment of recognising that no amount of success in your current career has stilled the voice that is calling you to something different and, as yet, unknown. Sometimes the calling is to recognise that it’s time to stop thinking that it is a change in your outer circumstances (new job, new partner, new body parts…) that will make the difference that you yearn for and to start addressing what you bring that creates a repeated pattern of unhappiness.

The moment of recognition can bring fear and excitement in equal measure: fear to that part of us which yearns for stability, safety, security; excitement to that part of us which yearns to embrace and express our full potential, that part of us which knows what it means to be alive. Of course, it’s easy to dismiss one part or the other, to be guided by the fear or by the excitement alone. In truth, both parts have a role – a part – to play.

I think of this this today as I reflect on the day’s coaching appointments and the challenges my clients are currently facing. And I smile as I recall the phrase that Joseph Campbell uses in his powerful book The Power of Myth. In this book he describes the process of responding to your inner calling and the quality of living that can follow when you are guided by your inner voice, calling on a wide range of mythological stories to illustrate his point of view.

For Campbell, to respond to your inner calling is to follow your bliss, a phrase which needs no further explanation.