If we are not practiced in saying yes to life, then we can forget about bliss — we just want relief! Relief from our hectic lives, from our negative self-talk, from our perpetual fatigue. I used to think that I just had the thermostat set too low, at Relief, and that with a little more practice, I would easily move on up to Bliss. Instead, it turns out that the road to bliss and the road to relief head in completely different directions.
Relief isn’t much; it’s only an interruption of discomfort. It leads to a nice rest stop with a turnaround that plops you right back on the same road. Bliss, however, is the superhighway to the juiciness of life. As my musician friends Bev Daugherty and Garnett Hundley sing, “Live flat out, eat it all up with a spoon!” Having a high bliss tolerance means you’re willing to be pleased by life. And the better it gets, the more you can stand. In this scenario, you anticipate benevolence and are expanded by your experience. When you are consistently grateful, it’s impossible to feel like a victim; you know that no matter how well it may be disguised, you can find the blessing in whatever’s going on.
— Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity, p. 140