The Child Inside

Children have been on my mind and in my world a lot lately. I love children because they are so free, sweet, playful, loving, and honest. It's no wonder I have chosen to build my life's work around them. People often ignore them and their needs because they can't see how much more they know about the important things in life than we give them credit for knowing. Perhaps it's because children readily reveal their true emotions and feelings that adults deem them irrelevant. The truth is, children tell the world what adults keep hidden even from themselves. As I observe these small people expressing fear, pain, discomfort, and even joy, I recognize aspects of the child within us that we adults conceal.

Many of us carry emotions around which may have developed back in childhood, but we have been taught to bury. This is especially obvious with men because they were told that "big boys don't cry" or "real men don't show emotion." Women also learn that they must be "tough" in order to be successful yet "demure" so as to attract a man. Most of us are unable to be as free and honest as children are and this can often hinder the development of real connections and relationships, even with ourselves.

I find myself wondering how many of us recognize that much of our behavior as adults stem from events that occurred in our "formative years" or earlier. Formative is defined as sensitive or impressionable, capable of forming new cells, and that includes the brain. There's a sensitive child still living in all of us, and what we experienced during childhood still effects us today.

Children are uninhibited and get to be exactly who they are without judgement... until they reach a certain age. Then adults begin to tell them that they can no longer behave certain ways because they are "big boys or girls." If these little ones knew how stifling this could become as an adult, they might just rebel and refuse to grow up like Peter Pan. How confusing these messages must be to them. We tell them that honesty is the best policy, but they can't be honest about who they are and what they feel if it doesn't match the status quo.

I think we should reintroduce ourselves to the children inside of us and decide to unchain all that we've locked up. We should let go of all of the pain, rejection, humiliation, feelings of abandonment and disappointment that torture us, and allow the uninhibited, fun, playful, loving, sweet, and honest child to reveal herself. Some of you may think you don't have children, but there's one in all of us. Set him free. Love and light.