Releasing your Inner Child...

People are always saying “Release Your Inner Child!!”  Bearded, bespectacled gentlemen in beige cardigans with patches on the elbows, or middle-aged women dressed as gypsies and calling themselves “Madame Virtue” or similar.

You can even hear the multiple exclamation marks and they speak, all glassy eyed and knowing…

I doubt they mean “Lose control of your bowels and return to nappies!!” -  entertaining as that may be (and somewhat inevitable, if you live long enough).

Usually it involves a whole list of exhortations to look at the world with more wonder, explore more, indulge in some play time, be more curious, climb a tree and re-read Dr. Seuss (and perhaps even Asterix…)

That is all wonderful stuff and I do them all without anyone having to encourage me – especially climbing trees and reading Asterix…

…but there is another important aspect to the Inner Child that I think gets missed.  It has been highlighted as I have had the chance to observe, on a daily basis, a small child who has not yet learned about manners, expectations, roles, jealousies, career advancement, politics, etc. etc. etc. (ie: no Life Skills at all… ;-) ).

It is Simplicity.  Of intentions, desires, actions, everything.

If Madeline wants a hug, she runs up and gives you one.  If she doesn’t, she will push you away.  If she wants to eat something she does.  If she doesn’t want to, she refuses it.  If she wants something she goes and gets it – crawling over Mum, Dad, the cat, the dog, the couch, toys, fields of broken glass, anything to obtain it. 

Sleepy?  Go to sleep.  Need a poo?  Just go.  Don’t want to talk?  She doesn’t.  Sad?  Cry.  Happy?  Laugh.  Excited?  Squeal.  Mad?  Squeal like a Banshee and roll on the ground…

Simple.

Sigh…

As you grow older it seems the bright, keen edge of your intentions and actions gets blunted and frayed by competing expectations – ambition, politics (family, friends, workplace), greed, rationalisation, fear, mislaid senses of duty and more.  Life gets complicated and all “Grown up”.

It has struck me recently just how unnecessary so much of that is.  We choose to complicate things – or at least choose a whole raft of behaviours that MAKE things complicated.  It slows us down and ties us up in knots, blurs our focus and leaves us a touch confused and conflicted.

Well, that's what it does to me anyway.  Seems to happen to others I talk to as well.

We can learn from the youngest among us – whose motivations are as yet pure and unadulterated.  There is balance of course – we should not throw ourselves to the ground in a screaming fit if there is no ice cream in the fridge.  Well, we can, but it may well be... Ah stuff it, go ahead.  Do it.

If you get the chance to watch a very young child for any length of time, look for the transparency in their wants, activities and communications.  The direct link between What I Want and What I Do, with little or no fear or concern for what others think.

With discipline we grown-ups can replicate that simple honesty in our own lives and create for ourselves a refreshing simplicity.  It is surprisingly hard work, but any of that work I have done so far has been well worthwhile.

I am certainly no believer but one of the great (and blessedly short) sayings attributed to Jesus was his suggestion to “Make your Yes mean Yes and your No mean No.”.

Not childish but childlike.

Simple…