Your Inner Child

Nurture. Reclaim. Heal. Love. Get in touch with. You’ve seen all the book titles of what you are supposed to do with your Inner Child.

Remember when the “inner child” was the popular, spiritual, new-agey buzz phrase? (1980’s?) Back then my sister-in-law, Rachel, and I would dream about replacing our jobs with nurturing our inner child and getting paid for it. There are sooo many books to read, much wisdom to ponder, many wounds to heal. And because, really, it is a full time job to take care of a child. Right?

I’ve been thinking about that inner child lately. Not too deeply (that’s for a counseling and spiritual direction 🙂 ), but in a laugh-out-loud-jump-for-joy-look-forward-to-fun-stuff-and-even-a-melancholy sort of way.

So I’ve been pondering my Inner Child SoulCollage® card. I selected images for the card that brought back positive childhood memories; that represented what it’s like to be a goofy-filled-with-wonder-and-curiosity child.

Recently, at my Journey to Wisdom retreat, I looked to this card for insight on how to deal with some very adult life issues.  I noticed there were words and images that screamed, “Look!”…little girls looking in a mirror, at nature, through lemons; even the word “Look” on a book. Also  the Santa image made me think about how children “look” so forward to Christmas morning surprises. Perhaps Santa has a lesson for grown-ups– to look at life through the eyes of a child, to not over-think things, to have fun, to be filled with anticipatory joy, Vorfreude.

“Vorfreude, a German word meaning “anticipatory joy”, captures that bursting-with-excitement, overflowing-with-enthusiasm, oh-my-God-I-can-hardly-wait-for-the-awesomeness-to-come state of being. Sometimes there really are no words to explain our feelings.” ~ from Anticipatory Joy ~Vorfreude, my first blog post.

So I think I can nurture my inner child by creating moments to look forward to, by just being goofy and laughing more. Life provides many of those moments. Recently I posted about walking…and the sweat that results. (See Sweat is Good?) For the next several days, following a Facebook diagnosis of a sweat problem, the following ads kept appearing in my newsfeed:

This ad makes me laugh whenever I see it! So don’t sweat it…or go ahead and sweat, whatever works for you. Let your inner child out to play today. Do something fun. Laugh out loud. 🙂 Looking at adult issues through the eyes of a child might just bring a little more joy and humor to your life.

“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”~ Mark 10:15