You’re so diligent, responsible and mature – reading blogs like this, and thinking about how to progress your life and how to unleash your potential and all. You take life kinda seriously, don’t you?
Yeah, I know… me too.
And sometimes that’s the reason you and I get stuck. We stopped playing. Remember playing…?
So this week, leading your life is all about remembering what you loved doing as a child. There are so many treasures to mine in those rememberings… getting back in touch with what your Essential Self loves, reconnecting with feeling safe, relaxed and carefree, finding your way back to who you were before you were shaped by school systems and other institutions, recovering your big dreams, and reminding yourself what it feels like to be in “the flow” and lose track of time because you’re so absorbed in your play.
Some things I loved doing as a child:
- Collecting tiny pink periwinkle shells at Miller’s Point beach (I mean tiny, like 2mm). I’d walk the beach and comb the piles of broken shells and collect all the perfectly whole, tiny fuschia pink periwinkle shells. I could do it for hours. I don’t think I even did anything with them. They were too small to thread, and I can’t remember keeping them – it’s just the process of searching and finding these little treasures that was compelling for me.
- Poking Sea Anemones, catching Klipvis in a net, teasing octopuses with crab meat and watching Sea Horses. I was lucky to grow up in Cape Town, where we spent every holiday at the coast, and I would go down to the beach and spend the whole day finding and being fascinated by sea creatures in the rock pools. Did you ever put your finger into a sea anemone and have it’s sticky little tentacles and soft body close around your finger? Awesome!
- Creating lifestyles for my Forest Families. Unlike my girlfriends, I was never into role-playing or having puppet shows with my forest families. I preferred to play alone and dream up detailed life stories and environments for each of my Forest Families. Down to the tiny details, like making food for them out of clay, and making teeny tiny little cards (with messages!) that the forest families sent each other at Christmas time.
- Listening to adult conversation. My mother would take us to visit her friends and their kids for tea, and the kids would all be playing and fighting in the next room and I would do my best to sit quietly and silently in the hope that my mother wouldn’t notice me sitting with them in the lounge. And often I got away with it for a little while, and then I’d get to hear all the juicy grown-up conversation about the stuff they were stressed out about, how their husbands were pains in the asses, and the gossip about other mothers and their children – stuff they never spoke to us kids about. But as soon as she noticed I was there, she’d evict me and tell me to go and play with the other kids, so this joy was always rather short-lived.
- I spent a lot of time absorbed in art-making as a child. My favourite medium in pre-school was starch paintings. The teacher would mix up a big bowl of thick, sticky starch, which she colored with food dye, and then we’d each get a big dollop of starch on a piece of card, which we’d smear all over the card. Then we’d draw in it with our fingers, and leave the starch picture to set. Throughout my schooling I went to private art classes once or twice every week, and I’d spend most of my spare time, and even into the night, making art. Art-making allowed me to make thoughts and feelings tangible and to express them in a way that made them seem valuable. I still have every picture I ever made at art class, and it’s like a diary of my life.
What are some things you loved doing as a child?
Go there, let your memories meander, and play there a while. Be really specific and remember all the details of what made it so compelling for you.
When you’ve done that, re-read your notes and ask yourself these questions:
- Do you notice any themes? If you’re considering changing your work, are there any hints here about what directions might be good to explore? Some of my themes: finding normally unnoticed treasures (“mining resources?”), being fascinated with what’s beneath the surface, lifestyle design, hearing the “secret” stories that we don’t normally tell the whole world, and creating things and experiences that didn’t exist before.
- How much of what you loved doing as a child do you still do? When I did this exercise, I really felt drawn to spend time at the sea, watching sea animals!
- How can you incorporate more of what you loved doing as a child into your life now?
Our Essential Selves are much closer to the surface as children, before we’ve been tamed. Remembering what you loved doing as a child is one of the best ways to re-discover the parts of yourself that are truly and essentially YOU.
Enjoy the exercise. And do share… I’m looking forward to reading your comments on this one!
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Photo by shashchatter
