KEEP THAT CHILD IN YOU ALIVE!

Do yourself a favour – Keep that child in you alive

I am writing this piece, in the muggy Singapore weather, waiting in a serpentine queue at the Universal Studios. Why? Because my daughter and I just have to be on that roller coaster.

By the time our turn comes, we’re just grateful to sit. But once it begins, and we can feel the wind in our hair, we hold on tight to the bars and shriek. As in really scream our lungs out. 

Before we know, the ride ends and we look at each other. I can see the reflection of my happiness on the little one’s face. The fatigue is forgotten and there’s an intense pure joy that fills me.

This…this ability to switch over to being childlike is something I treasure in myself. Often when I say childlike it’s mistaken as childish. Let me make it very clear, I’m not immature, just in touch with the child in me. And that certainly doesn’t mean I am not a grown up. I believe, the two states can coexist.

A child experiences joy and pain with an intensity that we as grown-ups often lose. And it doesn’t take much to make them happy. We look for spectacular happiness and anything less than that, makes us sulk. But look at a child… a sunbeam from the window or someone blowing bubbles on the road, are enough to make them clap their hands gleefully.

When was the last time that you experienced sheer, unbridled joy of that magnitude and that with something that simple? What is it that made your eyes widen with wonder and excitement? If you can’t recall it, I’d say get in touch with that child in you. Seek her out from the deep dark crevices where she lays hidden.

Do something every day, or at least once a week, that you used to love as a kid. It could be anything…. from a bus ride sitting on the window seat, drawing, painting, reading silly stuff, playing hopscotch, skipping, the hula hoop….

And when you do that, relish the feeling like a chocolate filled cake. The way you’d enjoy the first bite in anticipation of that gooey warm chocolate inside…. and then allow that chocolate to swirl in your mouth. Try this trick, and you’ll feel the after-taste lingering in your mouth for the rest of the day.

Being childlike is a blessing so don’t smother it. Express yourself, giggle, better still laugh out loud. Look at the world with a twinkle in the eye. You will feel happier and lighter. You’ll experience a sense of equanimity and calm. And if you are a parent, the added advantage is that you will connect and bond with your child far more effectively.

If I have still been unable to convince you, let me leave you with a verse from the Bible.

I quote,

‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’

-Matthew 18:3

I leave you with these thoughts as my daughter beckons me to join her in the next ride. Whooooopiee…

Dr. Shivani Salil
(www.shivaniwrites.in)

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