To See The World As A Child: Thoughts on Adult Life Today and The Inner Child

Children have a way of seeing things adult minds. If you show an adult a daffodil, they will call it a “flower.” If you show a child, a daffodil they might call it a “flower” or they might call it a “star” or a “face.” And who is to say they’re wrong? Perhaps our stuck adult minds have it wrong. Perhaps that is why so many of us are so stuck in the same patterns, unable to change, unable to grow, unable to live in wonder.

When my defenses are down, I am still a child at heart. I want nothing more than to be nurtured and accepted. I can see wonders where others don’t. On these days my soul is a guest house, it lets it all in, love, hate, beauty, ugliness without discrimination, but with acceptance.

But my inner child is terrified. Yours is probably too. It wants badly to protect itself, badly to feel safe. When it feels unsafe, it fights. Vulnerability is its enemy. Strength needs to be shown, my adult voice says, over and over. To be an expert, to feel powerful, to accumulate are the only ways through this life. I’ve thought about this with regard to money. What is money but a symbol of power, an infantile desire to feel safe above all else? If money was about security and freedom, the drive to accumulate it would be tempered. Like Thoreau, we would be happy to have a home, food…