Eric left 6 week ago. As you know from my last article, I was eager to improve my health.
Well?! I have. I’ve actually been wine/alcohol-free for 6 weeks, enjoying a more consistent yoga practice, increased work-out schedule and eating a wee bit earlier each evening, to avoid a full belly pre-bed. Every morning I rise between 4.45-5.30am (except Saturdays)! so I can squeeze in my exercise and study. I don’t think I can remember a time when I have been so focused on my health and wellness.
I feel terrific. Of course my positive set- point is occasionally hampered by the odd cross moment or mood, usually brought on by one tantrum too many by 7 year old Sophie, or watching, once again, my cheeky cocker spaniel pee on the pool area right in front of me. But on the whole, my zest and sense of gratitude for everyday pleasures has increased remarkably, even prompting Sophie to observe, “Mum, you’re acting just like a kid. I love it!”
After said, those words rolled around in my mind, like a child sucking a boiled sweetie. I decided they were, in fact, very true. We’ve enjoyed cycling into cooler evenings on our bikes, playing piggy and horsey rides, cartwheels (mine usually ending in crash landings), spa night, sleepovers in my room and an all-round pretty gleeful childish time, with all household adults removed, bar me.
Sleepover in mummy’s room
In effect I feel more child-like, yet with all the empowering benefits bestowed upon adulthood.
Inspired by Sophie, I even wrote a list of all the things I most enjoyed doing thirty-ahem-years ago. Our inner child never really dies. The instinctive loves we indulge in as children remain with us for a lifetime, like buds tended to, in the hope they’ll flourish and reach potential as adults.
Yet self-sabotage, diluting our playful energy for a more sober or ‘responsible’ approach to life and/or becoming allured or addicted by our consumer-driven climate to drugs, alcohol, food- just about anything we can fill our bodies and minds with- can often find their cunning ways into our lives, swerving us off and away from the path our childhood dreams initiated.
Who We Are-that raw, juvenile essence- gets covered up with learned behaviors, and silly words such as ‘should’ begin to crop up in our everyday language and self-talk.
With this growing awareness sprang said list of my favorite things as a child:-
Writing letters with ink pens
Reading historical fiction, and anything Roald Dahl
Tennis
Riding my bike
Writing stories, wired with imagination
Summer evenings passed in the garden, with sweaty games of soccer or rounders.
Eating ice-cream in the sun
Long walks
Belonging to a space of worship
Nostalgic movies including ‘Grease,’ ‘Sound of Music’ & ‘Back to the Future’
Continental Holidays, usually consisting of a ferry ride from Dover- Calais
Camping
Sunday Roasts
Pick n’ Mix Sweeties
I’m even detoxing from shopping and spending. In the absence of indulgence, I’m experiencing how these things actually hamper my energy and enthusiasm for life.
Sometimes the things we presume are bringing us joy are really the perpetrators of our distress.
I’ve now room and mounting desire to reignite and celebrate simple pleasures, introducing my inner child to my own children: Nine year old Yvette meets nine year old son, Alex. So there’s not only a new resonance to Me, but to my children too.
About half listed have been relished thus far.
This article, in fact, rather than being punched out mechanically on the keyboard has been drafted in full by hand. As my pen swirls in cursive, the words seem to fall on the page more fluidly, uncensored and organically sourced from my spirit to page, unobstructed by my clunky keyboard skills.
I’m reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ too, as I Facebooked, ‘the classics never grow old.’ Inner nerd Yvette is quietly delighting, finally given expression once more.
What would you include on your list? And how many of those childhood passions do you engage in regularly? We needn’t seek out a psychic or our astrological chart to ask what our life purpose is, but merely check in with that little girl or boy who thrives in us still, waiting patiently for acknowledgment and expression.
Simon says its playtime.
Namaste