How To-46: "How to Embrace Your Inner Child"

How to Embrace Your Inner Child

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Remember what it was like to be kid, running around without a care in the world? Well, stop remembering and start embracing your inner child! Here are some ideas for reconnecting with the trusting, fun-loving and perceptive part of you that may just have disappeared under piles of hard work and life's trials.

Steps

1. Retry the things you loved doing as a kid. Such things include going to the playground, the toy aisle or a cartoon movie session.
   
2. Stop obsessing over the small things. Kids are carefree! Let go of worries and see if the world around you tumbles. You'll be surprised that it doesn't. And maybe you'll regain some clarity and perspective.
   
3. Kids are able to feel something intensely and then move on quickly from it. Try it. Feel what you feel without judging the feeling ("I shouldn't feel this way") so that you can move on from that feeling without holding onto it. It works!
   
4. If you have kids, do the stuff they like to do. Swing with them or trick-or-treat with them. Look at the world through their eyes. Build castles and mud highways with them. Get dirty, blow bubbles, toss balls over the neighbor's fence and fetch them back sheepishly. Jump rope and eat snack-sized puddings.
   
5. Stop obsessing over calories. Have a lollipop. Have a chocolate fudge coated something that looks so fattening it just screams "eat me". Run around madly afterwards as a kid would do and you'll soon burn off those calories!
   
6. Never say the phrase "I'm too old". Try "I'm in my middle youth" instead.
   
7. Turn everyday chores into something fun:
   
• Doing the laundry? Lie in the basket of warm laundry; well, your head at least!
  
• Digging holes outside? Play in the mud.
  
• Cleaning your room? Dance to some music.
  
• Decorating? Paint rude words on the wall before you hang the wallpaper over it.
  
• Shoveling snow? Play in the snowbanks or build a snowman. Throw a snowball at your grumpy old neighbor's porch.
  
• Cooking for supper? Gather some creativity, imagination, and inspiration. Mix weird tastes for a different culinary delight.
  
• Doing the garden? Get yourself dirty. This is what you can do to bring out the inner kid in yourself.
  
8. Come back to Earth gently. Sure, you will eventually have to return to responsible adulthood. But learn from the fun that childhood teaches. Learn to always cast back your memory to fun childhood times and the things that made you feel safe, fulfilled and happy. Build on those memories in a way that allows you to be the responsible adult influenced for the better by the carefree child inside.

Tips

• It is probably not a great idea to "act like a kid" at work unless you work in an especially creative place. Some bosses and colleagues will likely be spooked by sudden rash changes such as turning up to work on a scooter dressed in polka dot shorts. Then again, maybe it's just the shake-up everyone else needs too.
  
• While seeking your inner child again, don't ignore your responsibilities as an adult towards your children. When you are responsible for children yourself, behaving irresponsibly around them is an absolute no-no. You are still the adult and you have examples to set and teach them. This means attending to their safety at all times and not exposing them to dangerous conduct. In other words, if you want to bungee jump, leave the kids at home.
  
• Just remember, you can embrace your inner as long as you want. Don't let the adult world make you grow out of loving the happiness and freedom of a child.
  
• You don't stop having fun when you get old, you get old when you stop having fun.

Warnings

• Always beware those who scold your "immaturity" and "childishness". Possibly jealous of your newfound wisdom, they're also likely to be afraid of change - yours, theirs, anyone's.
  
• Keep in mind that as an adult, you will be held directly responsible for any rules you break.
  
• This activity is also called exploring a child within you. It precedes the next step of exploring the healer within you in Reiki. You can explain your detractors of the healing aspects of this activity.

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