The Death And Revival of the Child in You

Disclaimer

I'm currently traveling my way home via a train, and i saw something that particularly reminded me of a friend I made recently who mentioned this idea of "Inner Child" and now more than ever I felt the need to let it out before the idea fades away from the head just like the ones which did.

Also, I'm not a psychologist but a mere learner and observer so if you find an idea that you resonate with, feel free to take it with you. My views are mixed with the conversation with that friend, my life experiences and the books I read with the content i have consumed so far.

The Story

I saw 2 kids sitting right in front of me playing around - they are loud, and they have this curiosity for things. Both the kids were messing around with the light switch above their seats. Once it worked for them, they called their dad in with enthusiasm "look! the light's on!", "look dad!". Their father smiled at them, acknowledging that "yes, you got it!".

That small gesture of acknowledgment... think about it.

As of me writing this article/blog/whatever, their father is taking care of them, looking at his kids and being curious, the genuine curiosity in the most "boring" things they have to showcase him. The constant attention they get from him... for the literal "boring stuff".

We are grown ass adults and we carry so many things, we have been curious before but not as much now. We don't play around like we used to..

What has changed? The answer is straight forward; our environment.

The Culture and the Death of the Inner child

When a child is learning how to walk, or learning to speak, each effort made is rewarded with "OMG!", "This is lovely!", "Keep Going", the constant encouragement makes the child follow the same behavior, make more efforts, and eventually with enough time and practice, overcome his/her failures and proceeds to be good at it.

As we grow up, that encouragement fades away and we are left with complaints – the constant expectations from the society which leaves us wondering and no, this is not motivating but on the contrary; it's draining.

When the ratio of Positive Encouragements and Complaints mess up, we mess up and eventually our performance which leads to a cycle as when things mess up more, the complaints will rise, and the positive encouragements will be lesser with time.

The more we grow, the ratio suffers, and the External Validation slowly screws us as we have learned to have that since childhood but not many have been privileged to grow out of it to get the same from themselves.

When we experience more and more failures but don't have a positive outlook, one will get burned out and eventually stop trying and the idea of Learned Helplessness comes into the picture.

Learned helplessness is a psychological state where individuals stop trying to improve their situation, believing they lack control over outcomes due to past unavoidable stressful experiences.

Source: Google Search

How to revive the inner child

We all have that one thing that we like to do and not give a flying fuck about what anyone else thinks of it.

That my friend, is what I believe is where the answer lies.

If we are able to enter in a state of flow for a few things regardless of their nature and even if it drains you, and the time it takes feels nothing when you are actually deep into it, that I believe is the key to connecting to what your soul craves.

If you don't know what it can be for you, I want you to do some deep introspection and look for answers, and really think about it regardless of how "boring" it is.

As long as you do things that you are able to connect your soul with, you'll no longer need the external validation and find happiness or joy in just doing them regardless of the outcome. The journey becomes more important than the destination.

Do things that make you happy, find people who resonate with those things, and do stuff together and build a circle around it. The environment will become a positive motivator and will help you remove the friction in doing things that you want to.

That's how you'll not only fix your inner validation stuff but also create an environment that encourages that behavior and what can be better than people encouraging you to do your own shit and be proud of you for who you are and what you do than to make you do and be somebody you are not.

The journey is hard and I'm too new for this shit lol but I believe hitherto that this is what I need to do as well.

I have discovered a few things which I like to do as well and trying to remove friction to make it even better.

You will fail again, and that is okay

Failure is inevitable when you are doing things. There's always a non-zero chance of failure as long as you are alive. Remind yourself that it is an indicator of progress and you gotta keep going regardless cause that's exactly what we are supposed to do. You gotta be you and do you. Do your fucking best.

Okay, that's it for me, my train journey has come to an end, and so is this article. Hope you learned something interesting haha.

May the peace be with you ❤️.