Listen now | Explorations on letting go as parents, turning inwards to nurture the inner child and more, with special guests: Dr. Rao and Kristen Brown
Hello and good morning friends! Happy Monday. I'm Coach Kate coming to you with another episode of our Exploration hour. I host this space weekdays as well as the minute explorations, and I am so excited to grow in this space with you all. This space is all about what things we stumble upon that excite us, intrigue us, or that we can dive into and explore together. I usually find a quote, or a piece of literature, or even art or perspective, that makes me go, hmmm and makes me want to learn or explore more. So this space is all about that! If that sounds like something you would be interested in too, feel free to give me a follow so we can explore together.
So today's exploration was inspired by my son. He is finishing up the fourth grade this week and it made me remember so much of my life when I was in fourth grade that was radically different than his. There is so much that is radically different about life in general for all of us even after the last few years. It made me think of this forward march of time, the loss of youth, and the ability to push forwards and create new world ahead too. When we are Children we are open to this great magical potential of life, where we get to create our worlds, and then we do. We think we lose this sense of youth, curiosity, and power overtime, but the truth is, we realize it then we simply pass it down to those who will need it next: our children. So today, we are going ot talk about youth: our own, our inner child, and then the future too!
Here is a poem on Children by Kahil Gibran -- a Lebanese-American author, poet, philosopher, and artist. He was well known for his bridging and blending of Lebanese life, culture, religion, and perspective with An American one. Often pulling inspiration from various religious texts, and both Arab and American authors and artists alike. From this blending, he shows a very unique perspective on Lebanese -American culture from the late 19th to early 20th century-- and this plays out in many of his art and writings too. He was on the cusp of change, and could see how the future looked so different ahead. This poem of his that I'm sharing with you all today, encapsulates just that: not only a bridging of culture, ideas, and religion, but a generational bridging as well. Here it is.
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.
It's a lovely poem because it shows us that our role in life is both the arrow and the bow and that the trajectory ahead is infinite. When we are young, we lead the way with the infinite energy that is propelling us into the future. We are creating our realities, our lives, and our dreams all together at once. The thing that is also important is that we are building up our inner child during these phases, and why is that so important? Because our inner child remembers what it's like to be a child, explores things with love and purpose, and then connects us both to the other inner children others have fostered, and then also real life children too. When we shut down that inner child within us, we also shut down the ability to connect to the most foundational parts of ourselves, and also others too. When we remember that everyone either was a child, or is still currently a child, it connects us a a nurturing empathetic way. And that helps us to see that we are all just going through life for the first time together, and that we're all just trying to figure it out, no matter our age.
Nurturing that inner child and helping ourselves grow in empathy, love, compassion, and understanding to ourselves is just as essential. Self-love is loving that inner child, finding the peace that connects you to that part of you that is just figuring life out for the first time. If you are struggling with this, it can look like several things: negative self-talk, questioning self worth, being overly critical with ourselves, sabotage, and more. So how do we fix it? By acknowledging that child within, that also needs our love.
Here's an exercise we can all do together. And if you have other exercises you'd like to explore, the door it open today to share your thoughts.
Here it goes:
Think of you, young you. Child you, print out a picture of you in your youth, or draw one of you as a child, and sit it by your bed, or your bathroom mirror, or another place where you feel that that negatively lives, and then see yourself as a child. That's still you. That person in the picture is only separated from you by time, by mere years. That's it. Now ask yourself, would you let someone speak to a child the way you speak to yourself? Really look at that picture of you, young you, baby you. Would you be that critical to someone is just learning how to bumble through life for the first time? Absolutely not. You are growing, you are learning, and you have space and room to grow and learn through life through love and understanding too.
We are all just figuring it our for the first time. All of us. No matter what stage of life we're in, or where we were, or even where we are headed. This isn't our second rodeo, this will always be the first. And the sooner we realize we need to also take care of that inner child so that we can walk through this life with compassion for ourselves, we will then be able to draw back that bow, and launch compassion into the future to our children, and our children’s children too. Although the worlds ahead of us, aren't for us, we are the builders of that future, and it starts with all of us, right here, and by honoring the inner child within
I'm Coach Kate. Thank you for listening today to another episode of my Exploration Hour. If you liked what you heard today, feel free to give me a follow. I have this space on weekday mornings and I love sharing it with all of you here. Feel free to dive into some of my other talks on the talk tab in my profile, and subscribe to my newsletter through the link in my bio for this talk delivered right into your inbox daily with some other cool bonuses too.
Here's to the all the inner children out there, may we build a beautiful future, from the inside out.
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