Do you remember what you were like as a child?
What made you happy? What did you love to do?
Think for a moment about your favorite memories of yourself. Did you twirl around in a tutu? Dress up as a superhero? Take portrait photos of your best friend?
Well, it’s time to bring it all back.
Today, I’m going to invite you to spend some time with your younger self through a simple exercise to help you bring back some lessons from childhood.
This exercise is a fun way to do some deep healing work on yourself, AND to have more fun for the rest of your life. (for real).
Step 1. Get a Pen and Paper
This is most useful if you actually write everything down. Get a sheet of paper and a pen (or a crayon) and draw a line through the middle of the page, creating a top and a bottom half.
so far so good?
Step 2. Remembering your younger self
Fill the top half of the page with all of your best memories from your childhood. What did you love to do? What could keep you occupied for hours?
Did you create operas for your friends to act in? Quietly study ants? Collect shells at the beach?
What do you admire about yourself at that age?
Step 3. How can you bring this back?
You may not still want to dress up like superman (or maybe you do), but how can you bring more play into your life? More you into your life?
If you made up dance routines to Michael Jackson songs, how can you fit this into your current world? Take a salsa class? Solo dance parties in your living room?
Did you love playing with Play-dough? Get a lump of clay!
Fill the bottom half of your page with ways you can infuse your life with more of your personality, more of your deepest interests, more you.
As you can see, for me playing with wooden blocks becomes building wooden furniture, being LOUD! becomes speaking my mind (when did I forget how to do that?), and painting my face becomes wearing colorful clothing. These little changes have all made my life more enjoyable.
What are you going to bring back? How can you be more of your uniquely awesome self? I’d love to hear some of your insights in the comments below : )
What I witnessed was how quickly I filled up the top half of the page, there were so many things I loved as a child from eating Greek and Polish cuisine at my neighbors houses to making up great stories of adventure. I liked to learn new things and meet new people. I remembered making a pole horse from an old sock and some felt ears and eyes then filling up a strong box with silver treasure (cut up aluminum pot pie holders) and burying it. I love to build things, color things and pretend I was a horse cause I love the feeling of power and freedom. In the summer months I swam everyday and as an adult I love the Water Aerobics class at my gym. I see how my love of stories and adventures is taking me back to reading the classics. I am in the middle of Daniel Defoe’s ROBINSON CRUSOE right now. I just signed up for a hand building clay class that starts next week and I find I am so excited I can hardly sit still waiting. Thanks for this exercise, it was a great reminder of how much child actually lived inside my elder body.
Elaine,
It’s so wonderful to hear all of the fun, creative, and adventurous things you experienced as a child, and to see how it is still present in your life today. Thank you for sharing!