Remember How to Disinfect Your Mind Too
Be more like children
Adults who grow up too early spend their lives trying to recapture their magical childhoods.
“Where can you find police officers, veterinarians, office workers, princesses, karate instructors, and chefs all happily working side-by-side?” asks Bright Horizons in their article.
And the only response that could ever answer such a clever question is, “In a dramatic play area of a classroom, of course.”
Don’t forget the magic of play.
Children’s quintessential capacity to BE any ‘thing’ they want to be is well known. Ask any parent, this kind of child play in the early years — at home or in a classroom — is priceless. It just melts your heart. And if you have boys… oh! you melt and meld so often in a day that …
Oh, sorry. I was blessed with two little boys and to this day cannot get over what being with them every day, raising them and learning from them did to my heart.
But, maybe you had girls… I reckon the same goes for being blessed with little girls, and I wish I knew first hand so that I wouldn’t be so biased about little boys.
The truth is, all children, little boys, and little girls, in whichever part of the world they lay scattered are the most precious resources we have and they’re the best teachers we could ask for.
Children? Good teachers?
Children's role-playing has always been thought of as cute fun at the earlier years but, sadly enough, as the child grows in years and learns to be part of a community, child-play is considered limiting, with limited educational value.
But I contest, and so does Bright Horizons in the article I mentioned above, there is value in pretending and visualizing.
It’s just a pity how soon children are made to give it up for more ‘valuable’ lessons for their future.
In the midst of creating something together with friends or siblings, clomping around in their parents’ big old shoes, or twirling and imitating in fairytale-land inhabited by unicorns and dragons and Pikachus. Don’t forget to remember the imagination of a child, where learning occurs through play and everything is possible. Unicorns are real fantastical creatures and Pikachu shares real-life energy jolted straight from a cartoon screen. Children are learning:
- To solve problems
- To coordinate
- To cooperate
- To think flexibly;
- They’re relieving stress
- They’re seeing the world like little Buddhas
- They’re teaching us to see the world like Buddhas too
Society rips children away from these healthy games much too early and turns them into little adults by exposing them to adult things much too fast.
Q: Where have all the children gone?
A: Children have grown up too early.
Some cultures encourage, or rather exploit, children to grow up too fast. The speed necessary to succeed leaves us with immature grown-ups living adult lives, but who didn’t receive the joy of being able to play.
It’s in society’s hands to reconsider. We are society.
The truth of the matter is that children will imitate. They’ll imitate their parents and pay attention to the things grownups place value on and they will most certainly be paying attention to all the media hype.
It is true. We cannot contain their innocence until they have reached age eighteen (18), which, according to the government of The United States, is the official age of adulthood. We can’t contain it but neither should we want to stunt their normal growth trajectory.
When is a person grown-up?
When, exactly is a person grown-up? If we are to pinpoint a time must we also pinpoint an ability:
- Is it an age?
- A number?
- A certain skillset?
- An education level?
- What makes a grown-up — grown?
- When should a person be considered an adult?
I like the perspective of the advocates and of the writer, Jenn Savedge, who wrote the MNN article and brings this to light.
Remember to disinfect your mind too
Wash your hands. Wash them the right way! This is what we’ve been advised from the onset that by now, most of us have mastered the art of proper handwashing.
The reason the first part is about children is that we have much to learn from them and it’s really up to us to allow them to be children while they are children.
In this pandemic that’s prevalent in our lives today, our children’s lives too have been disrupted. I hear, or rather read a lot about parents going mad about having to ‘entertain’ their children all day long.
It must be hard for parents. It must be hard for children too. But as far as I recall, I never really had to find ways to ‘entertain’ my boys.
No, we didn’t live through quarantine so in that regard, you have the upper hand.
Most of the time it was them who entertained me. Umm, I’m sure that’s why I couldn’t get any writing done.
I do not have a workable solution for those parents at the moment, but I will give it some thought.
Let’s go to a place in our Now where you can safely disinfect your mind by showing you how fitting it is to be more like children.
Be more like children.
In this time of chaos, I’ve taken the liberty to devise a plan that could help you to disinfect your adult thinking by applying some of the lessons I learned from raising my two boys.
I can picture my big little Buddha saying to me:
“Wash your hands like this Mommy; Disinfect your mind like this Mommy.”
And, my second little Buddha parroting the same words.
It would behoove you, particularly in these terrible times we’re facing, as this could very well prove to be one more great way to BE.
Without further ado, here is the plan:
1. Visualize and Distance
Last time I offered you my thoughts on how to Conjure up that special place that brings you joy. Visualize it, evoke it with all your might, is what I suggested.
In that place open that window in your imagination and toss your tensions to the wind. Watch them flutter, drift off, float and shift into nothing.
Visualization works. It’s the first innate ability we cling to as children in all our pretend games.
Next, I want to suggest that you take it one step further by distancing yourself from Fear. Delve within and see a world where the only thing that exists is love. Love is light; fear is darkness. Make the light shine bright. Imagine it. And if you can imagine love then you’re distancing yourself from fear.
A new perception starts in your mind. Imagine it and Disinfect.
2. Stock up on your Buddha-nature
Turn on the television and you’ll be bombarded with news about the new virus that’s taking over and defeating us in huge numbers. It is all true. But please be selective about how much of this you let inside.
We know the situation, we’ve been told what to do — Yes, this time we needed to be told, so please don’t be reckless. Don’t be careless, prevention and precaution are key.
Now, I’m asking you to project from your holy place.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”― Mr. Fred Rogers
News programs don’t always spotlight the helpers but train your mind to seek them out. They are there, just like little Fred’s mother said they would be.
3. Deflate the Stress Triggers
Cell biologists, Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. tells that 95 percent of all illnesses and diseases are a direct cause of stress. And how that happens is that we churn on worst-case scenarios when we should be feeding our minds seeds of possibility.
Upon researching these words, I discovered some controversy about the good doctor. I don’t focus on his controversy, but his reasoning. I mention him anyway as I tend to agree with what he tells.
To foster a strong immune system we need to nourish our nervous system. Again, don’t be reckless, but please give rise to the remembrance that our bodies are resilient and that by feeding it calm thoughts the body’s superpowers come alive.
Walk the walk. Talk the talk.
These steps are not meant to cover up anything. Like you, I’m doing all I can to ward off this monster in our midst, mostly by walking the walk and talking the talk and sharing with you.
Try this for yourself. Share it with your loved ones. In time you’ll see how you’ll come to discard the negative elixir for a better one that arises from your happy place, the strongest potion that you carry with you all the time.
Later, I hope you drop me a line about how the disinfecting is going. Stay safe.
THANK YOU FOR READING I Wish You Miracles
Special thanks to Noma Dek, Sylvia Wohlfarth, for the inspiration of this piece.