I can always remember being young and continuously saying to my Dad, “Daddy, I can’t wait until I grow up and I have my Monday to Friday 9 to 5 job, until I earn my own money, have my own house, drive my own car, pay my own bills”. My Dad is a very wise man and his answer was always the same to me, “Leona, the years when you are young are the best days of your life, you have no responsibilities, no money worries, why would you want to wish them away?”

A very powerful and moving question. Why do so many of us look forward to growing up, to becoming an adult, to having more responsibilities in our own lives? Why do we wish our younger years, our childhood away? When did we all become so conditioned that being an adult is ‘fantastic’, is ‘excelling’, is the ‘desired place’ to be?

For so many of us, this conditioning is what has happened. As we progress from children to teenagers to young adults and on to perhaps parents and grandparents, we lose that precious connection, that amazing bond with our own inner selves, our inner child. We tend to get caught up in the seriousness of life, of the everyday stresses and strains, the finances, the worries, the health issues, the fears of the future, the ghosts and pains of the past. We can become very serious in ourselves. We often wade or float through any given day on complete autopilot, just going through the motions. We sometimes forget to or don’t feel that we can pause, that we smile, that we can laugh heartedly.

Sometimes, the ‘adultness’ and ‘seriousness’ of life is just so consuming that it completely hi-jacks us and it becomes all that we know. The memories of being care-free, of playing outside or in our imaginations, of embracing the aliveness and buzz of playing sports, of keeping fit and active, of being able to fight and argue with one another one minute and then literally kiss and make up the next and forget that any disagreement even happened in the first place, of just letting our imaginations take us to a place of pure happiness, of joy, of excitement, of creativity, of fun, gets completely lost and left behind as we transition into this ‘amazing’ stage of adulthood.

How many times have we been told or even told someone else to ‘grow up’ and ‘cop on’ when we were younger? When you think about this, how does ‘growing up and copping on’ like adult’s sound like the perfect scenario? Why do we always think that adults have got life so figured out, that we have all the answers and that we always know best?? If this is the case, then why are so many of us struggling to keep up with the pace of life? Why are we always looking for ways to self-help and self-heal? Why do we struggle so much to see the beauty and simplicity of life, of what life could be like, if we could just move our conditioned thoughts and minds over to make way for the happy and adventure filled lives that we could all have, if we just let ourselves?

This is where the importance of recognising, respecting, nurturing and caring for the inner child or the little me comes into play. As I work with adults and children, I get to witness first-hand the beauty and simplicity of how a child’s unconditioned mind works. In most cases, everything is very black or white for children, it either is or it isn’t. Whereas, with adults, we tend to create and get over-run by this grey area, nothing seems to be black or white anymore. But who makes it that way? Who creates all these what if’s and what but’s? We do, us adults and isn’t it our responsibility to be all grown up, to always know best and always have the ‘right’ answer?

Absolutely not!!! I learn the most in my life from my own children and from all the other children that I am blessed to work with. I love to watch how alive they are in their present moment. They have such an incredible ability to be fully present in their moment and to view and experience that very moment with pure curiosity, wonder and joy. They don’t get caught up in thinking ‘oh I really want to do a cart-wheel walking down the street but what if anyone see’s me?’. They simply live their desires, their impulses. They do that cartwheel and they don’t really care who sees them or what other people think. They simply feel the adrenaline and excitement of being alive in that very present moment.

As adults, we seem to have lost this ability. Our own inner child could be screaming so loud, that they need to have fun, to be set free, to be care-free, to laugh, to skip but our adult conditioned minds tells us that there is an email that needs to be sent, there’s a phone call that cannot wait to be made, there’s a load of washing to be hung out, there’s a dinner to be made. This is how the bond or connection with our inner child breaks down. Over time, our inner child gets tired of trying to be heard, to be recognised and nurtured. Just like a physical child would get tired of trying to get the attention of their busy parent or guardian and eventually stops trying to communicate and feels unwanted and unloved, our inner child can react the very same way.

I always ask people who I work with to imagine a physical child coming to you craving attention, seeking love, guidance, security, fun, a physical and loving hug or embrace. Would you push that physical child away and say “no, I’m too busy being an adult and being caught up in adult stuff?”. I cannot imagine that you would. I always explain that I would take this little child safely into my arms and hug and embrace them so securely and assure them that I will help them with whatever their need is at that time or any time. I would leave this little child feeling safe, loved, heard and secure in themselves and in me. I explain that this is how we need to visualise our own inner child. We need to create this safe, secure, loving and heard environment for our inner child too. We need to look after and nurture our inner child just like we would a physical child standing in front of us.

What is the worst that could happen? We might feel more connected and truer to ourselves? We might have some child like fun and innocence in life? We might be able to let go of some of the ‘adult’ worries and business that’s ‘so important’? We might actually experience the beauty and simplicity of every moment in our lives? We might start to experience the adrenaline and aliveness of having fun, of letting ourselves go, of laughing until our sides hurt, of getting down on the floor with our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and actually experience life from the most amazing and simple viewpoint?

I have learned to and love to be silly with my children and to try and have fun and play with them and it’s incredible. I can remember just recently the excitement and amusement in my children when I asked them if I could go on a ‘play date’ with them! They thought it was hilarious and had so much fun planning out the whole day! I made sure to ring my husband at work to tell him that I was going on a play date with the children and that I didn’t know what time I would be home at! The play date was organised by the children to consist of an afternoon of bouncing on the trampoline, pushing each other on the tyre swing, on the normal swings, lying on the grass watching the clouds pass by, snacks and Mr Freeze ice-pops, adventuring around the house inside and out! It was the best fun I have had in years! My own inner child was truly alive and so fun filled in those few hours. I never knew there were so many types of knee bounces, leg bounces, belly bounces, bum bounces and we laughed and bounced so hard that we were all running in and out to the toilet all afternoon!!

I have also learned to embrace the silliness and fun of my husband when he comes home from work and barks and howls with the dog as the children are laughing so hard. I find myself giggling as I listen to him being completely off the wall and silly with the children playing and messing! It is as much a release and engagement for him with his inner child as it is for the children’s enjoyment in the moment.

If there is one relationship that needs to be recognised, heard, nurtured and enhanced throughout life, it is definitely the relationship with your own inner child. This is the relationship that will keep you feeling alive, that will help you to let go of all the adult worries that we place upon ourselves. It will enable you to relight and burn brightly the amazing child like ability to just live, to just laugh, to be silly, to have fun and most importantly to just be you!!

Leona McDonnell

24-7-2020
By Leona Mc Donnell Mindfulness and Wellness

The answer is very simple! You create a time and space in your day, each day and you learn to sit with yourself. You learn to breathe with yourself. You learn to listen to yourself, encourage, motivate and empower yourself. You learn to nurture and care for yourself and most importantly, you learn to love yourself, from the inside out.

Learning to love yourself is without doubt a very challenging task. So many of us cannot bring ourselves to give a compliment to ourselves or others and are even worse at accepting a compliment from someone else. It is an instinct for our egos to take over and intercept before we graciously let ourselves blush in confidence and pride. How many times has someone said to you “wow, you look great, have you lost weight?” How many of us have answered “oh well I could do with losing a lot more!”. This is the ego sabotaging our good work and rail roading our progress. Wouldn’t it be a completely different scenario to reply to the same question by saying “thank you so much, I feel really great at the moment?” A completely different concept really.

My ethos is based around ‘healing ourselves from the inside out’. This is how I transformed my own life. There was a point in my life where I could not stand or sit in my own presence for even a few minutes. I continuously distracted myself with housework that ‘needed’ to be done or calls that ‘needed’ to be made. Anything was easier than having to be present with just myself. So how could I possibly heal or transform myself? I needed to get to know ‘the real me’. I needed to give my mind, body and emotions time to disconnect from each other, repair individually and then reconnect with one another. They needed to reconnect with me, as a communicative and functioning being.

I found the analogy of a butterfly’s life cycle so empowering and healing during this stage of my life. When you think about it, does the caterpillar ever think it will transform after complete metamorphosis into a beautiful free flying, free spirited butterfly? We will never know. But I do know that during this difficult stage of my life, I could never see myself as anything past that caterpillar stage. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, so full up of past trauma’s, worries, anxieties and fears that I was about to burst. Just like a caterpillar shedding its skin five times before entering its Pupa stage, letting go of the excess plants it had eaten so that it could become more comfortable and lighter in its own skin, I needed to shed layers of my own demons before I could start my transformation.

To do this, I meditated daily, enjoyed yoga, filled numerous notebooks by gratitude journaling, spent a lot of time walking outside with Mother Earth and started to speak kinder to myself. I accepted with compassion the difficult thoughts, the fears, the days which did not seem to go as I wished. I grew to accept and gained comfort from knowing that I was never going to be perfect, I am only human after all. As humans, we will never be perfect, what is perfect anyway? We and life are continually changing and evolving and so we are always on a continuous learning path. We may never be perfect, but we can learn to enjoy the journey.

Upon shedding and letting go of excess baggage, the butterfly then enters its Cocooning stage, it’s protective stage. This is a period of self-growth, of transformation. I used this period of my life as a protective time of self-recovery, of retreat, of reflection and of personal connection. Once I had shed my baggage, I used this time to restructure my mind, to reinvent my thoughts in a positive, kind and compassionate manner. This was a very intimate phase in my healing journey. It was a stage where I wanted to be cocooned with only me, with only my new positive and nurturing mindset and with my new understanding and compassionate way of living.

Slowly over time, my protective cocoon started to break open. I was becoming free. Free of my previous thoughts, memories, anxieties and I was now ready to launch myself and to fly high in life. This is the last stage in a butterfly’s life cycle. Now ready to propel itself into nature as a newly mature butterfly. It breaks free of its cocoon and takes a leap of faith as it waits for its wings to start flapping and flying. This beautiful butterfly completely unrecognisable from the bulging caterpillar a short while before, now a life completely transformed, completely renewed, oozing with an abundance of clarity, of hope, of dreams, of influence, of happiness and of health.

Another interesting concept to think about; ‘can a butterfly fly with only one wing?’ I wouldn’t fancy its chances. We can apply this theory to ourselves in creating and or enhancing our own healing journey or life transformation. Think of one of the butterfly’s wings as comprising of Kindness and Compassion for ourselves and others. Think of the second of the butterfly’s wings as comprising of Mindfulness. Just like the butterfly needing both of its wings to fly, we need Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness to aid, enhance and facilitate our own personal transformation, healing and life journey.

We can envisage ourselves needing both these wings of Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness to work together, in sync with one another, in an agreeable and equally effective rhythm in order for us to fly high in our own lives. We are all equally capable of entering a cycle of transformation in our own personal journeys. I guess some of us will decide to do it sooner than others and others will do it later in their lives but maybe at a different pace. There are no rules. Just like every butterfly, we can decide when we are ready to enter our protective cocooning stage and ultimately when we are ready to emerge as a newly transformed being.

We all have this innate ability to develop this deeply intimate relationship with ourselves, to deeply connect with ourselves and to learn to love who we are and to love who we can transform into. The question is, ‘are you ready to spread your wings of Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness and soar high above your expectations? Are you ready to heal and transform yourself from the inside out?’

Leona McDonnell

(As published in the Westmeath Examiner Newspaper on 16-6-2020 and in
The Anglo Celt and The Meath Chronicle Newspaper on 17-6-2020)