Try thinking about what your eight-year-old-self would do

Have you ever caught yourself thinking back or referring to how simple most of our childhoods were? You got up, ate, dressed, went to school or played outside, maybe watched a small bit of TV, if you had one, played some more outside, went to bed!

The majority of us may have memories of playing outside until dark, rolling and jumping in muck and dirt, splashing in puddles, having fingertips almost frost bitten from playing in the snow and a having a feeling of infinity and of having so much time and endless hours in every day!

If you pause and observe, you will notice how blissful, how peaceful, how playful most children are and how completely immersed they are in their moment. You can see that they are almost on a different wavelength than us adults, something that many of us may be so envious of! That’s because they are. They are high on theta brainwaves.

Until the age of eight years, children live in this beautiful brainwave of bliss! They can download their experiences from their environments at an incredible speed, they have the ability to learn multiple languages, they see and notice everything around them, they believe everything that they see and hear and what they tell themselves. This is also the time where their core beliefs are formed. This is the lovely dreamy, hypnotic, meditative and subconscious frequency where anything is possible!

I find that by continuously checking in with my mind, body and emotions and by asking myself the question, “what would your 8-year-old-self do in this situation”?, I am better able to take myself less seriously, to immerse myself into the lighter and less stressful side of life. I am better able to enjoy the simple pleasures that brought me so much fun and laughter as a child, like riding a bike, spinning around on roller skates, splashing in puddles, bouncing on a trampoline, going on adventures in the woods, watching the clouds pass by…

All these precious little moments and elements that help us to feel truly alive, present and very peaceful in any moment. In the words of Dharma Mittra:

“If you open your heart and become like a child, you will always be blissful, always content”.

For example, I was out walking one of the days last week with my little baby on a cool, bright, fresh winter morning. As I got hotter, my body was screaming to me “take your coat off and enjoy the fresh cool air on your arms!”. But, my conditioned adult mind, my ego, was fighting back saying, “you can’t do that, it’s too cold, you will get a chill and get sick”. Having asked my inner child, my 8-year-old-self, “what would you do?”, I threw off my coat and I can’t describe how alive and present I felt!

It really is possible to just let ourselves go, to move outside of our comfort zone, to unleash our inner child and to wholly live and experience any moment you are in. We just need to increase our awareness as we move through each moment. This way we can truly learn how to ‘show up’, ‘be present for’ and to ‘really experience our daily lives’ and not just coast through on auto-pilot or live at the mercy of our ego!

This week, make a commitment to yourself to try to live more presently. Use any or all of your 5 senses to help you to show up in your life. Embrace nature, kick a ball, ride a bike, splash in a puddle, find a frog, pet a bird, walk on a tree plank, do something, anything that will ignite that fun loving and playful inner child inside of you!!

As beautifully put by Deepak Chopra:

“Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real”.

HOW TO CONNECT WITH AND HEAR THE VOICE OF YOUR ‘8-YEAR-OLD-SELF’:

To connect with and to hear the voice of your inner child, your 8-year-old-self, create an awareness of the moment you are in by using your senses and by asking yourself “what would my 8-year-old-self do?”.
Envision the carefree, fun loving, blissful theta frequencies that you may have experienced in your own childhood and allow yourself to embrace these feelings, emotions and memories and to feel the excitement and opportunity in your moment.
Allow yourself to laugh and to see the lighter side of your moment, allow yourself to find the silliness in your day!
Fully and wholly immerse yourself into enjoying ‘just this moment’ and treating the harder and complicated moments with the pure, innocent and unconditional simplicity that an 8-year-old child would!

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin at The Westmeath Examiner and his team at Celtic Media Group (https://www.anglocelt.ie/, https://www.con-telegraph.ie/, https://www.meathchronicle.ie/, https://www.offalyindependent.ie/, https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/ and https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/ for all their wonderful help!

As published by The Celtic Media Group 29/01/2022

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Leona McDonnell

Hi, I’m Leona McDonnell and I am a Mindfulness Teacher. I empower the children, teenagers and adults that I work with through Mindfulness, Meditation and Wellness with the belief that they already have all of the resources they need inside themselves to be the best version of themselves possible …. they just need to learn how to connect to and utilise these internal resources. I teach those I work with how to experience calm, peace and serenity in their everyday lives and I teach people how to reduce the everyday chatter in their minds. Having always being a very nervous and anxious child and teenager, from being afraid of my own breath, my own heartbeat, my own shadow, from undergoing numerous emergency medical surgeries with complicated recoveries, ICU admission, from anxiety, trauma and post natal depression to getting glandular fever in my mid 30’s, with 2 young children at home, working outside the home and also running my own Healing Practice, I hit breaking point in my own life some years back. I was stuck in a state of ‘Flight’, in a state of continuous panic. I had a broken mind, a broken body and a depleted soul. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to fix things. It was the toughest time and recovery of my life…. I then stumbled upon a local Yoga class and I decided to join it to see if I could create some calmness into my invasive mind and thoughts. I can remember not being able to even change my own natural breathing rhythm for the first few weeks, as I was in such a panicked state. As time went on, I grew to love Yoga as it made me reconnect with my body and my breath. It made me learn to trust my breath again. I then went on and sought out Mindfulness tools and techniques that I could introduce into my daily life. I slowly learned how to become more present in my life. I learned how to stop ruminating in my past and how to stop worrying about my future and just be present and accept the only moment I could change, which is the present moment, the most important moment. I learned how to ‘Train my Brain’ using Mindfulness tools and techniques. Coupled with Gratitude Journaling, Meditation and with a lot of time spent outdoors in nature, I began to feel much better. I began to feel much more centered in myself, more grounded, calmer and more present. After a number of years of my own daily Mindfulness, Meditation and Yoga practice, I felt amazing and had a zest for life! At this point, I decided that I needed to share with and help as many children and adults as I could with what helped me to transform my life! So I went on and did my Mindfulness training and here I am today!