Are You Playful Like a Child?
What does it mean to be a child at heart?
Play is essential to the development of a child's mind. Play is how they learn. Play is how they learn to problem solve and interact. Some important social skills are also picked up through healthy play.
So what happens when we become adults? Do we stop playing just because we've become adults?
When we stop playing, we stop growing. When we stop growing, we start dying.
Being a child or kid at heart means keeping the curiosity of the child in you alive in your adult body.
So, how to be curious? Well, start with asking why? Children, four - and five year olds are full of why something is the way it is. They really want to know why.
For an adult, it takes training to look within, to look inward and question the very things you believe, where those beliefs come from. It's scary to the adult mind because it will challenge what to you is religion.
Having a childlike mindset means being fearless. Fearless in the face of those challenges and instead being curious.
Curiosity is what makes room for change to occur. It makes one agile. It makes one adapt and learn and relearn if required. It's what helps one grow and keep growing after we're done with becoming an "adult."
Life, real life, begins after we step out of school or university. A graduate has learned a lot about the world, but very little about him or herself. The knowledge is incomplete because it didn't include "you" in the picture.
In schools and colleges, there's much emphasis on academic excellence. As if marks and grades are everything. As if one who fails in tests will not do well in life. That’s what my mom would tell me after evaluating my marks I came back after giving an exam. Tests, exams and marking make you afraid of making mistakes.
You just learn to carry on that behavior from your childhood school to your adult life.
Children learn from making mistakes. That doesn't change much when we become adults. We learn from making mistakes. We improve in our own time from our learning experiences.
The experimental and curious attitude is what keeps one present in life. Present to oneself. Present to opportunities. Present to change. It allows us to live life as observers, just like children learn from observing the world around them.
Be curious. Stay curious. Never stop learning. Never stop playing or being playful.
Children are lighthearted about life. They laugh a lot. Bad things do happen. But they don't have a developed mind to take things to their heart. As an adult, that's a little bit challenging to practice. That's where mindfulness and meditation come into play.
Meditation teaches you to be present, curious, and playful. It helps you see the humor in life, just like a child.
Neha Sonney
About Me
I, Neha Sonney, am the author of Wired For Self-Love: 11 Strategies To Free Yourself From Your Past, Embrace Your True Identity & Develop Unshakeable Confidence. I help people be honest with themselves, expand their comfort zones, become the people who love themselves and know how to respect themselves. If you’re considering bringing a real, lasting change in your life, reach out to me at optimysticoachk@gmail.com. Book a consultation here.