Children See the Magic
“Children see the magic because they look for it.”
Not a day goes past as a mum when I am not stopped in my tracks, bowled over and forced to look at something in a completely different way.
My daughter recently said she wanted to become an engineer. I turned to her very seriously and in acknowledging her I said, “Polly you can be anything you want to be if you really work at it. You are clever, creative and I am so proud of you.” Her response was: “Why are you saying this? I know I can do that mummy.”
Children know how to dream really big, one day they want to be an astronaut, the next a scientist. They don’t continually second guess themselves. They are masters at acknowledging themselves and others. They take on tasks and welcome new things. They don’t go to thinking they’ll fail or embarrass themselves. They don’t worry that things could be seen as silly. They hope they will be! If you see a child learn to walk, they fall and fall again. They don’t concern themselves with “What if I never get there?” They don’t ask for pity. They keep their eye on the prize.
"Children are happy because they don't have a file in their minds called All the Things that Could Go Wrong."
Marianne Williamson
Children’s language acquisition depends on their listening skills. Listening to every sound around them, deciphering between language and mere noise and combining it with gestures to produce meaning. When was the last time you practiced true listening? Not the type of listening where our responses include “oh yes, me too” and “I understand,” or “I hate it when that happens.” The type of listening that really hears what a person is saying. The type of listening that makes a person feel really seen. Just listening, and being curious with a desire to explore it further added to the mix.
Children feel. Really feel. Instead of pushing emotions away, they meet them head on. They aren’t scared of throwing themselves on the floor, embracing whatever it is careening through their bodies and letting it pass through. At some point we learn that not only is not acceptable to launch yourself on the floor, but that emotions should be pushed aside or down, and being too emotional is not a good thing.
Depending on which way you look at it, we can learn a lot from children, or we’ve unlearnt a lot of wonderful things we all did once upon a time. This difference in the way that children and adults see the world became apparent when I started my coaching training with Co-Active Training Institute. We sat in a room and were asked to consider questions such as:
“What do you truly want?”
“What is important to you?”
The course leader was encouraging us to be wildly curious, really listen to each other, and have fun while doing it. As I was doing this exercise, I looked at it through my childrens’ eyes, asking myself:
“What would I want if I had Polly’s drive and motivation?”
“How would I spend my free time if I played as deeply as Arnie?”
When you think about your goals and your accomplishments, your fears and your hopes, do so with the intensity and freedom of a child. Find that abandon that you used to have and bring it back into your everyday life. Bring yourself happiness through listening and feeling.