I was pondering about why children and teenagers love to just ‘hang out’, ‘chill out’ and just generally get together with no particular purpose per se. It occurred to me that these were just modern day expressions of what is actually quite natural for us all…
- To just simply ‘BE’
- No agenda
- No ‘to-do’ lists
- Simply BEING and connecting with others
Children often amaze and inspire me because when they are just being themselves they connect to people with such openness, ease, presence and playfulness. The innocence in their eyes and their body just melts any hardness that comes their way.
Children are so inspiring and we have much to learn from them, for when they are just left to simply be themselves, the sparkle in their eyes is bright, the expression is full and they know in their hearts what true love is and what it is not.
So what happens to us when we get older? Where does that sparkle go? Do we forget how to just ‘hang out’ and ‘be’ with each other? We all were once a child with that sweet innocence and honest connection with ourselves.
As adults, how often do we truly connect to this? Yes, we catch up with friends and spend time with family, but are we truly allowing ourselves to ‘BE’ and connect with each other – heart to heart? Are our accumulated protections, hurts and mistrusts stopping us from truly meeting and connecting with each other? Have achievements, goals, and recognition become more important than true connection – leading us to always be ‘doing’ something?
These are the questions I have been pondering on lately as I appreciate and observe the sweet innocence of a child – an innocence that is naturally within us all, should we choose to re-connect to it.
The innocence and openness I re-connected to within myself recently felt so heavenly and natural; in the past this had felt very raw and ‘naked’ to me, which is why I would rarely allow myself to go there as an adult. But there was nothing ‘weak’ about being in my innocence, quite the opposite. The more I allowed myself to stay open to this, the more I could feel the power of my expression that came from this connection of deep presence and stillness.
I then took myself for a walk with my openness and innocence. My chest and heart felt so different – I felt so open to people and the world and my chest and heart felt like it was 1 metre in front of me. This was definitely new to me!
I realised that what I was experiencing was what it would feel like to let people in, to let the world in, to not put up a guard to protect, to allow myself to be fully seen in my sweet natural innocence.
Gosh the world felt so different!
All I had to do was surrender and ‘JUST BE ME’.
In our innocence we are so open and precious and truly divine.
Forever inspired by Serge Benhayon who inspires me to JUST BE ME.
By Marika Cominos, Melbourne
Further Reading:
Serge Benhayon: The Natural Philosopher
Inspired by Universal Medicine… Just Being Me
The Natural Love Of A Child
890 Comments
“Where does that sparkle go?” That sparkle is still there within us but we tend to draw the curtains so that no one can see it.
‘In our innocence we are so open and precious and truly divine.’ This is within us 24/7 from birth and there to be accessed 24/7 for we are all those things and more, the choice is ours to connect.
Children are very inspiring, and incredibly wise, there is much we can learn from them, ‘Children are so inspiring and we have much to learn from them, for when they are just left to simply be themselves, the sparkle in their eyes is bright, the expression is full and they know in their hearts what true love is and what it is not.’
I find it ironic that we are in many ways modelled by how society is today to close ourselves up and be protective and guarded, yet it is this very behaviour which makes us focus so much on what we do because in closing our hearts we disconnect from our true self too.
You ask: “Do we forget how to just ‘hang out’ and ‘be’ with each other?” – in many cases we choose all sorts of distractions, so we are not very good at just “being” with ourselves. The more we are connected to ourselves the more we will naturally be connected with others. It does not even need hanging out, it is a vibration or state of being that can be present in everything we do or don’t do.
Hanging out allows the space for connections that so often get crowded out in our ‘outcome’ obsessed world.
I learn a lot from observing how children hang out and are not shy to be themselves. What I have noticed is how spontaneity becomes a magical part of their openness and I feel this is the quality which many of us relinquish as we allow seriousness to engulf our adult way of living.
I feel I have confused seriousness with responsibility in the past and lost my spontaneity which I am now rediscovering supported by the reflections of children around me who have no such inhibitions.
I agree Elizabeth, we can learn so much from children, and yes, they have a gorgeous natural spontaneity, alive-ness and playfulness, that many of us have replaced with being serious.
I feel a big part of the losing of the sparkle comes from a lack of fostering of a development of understanding energy, it’s various qualities and the underlying forces at play in life especially between spirit and soul. It not only allows us to de-personalise life and our experience which allows us to detach from it (no investment in outcomes means no hurt) but more importantly it allows us to feel empowered within ourselves by knowing who we truly are and what is truly going on around us and how to handle it.
Gorgeous blog Marika, I too adore the way children are so open, honest and not shy to simply be themselves. They constantly remind us and invite us to also be ourselves.
What I have also noticed is that today, very few children are in the space of such settlement. They are often needing constant stimulation, experiencing lots of different moods and there seems to be growing numbers of children who struggle to connect with others. There is something we need to come back to as it seems we have lost our way and our children are reflecting that.
Thank you – we have often forgotten the true meanings of life and all in it. This blog brings us back to the naturalness of being ourselves without any doing.
Innocence is such a key word here…it is such a beautiful word, and it is possible to have this quality with clarity, strength and natural authority as well.
We often make our way through life using a guard of knowing it all and having it all figured out. When we approach life with innocence everything is new and there is an absence of judgement or expectation.
The time we have with ourselves is precious beyond words, and something that is fast disappearing in this new world of technology. Time to reclaim the simple art of being.
Isn’t it amazing how when we open up and change the whole world appears to change. Now imagine what the world would be like if everyone opened up!
Children are a great reflection of this. The joy to be had in being oneself and sharing that with another with no other agenda than that.
I have the joy of working with children of all ages on two days a week and doing so I can feel the innocence that I naturally had as a child beginning to reawaken. I have decided to really observe the children, especially the younger ones as they play and interact with others and am continually delighted with what I see. The ease with which they flow from one thing to another is inspiring but at the same time often frustrating for the adults who want them to stay with what they are doing; but trying to stop their natural flow is like trying to contain mercury.
I love what you’ve shared Ingrid and we can learn so much from observing children play. Their natural flow and the quality in how they move is very inspiring and they remind us that we are able to move with the same delicateness, purpose, joy, and playfulness too.
You share of an innocence that children naturally hold – and that we were all once children – so it is about reconnecting to what we naturally know. I can learn so much from just observing children and how they are in their bodies, and as is shared here – by changing our movement we also support our bodies to deepen our natural connection.
My feeling is the more you commit to making your life and work about connecting to people the more you are gifted with to Just Be.
I know for myself there is often a doing that needs to happen. I’ve told myself it’s all about purpose. But lately I’ve been reflecting on the purpose of just hanging out. Being together, connecting and that being the purpose. I think I’ve let myself be tricked into thinking that purpose was all to do with achieving something.
It’s a good marker to use by observing how children and teens can naturally allow themselves to just be, and how they value the simplicity of connecting to others. This really highlights the way we push and rush our bodies through life and remain in cycles of endless doing instead of experiencing the joy of being with ourselves and others.
This openness is indeed the way to go Marika. It can feel very naked at first, but feels so much different than the closed off “just busy with me’ attitude I lived with for such a long time. What a change!
“So what happens to us when we get older? Where does that sparkle go?” Our inner sparkle of childhood is forever there within us patiently waiting for us to feel the light.
The sweetness and honest connection we felt as children is still within us, just covered by learned behaviours and ideals so that we no longer feel our inner knowing or connection with it, until we learn to let go of the false way of living and open up to reconnect to the truth of who we innately are within our body.
It’s great to question the systems of life and the state of the world and our physical bodies. There is so much illness and disease now and there is clearly something very wrong with our systems of life if this is the product of our way of living. Perhaps it is all in the fact that the systems seem to make life all about doing and not nearly if at all about be-ing!
Returning to a feeling of innocence in our body is a transformational experience that, when experienced, becomes a foundation for interaction and communication
A simple recipe of Just being me – so why do I make it so complicated by adding extra ingredients?
‘Do we forget how to just ‘hang out’ and ‘be’ with each other? Thank you Marika, re reading your blog made me realise once more how easy it is to make life into a serious matter and on the other hand how simple it is to reconnect to what we felt when we were young and is still living within, our natural sweetness and innocence, the sparkle we all have.
Children are great at just hanging out and being themselves – with no agendas or to do lists shadowing them they are light hearted, open and thus a joy to be around.
Absolutely Susie, I agree with you but why can’t we say the same about adults? Is it because most of us have forgotten how to be ourselves, light, playful, open and joyful?
Growing up without television or social medial I did a lot of hanging with both family and friends, and I feel this was great medicine in contributing towards a healthy and vital lifestyle.
My husband and I got to hang with one of our sons last night and go shopping. It wasn’t what we were doing or buying that was precious, it was being together and listening to each other. For me especially, instead of going with a goal and allowing that to drive ahead of us, I just went with the flow and it was amazing and so different. We were more understanding of each other, it was actually more enjoyable then how I usually feel about shopping. It showed me that when we put ourselves first then everything else is out there, it is second and then we can just be ourselves and not get wrapped up in doing.
I often see children in the supermarket where I work and I get so shocked with the ease they are at, they laugh, sing, run, dance, jump, scream, shout, tell jokes, do cartwheels, play with their friends and so many other things, they just do what they feel like doing, nothing less nothing more. its amazing to watch because I know that I used to be like that as well.
It is beautiful to watch Viktoria, for most young children the fun and joy is seen in the smallest thing. Like simply walking down the street can become a game, skipping or jumping over the cracks so naturally.
It is true, we have forgotten who we are and as such our natural way of being. Yet our essence, our inner-sparkle remains unchanged, it is only our relationship, to our essence that changes. In rediscovering our connection with ourselves, our essence, our body and being, we discover just how natural and liberating it is to be ourselves and share our real selves with the world.
Yes, that’s a great reminder and through our daily activities/ choices we can either connect or disconnect further.
I love on walks to just stop and hang out, there is an intimacy that we allow in these pauses that is very precious.
I remember before TV came to our community we did a lot of ‘hanging out’…and we were a lot fitter as well !
A child can light up a whole room with that open and innocent connection they have to their innermost. So can adults when they reconnect to that same quality and essence.
Some great questions to consider Marika, highlighting the huge difference to all our relationships when we truly connect with each other with an openness and transparency of being ourselves.
I got to ‘hang out’ with one of my granddaughters the other day. We had been shifting dead branches in one of our paddocks when my body said stop and rest and I listened, unlike in the past when I would have kept going until the job was finished no matter how I felt. So I sat down and she joined me and we hung out, talking about nature and life interspersed with moments of silence. It felt so wonderful to just stop and be and to not feel guilty about it; it was a moment in time that I truly valued.
Beautiful, it’s so needed sometimes. Today I felt that I just needed to rest, however I did not, that lead to eating food which is making me sick right now, and being unable to focus at work.
The world has become so much about doing and not that it is bad to do things but it is very important to know ourselves first from our being-ness and from there do things. Otherwise we don’t know who we are and get lost in the doing and exhausting ourselves beyond our limit.
“Children are so inspiring and we have much to learn from them, for when they are just left to simply be themselves, the sparkle in their eyes is bright, the expression is full and they know in their hearts what true love is and what it is not.” I so agree Marika, especially after looking after my young grandchildren for a few days while their parents had a break. We had such fun, simply hanging out.