On Saturday I had a lovely catch-up breakfast with a friend where I met her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. We greeted each other at the café with a simple hug and took our time to find the right table where we would all be comfortable. As adults we found a corner with cushions that supported us best and the little girl asked her mother, ever so gently, if she could have the high chair once another child was finished using it.
The natural love of a child is breathtaking…
As we sat and ate I was in awe of how delicate, tender and simply adorable this little girl opposite me was! She joined in with our giggles, appeared to listen and observe us in our conversation. With support she made her own choices in deciding what food and drink to order, and stopped eating when she knew she had eaten enough. She even used napkins to clean her table down when she was finished.
She was making each and every choice just like any adult could do and I actually felt like I had a little adult sitting with us, although I noticed something different to what I have seen in many adults; her beautiful blue eyes were opened – seemingly as wide and as bright as possible – and her playfulness of giggles and smiles had no limit and no reservation. She looked fully into our eyes when we spoke to her – she was just being herself.
When it was time to leave and in her mother’s arms, we both reached out to touch hands – this little girl wrapping her tiny hand around my finger as her mother and I walked to our cars. She asked for a cuddle from me and then snuggled in to my arms and chest with as much warmth as she could.
My friend and I spoke about the imposition that we can easily place on our children to be affectionate with an adult, just because they are family or because it is expected of them; forgetting the fact that everyone has a right to choose what feels right for them, including our children.
On this day I was feeling particularly gentle and tender within my own body – a feeling I often describe as stillness – with no rush or race, and I was amazed at the exquisite feeling of stillness I felt equally in her.
It was like I had known her forever, although we had only just met. In the past I have experienced that sense of ‘clucky-ness’ when holding another’s child, or I needed them to cuddle me to fill that old belief I held as a woman – that this should come naturally as I often proclaimed that I wanted one of these (a child) of my own! I can see clearly how this would impact any child in our presence as we are imposing the emotional needs of ourselves onto them.
But there was simply none of this: it didn’t matter that she wasn’t my child as the experience of simply holding her with pure equality and grace was nothing short of a miracle. It was an amazing reminder of the pure and loving reflection that our children bring to our lives, and of the natural love of a child that we so easily resonate with. They know how to make choices, to be open and aware, to feel what is right for them, and they naturally know how to be their lovely selves, loving unconditionally when others allow them to just be.
By Cherise Holt, 30, Nurse, Brisbane
405 Comments
Young children often show us the truth.
“They know how to make choices, to be open and aware, to feel what is right for them, and they naturally know how to be their lovely selves, loving unconditionally when others allow them to just be” and that’s it isn’t it Cherise ‘when others allow them to just be’. But how often do we allow children to ‘just be’? Hardly at all, if ever. We are imposing on them pretty much all of the time, impositions of time, what to do, when to do, how to behave, how not to behave, in fact we are constantly moulding them into a very bastardised version of their original uncorrupted selves. If however we just stood back (acknowledging that we do also need to guide them and yes they do need to do certain things) then who they turned out to be and subsequently the world that they then became part of would be radically different.
Lovely to feel your appreciation for your friend’s daughter just being herself and how when we don’t impose on children they can express themselves freely and provide an amazing reflection for adults who have so often lost their way with this.
A great example of how much kids can teach / inspire us if we are open to seeing the gold that is on offer.
That is so gorgeous to read. Kids bring us such joy and wisdom that can be easily overlooked. My 2yr old is constantly offering me a level of playfulness and love that can only go deeper.
We can get a pure reflection of love, of God with everyone we meet and children often don’t have that many layers to protect their soul. What I read in your blog is also how this little girl is supported to stay like that and be completely her beautiful self.
Yes – to be or not to be that is the question. For our love is always available to lfie..
Children can reflect much to us, we simply let ourselves observe, ‘It was an amazing reminder of the pure and loving reflection that our children bring to our lives, and of the natural love of a child that we so easily resonate with. They know how to make choices, to be open and aware, to feel what is right for them, and they naturally know how to be their lovely selves, loving unconditionally when others allow them to just be.’
When we Love and share equally the decency and respect that we all can live by life becomes so simple.
When we honour young children for the wise but little beings they are, we allow them the space to be, and to grow into, all that is naturally within their essence. But for some reason, we as a society seem to have got it all wrong by taking on the belief that children are clean slates waiting for us to write the story of their lives for them, a story we often write from our unquestioned beliefs, our hurts and our own unfulfilled desires. Allow a child to be all that they are, to honour their honest expression and to support them in this very challenging world is what our role is, a role that is of the utmost importance if we are to change this world in any way.
Supporting the wisdom of children without imposing our beliefs and pictures of how they should be is crucial if we are to become a more loving and equal society.
We have so much joy when we return to our own connection, and it is so lovely when we are reminded of it by observing small children.
Gill I agree it is a beautiful reminder when we observe small children of the joy that is innately within us.
Yes, they can be amazing teachers if we are open to what they are reflecting.
It’s beautiful reading about the equality offered to this young child, and that she was held with regard and respect to her feelings and what she felt to choose and do.
Everyone of us… Each and every one of us has this awareness within, that it is possible to reconnect to that inmate joy
It is deeply beautiful to feel the timelessness, the agelessness our connection to love offers us all to be at one with, and with each other regardless of our age. The wisdom of love is something we are all born knowing, and the eyes and beingness of a child remind us of that quality, which has never truly left us.
Beautiful what you share here Carola, we are not far from the wisdom that is within us all and it is beautiful to be reminded by the eyes and the beingness of a child.
Letting ourselves be is where it starts.. trusting that by being ourselves with whatever we feel is enough. Knowing that we have this naturalness to us, that we know since we were a child. No matter how far we have stepped away from it or maybe at times don’t even recognize. To stand in the knowing and re-connect back, letting all our imperfections and perfections be.
I was recently enjoying the afternoon with a friend and her newborn baby. I was fascinated by him and the brightness in his eyes and the way he looked at and responded to people, when his face would light up, everyone just melted. He was so gorgeous, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. There is something here that we stop showing to others as we grow and then we stop seeing this in each other.
How can what you shared in your blog be gone when our children go to school? It is quite challenging and sometimes almost impossible to keep this level of delicateness and being yourself and yet it is all there and we all melt when we experience it. Something is not working in our world today.
Sitting in a cafe, you could say there is not too much different about a child like this. It’s not something they say or an action they do, but more like a natural tenderness – a door to their heart they have opened up and not vociferously shut. As adults we have so much to learn from kids like this – thank you Cherise.
Your appreciation for the reflection offered by your friend’s daughter in the choices she is making is so touching and allowed you the opportunity to connect at a deeper level and take that with you into the rest of your day.
It is beautiful how reflection of others can support us in our lives.
A beautiful sharing on the uniqueness and naturalness of children and a real reflection for us all in their stillness and affection and the wonder studying everything in their eyes “They know how to make choices, to be open and aware, to feel what is right for them, and they naturally know how to be their lovely selves, loving unconditionally when others allow them to just be.”
Just enjoyed reading this article. Children offer us the reflection of where we are: when we are in our love, our stillness they just want to be with us, it seems we attract them, at least the majority of them.
For a child life is so simple and easy to feel. How crazy we spend our life complicating – all in the name of ‘getting somewhere’. The truth is we had all the wonder and awe of the universe right at day one. Now we can choose to return to this tender and delicate place. University courses ought to be about connecting back to this preciousness not intellectual theory. Thank you Cherise.
Often we spend a lifetime not being ourselves and get so used to this it is not until we see another, particularly a small child, being themselves that we get a reminder of how far we have drifted from our true selves.
For most of my life I fervently held the belief that childhood was a very separate thing to adulthood and that part of growing up meant leaving our childhood qualities behind. Therefore children never reminded me of how far I had drifted from my true self because I always saw them as a very separate aspect of life. It’s only now that I have returned to my true self that I know that the way that we live and feel as kids is actually our natural living way as adults. How gorgeous, truly how absolutely gorgeous that how we feel as kids is not restricted or limited to childhood.