As I watch my little boy who is just a couple months shy of being two, I realize just how much we as adults have conditioned ourselves. He feels all of the emotions. Not just in a small way, but in a BIG over the top way. I watch him scream because he is mad and shake if he gets angry. I watch him laugh uncontrollably when he finds something funny. I watch him cry big tears rolling down his face when sad. Everything is on the top level of a number T-E-N with him these days. The best part is he doesn’t stay in one emotion long. He can be so angry that he is screaming and upset, but then find something so funny he starts laughing. This is what emotions look like before we as adults were conditioned. Before we were taught that we can’t laugh and cry at the same time. Before we were taught that we aren’t supposed to cry. Before we were taught anger is a bad thing to have. All these conditions we were placed in that taught us to “cope” with emotions and now we think that is the way it is supposed to be. When in reality, it is how we were conditioned that it was supposed to be.
Kiddos have it all right. We could learn a lot from them. They know how to experience life to its fullest because that is the only way to experience it. They have never been taught different at that point. Maybe instead of pushing our emotions down because that is what we were taught to do…we need to push them up. We need to feel them with every fiber of our being just as my little son is doing each day. Maybe we need to learn to live in the moment. Maybe we need to learn to be able to forget the anger we held just seconds ago because something is so funny in the present moment we don’t need to pass it up only because we are to stubborn to let go of the anger. Look at how quick children forgive and forget at that young age. In a lot of ways, we need to find that inner child in each of us and embrace them.
The best part of my day is when my son comes up and wraps his arms around my neck. He showers me with open mouth kisses that are the best ever. He shows me his love because it is how he understands expressing love. All the way. One hundred percent. No holding back. When he loves he loves B-I-G just like he does everything else. There is no playing it small when you are a toddler. He doesn’t know how to minimize his emotions or to push them aside. He sees the world from his view of a little boy with no filter to dissuade him.
Emotions are not bad. Matter of fact, they are good. They are an interictal piece of our daily life. They show us where something is needing our focus. They are pointing us to a place that we need to position ourselves to seeing what it is calling us to look deeper. Think of emotions as small triggers that push us to see where we need to grow or what we need to clear out to move forward. Instead of pushing them down or away…push them up and out. Feel them and really sink into them. It is only in that moment you can feel them enough to really release them completely. What lessons can you take from a toddler these days? Can you move through your emotions better? Process your triggers more? Learn to feel things on a whole new level? Learn to live more in the moment? There are so many lessons we can learn from them to connect back to our inner child and begin to see the world through the eyes of non-filter lens.