Meeting One's Inner Child.

Today I had a powerful experience. More accurately, a beautiful experience. I realised that this is what my soul has been seeking since filing my resignation in 2024. Today, I met my inner child.

I was going through some old photos today. Old school photos that were developed at a photo shop and printed out photos. As I was going through them, I came across my old photos. Man, seeing that little guy found a way to touch my heart.

As I write this, I am pushing tears. You see, I realised that what the old philosophers said is true. They said that an adult aims to return to his childhood.

Alan Watts put it like this. He said that a child will dance freely. He will move his body without thinking. The parents will look at the child and cheer him on. But the older he gets, his free dances suddenly become more annoying to parents.

But to the right parents, they will take the child to dance school. In dance school, his movements will be stiff. He will be taught the right techniques. These techniques will be unnatural to him. It will take time for him to learn them. But once he has learnt these techniques, he will now be an adult dancing freely like the child he was.

From this analogy, I realised that I was in the dance school. The dance school of life. Growing up, living life, the Lord was teaching me techniques that made me stiff.

This stiffness came in the form of depression. It came in the form of hopelessness. It came in the form of not knowing what to do with my life.

In growing up, obviously I came into contact with my sexuality. And this is key because Sigmund Freud has touched on the importance of sexuality in a man’s life. It is with his sexuality that one can gauge where a man is in his life.

I realised that for the past 2 years or so, I had resigned also from my sexuality. I had no interest in how I dressed. I have not bought cologne in these 2 years, when it was something I always bought. I realised that I had no desire to pursue women anymore.

Yes, I am in a relationship, but you see, I just lost interest in everything that has to do with my sexuality. You see, this was a sign that I was becoming stiff. I was experiencing rigour mortis while I was alive.

Until today. It was like little me was looking into my soul. He was not asking me what I had achieved. He was not concerned about the successes that I promised I would have at this age. No. He had zero interest in that.

What he was asking me was how I was. He was asking me if I was still dancing freely. This small voice felt like the gentle whisper that the prophet Elijah heard. It was the voice of God asking me if I was still seeking His Kingdom.

This gentleness melted away every worry on my shoulders. It made me realise that the reason I was stiff, feeling lost and empty, is because I forgot to dance to the rhythm of my heart. This rhythm had become blocked by unnecessary worries about life.

It reminded me that I am the last born of the family. The last-born of a family that has a strong love for each other. Being the last-born, this love reaches me in its concentrated form.

This voice, you could say, removed the scales from my eyes. My eyes were so focused on unnecessary

things. Things like the day I buy a Porsche, the day I buy a house, the day I become a millionaire. These things never mattered to the little me.

The little me wants to explore life. The little me wants to sit and listen to the wind whistle through the trees. Little me wants to hug trees. The little me wants to find His Kingdom and live in it.

With the scales off, I see how I missed the signs all these years. It began when I was still in Gauteng. I remember how I was disheartened when I saw how the homeless were disregarded. Man, this pained me so much. Unfortunately, being in Gauteng, I was taught to disregard them because one of them could do me wrong.

Yet, one day I was at the park playing soccer by myself. I saw a homeless guy. This new teaching to disregard them kicked in. But in the same breath, I had just arrived at the park. I told myself that I know self-defence; I will be able to protect myself if need be.

This guy came to me. I could see that he was hesitant to come. I tried wearing a face of annoyance to try and dissuade him from approaching. But approach he did. This man’s simple request was that he wanted to play with me. Something inside of me just said play with the man.

I can remember the joy he was experiencing. Something just told me that this man has not played like this in years. He was having proper fun until he said that his lungs were done. He thanked me and walked away.

That day remains one of my favourite days in the big city. Only today I realise it is because it wasn’t me playing soccer with him; it was my inner child.

There is an overwhelming and powerful peace to meeting your inner child. The inner child reconnects you to who you are before the world told you who you are.

Weirdly, these days I have been asking myself whether the rose knows if it's beautiful, or does it feel beautiful because the world told it's beautiful. My inner child helped find the answer to this question.

The rose is beautiful because it is beautiful. Your inner child is a true reflection of you. It is not the you who has been heartbroken, disappointed or broken by the world. It is the true you that was created in His image.

We all begin life dancing freely. We grow up; life tries to break this dancing. It turns us stiff. Most of us remain stiff. We believe that remaining stiff is a virtue of being an adult. Little do we actually realise that this stiffness is what stifles us. It is what keeps us in the pits of despair.

It’s moments like these that I understand why Jesus said that to enter heaven, one should have the faith of a child. I believe that He did not mean to have the naivety of a child. But what He meant is that even when we are adults, to never forget who we were as children.

Who you were as a child is the person you were before anyone told you who you were. As a child, among many things, I enjoyed reading, gaming and doing my best to serve those around me. As an adult, when I engage in these activities, that’s when I am happiest.

As a child, there is no condemnation for engaging in these activities. As an adult, well. Reading is seen as a waste of time when you could be working. Or it should be a self-help book or something like that. Definitely not a storybook, oh no.

The same with gaming. Gaming to many women is a red flag. And lastly, serving others: the world will teach you about people’s disloyalty and their tendency to take advantage of you. And so, to protect yourself as an adult, you will reduce or eliminate these activities altogether.

I learned today that the trick is to continue engaging in those activities. Like the child who is taught more advanced techniques in his dancing, life will teach you certain advanced techniques about these activities. If you are able to learn them correctly, you will be able to return to dance freely once again.

Think of a relationship. If you are my age, you have probably been hurt. When we first love, we love fully and unconditionally. Then we meet that one partner who cheats on us. Then we meet another one who emotionally bullies us. If we remain in the pain of these experiences, it will be impossible to ever love freely and unconditionally ever again.

Instead, if we take those pains and understand how they make us feel, we can perhaps find love again. Yes, you will know better. You will know the patterns of a cheater. You will remember the methods of an emotional abuser. But, knowing these pains, if you learned the lesson, you’ll understand how to avoid those pains without compromising on the love you give.

I have met women who have not healed from their past pains. More accurately, they haven’t learned the lessons from those pains. And so, when they meet a guy who genuinely loves them, they are so blinded by the pain that they miss out on what could have been their true love.

Obviously, this is not easy. And it is definitely not an overnight event. It will take time. But if we find it in ourselves to seek that inner child, life will become what was originally meant to be. It will not feel like a chore. It will not feel like a classroom. It will feel like the dance floor it had always been.

Seek your inner child. He or she is calling for you. It won’t be a loud roar. It won’t be a massive eruption. It will be a gentle whisper. As it was for me, looking at old photos of myself.

We are all seeking to enter Heaven. But only the faith of a child will find it. Find your inner child and allow him or her to live again. Only then will you enter your personal Heaven.