FUN

Yesterday I felt strangely sorrowful after three different friends shared with me in our Monday morning get-together.

Each was in response to my blog post.

I had asked if anyone had chosen to create their own manifesto during the break we all took during Easter week.

One person said she felt no connection with the exercise, that she was tired of words and was feeling less is more and was being called to work on other things.

She said that she was listening to her heart. How could anything be called listening to one's heart if you are not listening to this child?

Whatever happened to unless ye be as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God?

Another said that although she had read the blog post several times, she too felt no need to write one for herself.

The third person admitted to having read it but avoided sharing anything beyond that.

And the thing which was painfully clear to me was that it is so much easier as well as convenient to lose yourself in the activity of adulting by avoiding identifying the very ways in which you become hooked every single day.

Why else was it a suggestion that you create your own manifesto?

You see, I do not know about you, but I happen to have a child within me who was never heard, never supported, never listened or attended to, so often overlooked, pushed away and ignored.

That child is my soul. She is who I was before life convinced me that it was dangerous to be her in this world, that it was safer to become someone else.

She grew up feeling that the world was unkind to who she was, her innermost being, and so she created an pseudo identity who tried to be invisible and devote itself to meeting other's expectations.

Isn't it high time I started listening to what she has to say about all of that?

Should I not make a vow to her about how I will support her for what remains of this lifetime?

How else will she ever trust me if I do not take the time to listen to what she has to say about how she felt and, rather than treat her with more of what she received in childhood, is it not high time that I promise her that I will support her in every single way she asks from here on out?

That child within my own heart trusts me now.

She trusts me because I have dared to listen to what she has to say and have promised her that I will care for as she has always longed to be cared for and I will do so every single day for the rest of my life.

I am her person and she knows that.

Yes. It is so much easier to tell yourself the story that you feel put off and exhausted by words and would rather sit quietly and remain empty.

Yet how many times each and every day do you lose sight of this very emptiness because you have never taken the time to see how you personally bite the hook because you are too busy adulting?

And you bite the hook because you do not support yourself.

You have not learned how to be your own person.

A manifesto is an act of bravery and self love.

It is a commitment to no longer deceive, ignore or abandon yourself.

And if you have avoided looking this deeply into your own heart, at least be honest enough to say why you have chosen to ignore your own innermost being.

And what could the answer to that question possibly be other than you do not really want to know the truth?

He or she is your truth!!!!!

Here is what I know.

Each and every day I do something entirely fun for the sake of this child.

I call it taking her out on a date.

Sometimes it is to a bookstore, a movie, playing a game of jacks or tidly winks, going for a Starbucks or even for a trip to the park.

Wonderment. That is what my life is going to be about every day from here on out.

The point is that I am doing this for her sake because it is never too late to have a childhood.

I have another friend who shared at length about how she is choosing to treat her young dog in a way that she did not treat any other pet she has had because she doesn't want to crush her spirit in the attempt to mold and control her behavior.

But does she ever do something this brash and this bold for herself?

I do not think so.

Why do we so easily see the need in others but are entirely oblivious to our own?

One person in my life gets it. Her name is Gretchen. She has been having fun with stickers and cared enough to send me a whole bunch of them and we are having fun creating the coolest journals.

She is really getting down with learning how to be there for her innocent sweet self!

Listen.

How you care for you reveals a whole lot about your heart.

And it is the heart which fuels your entire life.

What am I really saying here?

How you treat your heart, how you treat this child, is how you treat the rest of your life.

What brings you joy?

What gets your pink joy swirls twirling?

What makes you laugh?

What makes you feel the treasure that you are?

What else could actualization mean other than having listened to this child so deeply that he or she is entirely ready to step forward and resume the awesome opportunity of being you?

It's harvest time.

What truth actually means so much to you that you are willing to live it every single day of your life?

Or have you been busy adulting for so long that you have forgotten what it means to live free?