The happy inner child

Kurt Heller/ pixelio.de

 Sometimes we have an image of ourselves that we get caught in. We don't know how we can liberate ourselves from that image. Maybe we have created that image when we were a little boy or a little girl, when we were living together with our family. During that time we have also been hurt by the people living around us, and that is why in everyone of us there is a wounded inner child. Our teacher does often invite us to embrace that wounded inner child, so that the wounds within us can heal. But I can also see another aspect It is true that we can come back to our inner child, take care of its wounds and in this way we can reconcile with our inner child. But if we focus only on the wounds, we might forget that in everyone of us there is also a happy inner child living beside the wounded inner child.

When we are born, our mind is very pure. The people around us want to be close to us. We all know this situation: When we as an adult see a baby in front of our eyes, we right away feel attracted to him or her. The energy radiated by a small child is very light. We ourselves have also been such a happy child. Many people wanted to be close to us in order to enjoy our freshness. But when we grow up, we slowly forget that happy child. I have a different view on life: I see that every day I can nourish the happy inner child in me. I don't need to fight or struggle with the wounded inner child, because when the happy child is strong, the wounded child will automatically be transformed, in a very natural way. If we are always fighting with our wounded inner child, our mind will get caught in its wounds. The mind is like my hand holding a pen (the wounds). If my hand continues to hold the pen like this, it cannot hold anything else at the same time. In this way the mind is always holding onto the wounds, and it can never get in touch with the happy inner child. That is why the foundation of meditation has to be freedom. It is not difficult to nourish the happy inner child.

We can imagine a bowl containing salty water. The salt represents our suffering. The bowl is our capacity to bare the suffering and to be with it, and the water is our happiness. We all want to be happy; all human beings want that. If we look at this picture, we can see that there are two ways to be happy. We think: If there is no suffering, we will be happy. Because of this assumption, many people try to remove the salt from the water, so they can drink the water. There are even many meditation techniques which help us to do that. But I look at the situation in a different way: There is another way to change the situation in the bowl. First we need to make the bowl bigger. Than we add more water (happiness). The amount of salt remains the same.

When our bowl is small, the water will taste very salty, so that we cannot drink it. That is exactly like our situation: We cannot be happy, because we have so much suffering. But if we don't limit ourselves in the image we have about ourselves, if we look deeper, then we will see that in reality we are much bigger than we thought we were. There is more space within us. In this way we can also look at the bowl as the image we have about ourselves. Now we're having a big bowl. And now we can nourish the happy inner child in our daily life. In this way we are adding more water. The salt is still there. We don't need to remove the salt in order to be happy.

Now the bowl has become so big that we can easiliy drink the water and enjoy it. We can even enjoy the salt. We have been growing, we have become more free and happy. I really like this aspect of the practice, and I would like to share it with everyone. Now we have one practice to help us reconcile with the wounded child in us, and we have a second practice to help us nourish the happy inner child. We can start to practice right now.