Embracing the child within, healing your inner child, engaging in conscious play time, and acknowledging the respective benefits is something that hasn’t been promoted nor well seen in many environments or cultures for centuries; European history, as well the directly tied history of western psychology narrate of a void of personal will toddler subject, which means that, for centuries, not even real kids have been considered well formed and present enough to freely express self desires, and preferences.
Embracing Your Inner Child Throughout History
The notion of healing yourself through play comes from centuries of disconnection from it due to the dominating western approach in psychology and mental health, where research had been considering the infant as an observable object of study, rather than a complete being that can and must interact, develop at an ideal pace, and even create independently.
As the social acceptance of youth as a unique experience with its own boundaries has become more established, defended, and subject of its own advocacy movement, infancy has been re-framed and re-centered with a more and more subjective experience: letting the youth speak, defending and protecting youth as it is and as a collective responsibility, working on promoting growth to counter act on exploitation.
Talking To Your Younger Self
And if you do relate to having been taught to rather follow instructions than to express your soul as a child, chances are you might benefit from reconnecting with your most playful self, as well as healing what caused it to shy away from your daily activities.
Therapy can be a great entrance door to kick-start this new journey of yours, as it allows you to schedule time to reflect on anything that still causes confusion, yet you might not have fully understood at the time when it happened. Some easy self-help tools can also be journaling, meditating, and even art therapy.
3 Physical Exercises You Can Rely On To Heal Your Playfulness:
- Dance: While dancing to present a performance is likely the most commonly widespread notion of what dance should be used for, it is also known for having deep healing properties that can serve multiple goals, including reconnecting you with your sense of joy, spontaneous communication, and confident creativity.
- Hike and turn it into an adventure: Re-connection with nature can become playtime if you use it to enhance your learning process about it. Study the animals in your area, the local plants and fauna, bring your curiosity with you as you also become an effortlessly more interesting and knowledgeable person (an activity idea that also helps the planet? Discover more about urban greening here).
- Run and exercise with a different purpose: Have you ever thought about why do you exercise? Is it to stay lean, fit, in control, out of guilt, out of obligation, because of health reasons? Has it ever occurred to you to train just to have fun? Just for the sake of moving your body and seeing how much you can do with it? Whether the goal is to find direct pleasure in movement, or use movement to access funnier and more dynamic experiences, the mental and motivational connection between training and joy has to be made first. It can be as simple as taking the time to properly reflect on it.
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Asia Fioravera is a freelance writer, copywriter, content creator, and artist specializing in sustainability, holistic health, spirituality, sustainability, eco-living, arts and culture, music, and cognitive psychology.