My daughter is officially more powerful than me.
She has a skill I can only ever try and cultivate on a daily basis. She can do what she does without any effort, thinking or planning. It’s instinctive, and comes naturally to her. Her, and every other child.
Maia has the power to live in the now. And she does it moment after moment after moment.
“Mummy when can I have my surprise?”
“On Saturday darling”
“But when is Saturday?”
“It’s the day after tomorrow, it’s in the future.”
“What’s the future?”
What a question. I forget that for Maia, the future is a foreign concept. To her, there is only today, there is only the now.
As I wolf down my breakfast, eyes on the clock, mentally running through the day ahead and barely acknowledging the taste of my food, she’ll sit by the TV, blissfully munching away at her cereal, actually enjoying what she’s consuming.
I believe I am stuck in the wrong time zone. If I had a setting, I would be set to “future-tense”. According to many spiritual teachers, “All we have is the now, everything else, including time itself, is an illusion. Nothing exists beyond the now, the only power we have is in the now”. Which after a mild headache, makes complete sense.
The future is nothing but a concept, it only ever exists in our heads. And there’s simply no point living in the past, though it’s only too easy to.
Children pick up worrying.
We learn, as we get older, what we’re meant to worry about. Yes, it’s fair to say children have the luxury of “just being”; their little heads aren’t filled with worries about mortgages, or job applications, or car insurance.
We’ve all got to take care of ourselves and make plans. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from their more “just be” approach.
There are plenty of resources should you believe it’s worth it, from mindfulness teachings, meditation practices, and of course, a simple good long walk in the fresh air.
We have five senses for a reason, but sadly spend far too much time up in our heads to notice what’s going on around us, or even within.
I don’t believe it’s a case of wishing we could be responsibility-free and children again. You don’t need to be five, or a Buddhist monk, to appreciate the mindset here.
It’s quite straightforward. Life is not happening next week or next year, it’s happening right now. This is it. It’s not when you’ve bought that new car, or when you’ve lost six pounds, it’s this moment right here.
If we can tap into the present more often and appreciate all that each moment has to offer, the good and the bad, I’d say that was truly living, truly experiencing life. Only then could we say we’re just as powerful as our children.
