We have all heard about the “Child Within Us”. Everyone asks us to listen to the child inside us. Have you ever wondered who this child is? Where does he live inside our bodies? What does he look like? Does he look like a miniature you?
While children between the ages of 2 to 6 are fun, they can also be very challenging to deal with. Sometimes I wonder which a bigger challenge is for me?. My professional work or being a parent to 2 boys. After 7 years of being a father, I think I’m convinced that being a parent is one of the toughest jobs on this planet. Despite being the toughest job, this is probably the only job where you don’t look forward to Fridays or a weekend. You don’t expect constant appreciation or recognition. You are only interested in giving and experiencing the joys of being a parent. You get paid through the simple joys that your children bring to your life. The hug which waits your return, the kiss which expresses their love, the smiles and innocent laughter’s and much much more.
But this post is not about parenting. Rather it’s about our Mind and what we can learn about our minds from children. In one of my previous posts, I wrote about how my 6 year old taught me about a life lesson about how to let go. Today my 2 sons gave me a very interesting and intriguing perspective about the human mind. A lot has been talked and written about the human mind and the power it holds. It is well acknowledged and accepted that our minds are capable of producing even supernatural results. Our thoughts control our destiny and our thoughts originate in our mind. Doesn’t it then make sense that if we can control our mind, we can control our destiny? You would say that this is easier said than done. I would agree that this is the case. But only to those who haven’t really taken time to understand the mind and how it works. Once you understand the mind, it becomes easier to gain control over it. But first we need to understand our minds.
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As adults our minds are very similar to children. Let’s have a look at some of the similarities
Restless
If you have a toddler at home you will agree that kids are extremely restless. They can barely concentrate on one thing at a time. Their attention spans are very limited and it’s difficult to keep them tied to one activity or one place. Our minds are very similar and just like a monkey which jumps from branch to branch, our minds are constantly jumping from one thought to another. It is believed that on a normal day our mind generates close to 60,000 thoughts. Most of these thoughts are futile thoughts of worry, anxiety, fear or something negative. Despite our constant efforts, our concentration levels has gone down and we find it extremely difficult to pay attention to the task we are doing. To top it all we have all the productivity experts preaching about how to multi-task better. Our minds work best when we focus on one task at a time.
Impatient
Children are very impatient. Everything has to happen “NOW’ except the things we want them to do. If they want a toy, they want it now. If you promise to help them with their craft hobby, then it has to be done right away. Our minds behave in a very similar fashion. When we set out on achieving something, one of the thing that worries us most is the end result. The mind will constantly create thoughts about the future and make us wonder and anxious of the result. This is especially true in life when we are trying to achieve something which is significant in our lives or can have a strong impact. Our mind will constantly create thoughts about uncertainty and the need to know our future. There is a whole industry (astrology, palmistry, numerology, many others) which is thriving on this one aspect of helping people find answers to their future. The fact is that we need uncertainty in our lives to keep it interesting. The challenge however is to see how to deal with the impatience of the mind. The trick is to be in the “Present”. However is it really possible to be in the “Now” and not worry about our past and be anxious about our futures?
Easily Distracted
While children are restless, they are also easily distracted, especially till the age of 6. One of the tactics used by parents to pacify a child is to distract him from the thing that was bothering him. The child has a very short memory and will very quickly move to the next thing. If you carefully look at our minds, it behaves exactly in the same manner. While it may not be fooled by simple things, we distract our mind more often than we think. Think about those times when you felt sad or a bit low. What did you do? Many would switch to watching TV or going for a movie while others would resort to going out with friends while many would resort to having a drink. All of these are essentially distractions from the pain we may be experiencing. The pain may be in the form of stress due to a busy day at work or because of an incident which triggered emotions of anger, fear or despair. Once the distraction is gone, we come back to our previous state of mind. In some cases when the pain was not strong enough the distraction may appear to have helped and we may feel good once again. But all you have done is trained your mind to look for a distraction every time you experience pain. This does more harm in the long term as you are really not addressing the root cause of the pain.
Easily Pleased
Children derive joy from the simplest of things in life. Playing in the rain, jumping on the bed, making funny faces, seeing cartoons and many more simple things. You really don’t need to take a lot of effort to get children to smile or laugh. Our minds are no different. If you think about it, the most joyful moments in our life are often the simplest things in our life. I know it has been for me. My children laughing away even when I see no reason for it, walking with my wife holding her hand, helping people, spending time with my family, meeting old friends, and so on. I’m sure you have felt the same too. Our minds don’t need the material things which we constantly run after to feel happy.
Persistent
I learned the art of being persistent from my elder son. It’s amazing to see children in action when they are trying to get something they want. No amount of reasoning or talking seems to work with them. They will keep coming back to you till such time you agree to what they want. The only time they will give up is when you provide them with a distraction. Our minds follow the same pattern especially when it comes to negative thoughts. Once you have a negative thought (fear, anxiety, doubt, etc.), your mind keeps reminding you of it time and again and urges you to do something about it. Most of the times we tend to worry about it and keep pondering over the thought till the time we get stressed about it.
Our mind is like a garden. You have heard the famous aphorism “ As you sow, so shall you reap”. Whatever you constantly feed your mind with, is what the mind will keep creating for you. The mind is very strange. It does not understand words like “don’t”. Let’s try this simple exercise. Don’t think about your mother. 9 out of 10 people would have thought of their mother. See my point?. So don’t try and resist thoughts. The more you try and resist, the more your mind persists.
Fickle
I often hear people say “I love you with all my heart”. Do we really think that the heart can create a feeling as strong as Love? If the heart was indeed creating the emotions, then wouldn’t it mean that with a heart transplant we would stop loving the people we loved? We all know that this is not the case and even after a heart transplant our feelings and emotions do not change. Having said that there is some scientific evidence in some cases where people who have had organ transplants have taken on some behavioral and emotional aspects of the donor. This again can be related to the abstract nature of the mind which does interact very closely with all our organs. This transfer of emotions and memory is said to have caused due to Cellular memory and it is believed that some of our memories are actually stored in nerve cells. Nevertheless, all of this first originate in the mind as a thought and then take the form of a feeling or emotion and eventually some of these being stored in nerve cells (if the research is true).
The heart and the brain are just the tools through which the mind expresses the feelings and emotions. Having seen 2 kids grow I know that toddlers have one of the most fluid mood swings. One moment they can be crying and the next they could burst into laughter. One moment they would be sad and say things which they don’t mean and the very next moment you will be the best mom or dad in the world. The mind plays similar games with us. An untrained mind will create thoughts of hurt, anger, resentment, hate, etc. and the same mind is capable of producing positive thoughts about love, respect, care and gratitude. One moment it gives you reasons on why doing what you love is the right thing to do and another time and day it will tell you that you are being foolish and that you should come back to reality.
The mind is indeed a fascinating thing. We all know where our brain is, our heart is and our other body part is. However, no one can tell you where exactly the mind is. Yet we all believe and accept that we all have a mind. You could argue that there is no such thing as the mind and thoughts are created in the brain, If that is the case, then how is it that people who are supposedly brain dead or in coma can recollect things which were talked about when they were in that state.
Whether you accept it or not, there is an energy force within us which generates thoughts. The good thing is that this power of the mind can be used by each one of us. For many years I held a belief that we cannot control our thoughts. We can only control our response and reaction to the thoughts. I have realized that while the latter is definitely true, we also have complete control over the former and what thoughts our mind creates is something which we can control. The mind never grows old. This is why as you age you refuse to accept that you cannot do the things which you did when you were younger. It is because your body is growing old but your mind does not age and hence continues to believe that you can still do all that you did when your body was younger. This is also why you see older people derive a lot of pleasure and joy when they are with children. The 2 minds come together and unite. As an adult we constantly remind our parents or grandparents to be cognizant of their age. A child’s mind does not do this differentiation this and for him they are the same as him and they want them to play with them.
Our minds are indeed like a child. This is our true nature. No wonder we hear people saying “Be childlike” because at the end of the day we all are a reflection of our original nature. How do we then train and discipline this child so that we can enjoy lives the way children too. I have found that all the principles which you would use as a parent to discipline your child, can be used to discipline your child. More about this in my next post.