If I were to ask you to imagine yourself as a landscape, what image would come to mind?
In the past few days, I have been a stretch of cold similar to the Tundra. I have also been as volatile as the earth’s core.
One minute, snow and ice. The next, molten iron and a variety of other elements.
There is tremendous beauty in that versatility. My inner self can appear barren, void of everything but cold and wind. One blink and I become magma. The shift between the two is hopeful because it signals the potential for change. It also hints at how multifaceted human beings truly are.
We are never just one thing, one idea, one side of the coin. And chances are, each of us has got a piece of us that appears to be missing.
The beauty of reading children’s books as a woman in her 30s is that I can grasp subtleties while also activating my inner child. For the past few years, I have been obsessed with exploring my shadow self. It seems so mature to face the dark side, so elegant and sexy and deep.
For a time, shadow work was an illuminating and essential process.
I don’t know if I’m alone in saying this, but lately, I’ve been looking at my reflection and seeing the little girl I used to be. It helps that I have been navigating my fear of being on camera by taking selfie reels of me talking about some of the things I am thinking about.
It also helps to read children’s books, like those written by Shel Silverstein and James & Kimberly Dean, because complex ideas are expressed with simple language.
It’s that quest for simplicity that I crave, reminiscent of Richard Feynman who said that if it couldn’t be explained to a child, the person didn’t understand the concept well enough.
The beauty of approaching inner child work is how it’s teaching me to approach my reflection with care and curiousity.
STABILISE 