Let that inner child free!

I’m just over a month in to The Artist’s Way, a beautiful journey of expanding your creativity with a heavy dose of spiritual inspiration. The first few weeks were a lot of getting back to the inner child, reminding myself what it was like when there was more time for play, more space for creativity, and an open-ended freedom of days and life ahead. Synchronistically, I noticed the inner child popping up for clients in healing sessions more and more, looking for a little extra TLC. Looks like many of us are being called back to the days of extended summer vacation!

We often make our lives so heavy with all our goals and obligations. And then we fill our spare time with our adult things. We read our intellectual books. We watch our shows. We go to the bar. We go to the gym or the studio. We cook our meals and we run our errands. These are all beautiful and many necessary, but spare time filled with only these can often be so… adult-y!

We were all kids once. And we don’t lose that kid as we grow. That kid stays with us. Many of the main issues that pop up in our adult lives, particularly fears, have their roots in things we experienced as a kid, be it scarcity, control, suppression, abandonment, or other forms of trauma, abuse or lack. Often learned as a coping mechanism, many of us downplay our childhood wounds, thinking "oh, what I experienced wasn’t so bad compared to X, Y or Z." But for that inner child, whatever difficulty you went through (and we all went through them, trust me!) was a lot to handle. And if it isn’t addressed and healed, it can stick with you, following you around like a shadow. By identifying and healing at the root, we are able to heal how these issues manifest in our current lives.

Making peace, finding freedom

That’s one side of the healing, perhaps more of the depth. But just like life, there is the light side too! Coming back to the freedom, levity and playful spirit kids seem to know best.

What did you love to do as a kid? Collect treasures found in nature? Blow bubbles? Build forts? Make crafts? Make art? Play games? Read stories? Sing? Dance?

Choose one (or more!), and make space to revisit it this month. Head out to the park and look for treasures as you stroll – acorns, pinecones, special stones, maybe even look at a patch of clovers and see if you find that lucky four-leaf one. Make something just for the fun of it – a painting, a craft, a story, a song, a fort. It doesn’t even matter how it turns out… see if you can allow yourself to just enjoy the fun of the process of making. This process is for no one but yourself and your inner child. Let yourself free. Let yourself play. Let yourself enjoy.

I keep coming back to the words I wrote after my Italy trip around this time last year. That our souls come to this earth plane to learn, to grow, to help each other and to push forward all our evolution… but also, to play! And that the simple and easy pleasures can be as beautiful, illuminating and soul-nourishing as the deep and complex depths.

It’s the heart of summer. Take it easy. Make time to play. Enjoy the richness. Enjoy the fullness. Carve space to be a kid again :)

Coming together

We're knee-deep in the feels of Cancer season (the new moon is tomorrow, July 2), and have a few eclipses coming up (July 2 and 16) as well as Mercury retrograde this month (July 7 - 31). Whew! Cancer season helps us get in touch with our feels, our creativity, our intuition, and all the ways we're called to care for and nurture ourselves and others. Eclipses bring up our shadows, revealing what has been hidden and is now calling for our healing. Mercury retrograde invited us to look at our past, tie up loose ends, and take it easy in a period of reviewing and renewing. The skies are most certainly calling us to our healing this month. Have courage and compassion with yourself as you move through, but remember also to make space for levity and play to balance it all out :)

If you need support in your healing, I'm always here to help through a healing session, in-person or remotely. Between my personal retreat time with my teacher Amma (details below if you'd like to meet her) and hosting PAUSE, I only have about 10 days open for private sessions this month- as always, you can snag a spot here!

Our heart-of-summer PAUSE Retreat is officially waitlist only, but we may have an extra room open for 1-2 more... so if your heart has been nudging you, reply back and we'll add your name to the list! It's a dream come true so many of you jumped at this chance, so there will definitely be more retreats for us all in the future :) If you can't make it on retreat but still need some nourishing time to pause, feel free to drop in for a yoga or meditation class or dig in to some reflection cues for your summer expansion via my summer solstice post.

May you make time for play, joy, and freedom this month, no matter what waves life brings your way. May you tune back in to all that lit you up as a kid, and rediscover that lightness and levity that's been in your spirit all along.

With love,
ayah