Continuing yesterday’s theme, where I place returning to childhood and the ability to stop a moment on the same line, I want to write down a phrase I liked. “I acted like a child — or like a conscious adult — and suggested…” What exactly the person suggested doesn’t matter to me; I liked the comparison of a conscious adult to a child.
A child is born incredibly egocentric. They need to draw attention to themselves, and any competition, any idea that they might not possess what they want, is a tragedy for a child. In general, at the moment when a child’s desires develop and move from “eat / drink / sleep” to the more complex “play,” “hug,” “run around,” they suddenly realize that their universal magical way of making things work no longer works! By the universal magical way, of course, I mean crying.
At the same time as learning an important lesson — that not all desires are fulfilled — a child often learns another one: desires need to be hidden. And the further a person grows, the more they learn this too: you can’t say that you want a red car, that you like playing football (if you’re a girl) or dancing (if you’re a boy), you can’t tell Ksusha that you want to kiss her, you can’t say that Lyova is an idiot! Over time, the child learns to anticipate other people’s reactions: in order not to feel shame over an unfulfilled desire, they learn to deny themselves first. This is how that powerful inner critic appears in us.
It’s important to understand: the inner critic is not an enemy. It sincerely tries to help. In childhood, it helped us avoid negative reactions from significant adults, and in adolescence — already from significant peers. But it’s also important to remember that, first, you yourself grow up — and unlike a child, you will not die if a significant adult judges you. And second, our fear of “being cast out” is also quite primitive: most likely, if we are expelled “from the tribe,” we will be able to enter another one. And we certainly won’t die before we find a new tribe.
That’s why conscious adults learn to befriend their inner critic: they learn to hear it and acknowledge its advice — but not to give it power. Look, if a brilliant idea comes to my mind to go to the city’s main square and start defecating there, that’s exactly the moment for the inner critic to step in. But if I simply want to ask for more money at work or invite someone for a walk, I’ll tell my inner critic that I’ve heard it — and then I’ll do it my own way.
And in the end, I behave like a child — I ask for what I want. And I don’t worry if someone thinks I’m a fool or something else — the main thing is that I don’t think that about myself.
But there is also a difference. A child behaves this way because they can’t control their emotions. I behave this way because I don’t let emotions control me. For a child, this behavior is the only possible one; for a conscious adult, it is a choice among all possible options.