THE GENIUS OF PRESCHOOLERS

Writing On Stone Provincial Park - photo by Carrie Gour

Last week, I spent 4 days camping alone with my two 5 year olds.

We were in a special place called Writing On Stone Provincial Park. Mystical energy practically shimmers across the moon-like landscape there, so it is well and good that it also happens to be one of those rare places left on the planet that's completely off the grid in terms of cell or internet service.  What’s the saying? Get into nature where there may be no wifi, but you’ll find a better connection? Yeah, that.

With no possibility of electronic distraction, I was made painfully aware of just how much time I actually spend on my phone. Although I am not on it as much as other people I know, this past week definitely relieved me of the illusion that I’m not on it “that much.” Corrective measures clearly needed to be taken so that I could “get” with the present. That place where 5 year olds live.

Outside is where my little people are most themselves; like living in a mirror, their wild internal landscapes are reflected back to them. They are bold and sensuous, touching and feeling every little  uncivilized thing out there, covered more often than not in burrs, insects and mud. Unlike so many city-dwellers who live in fear of anything untamed, these two are still close to their elemental selves.

Proximity to the Source is not something to be taken lightly, and with no choice but to be present, I was able to take in Life Lessons From Camping With Five Year Olds:

1)      Be Open To New Best Friends Everywhere

The way young children can make instant and deep best friends with a kid they just met never ceases to impress me. They are completely open to the possibility that every new person is awesome. They expect it, in fact.  There is no judgement and few questions beyond picking a shared activity (“want to help me dig a river?”). And then?  And then complete love and delight ensues for the next 3 or 4 hours, hugging like long lost relations when it’s time to say goodbye. In most cases, never to meet again.

This, after 5 minutes. Best friend love.

When adults meet it’s all reflexive judgement. We can’t even help ourselves, immediately assessing one another with various degrees of “who is this person, what are they about, what do they want from me and/or what can they do for me?” Our brains like categories; we spend all our conscious and unconscious time filing a person's bits away.

But how would our days (and lives) be different if we met every new person to us with a spirit of “Hey! I just know you're awesome!” It’s work for grown-ups burdened by challenging finances, health issues and personal/familial relationship drama to be vulnerable in the world – I get that. But meeting strangers with the naturally generous and open heart of your inner 5-year old is incrementally life changing. I’ve been practicing! It’s an old saw in spiritual and personal development circles that you get back what you put out, and I can tell you that facing strangers with the expectation that they are EXCELLENT puts you in an instant feedback loop of the same. I even hugged a new 5-minute-best-friend at a coffee shop yesterday! She was a lovely young barista, and I consciously showered her with genuine, happy preschooler love until sunbeams practically shone out of the top of her head. It works.

2)      Be Curious, Not Afraid

Last week my kids each "wore" a (live) corn snake “bracelet,” packed around a handful of earthworms, squatted in front of a garter snake making its way out of the river, let centipedes walk up their arms and crawled to the top of and inside of a hundred hoodoo’s or so. When they hesitated about doing any of these things, I said to them: Don’t be afraid; just be curious!   

We say and teach the things we most need to learn, don’t we?

Because they trust me more than I trust myself, they listen. Consequently, they are able to switch gears from fear to curiosity on a dime. And when they commit to curiosity, they commit fully – they just go for it! The result is that they not only have more experiences on the whole, but they have more immersive, visceral ones, learning their own capacities, boundaries and potential at the same time

I have put a note for myself above my computer: "Curiosity over Fear." I’ll let you know how it goes.

3)      Be So Present the Only Option is Happy

The exhortation to “live in the now” has become so pervasive I feel harassed by the sentiment. 

As adults we are almost never fully “in the moment”; instead we are forever leaning forward into the future or tilting backwards to the past and it often feels like all of life is designed to make it so. And for what? The future - by its very nature unassured – is an endless source of insecurity and worry. It’s entirely abstract, yet we live there and fret about it like it’s real. Alan Watts calls the future a “relentlessly retreating phantom. The faster we chase it, the faster it moves.” You can get a grip on a lot of things. The future is not one of them.

Neither is the past. The past is an existential graveyard. All our experiences - all our hopes and fears and joys - are buried there; nothing to do but read the headstones. It is not a place of action, but of completion. Yet we revisit it like there’s something to be done; like it’s a work in progress.

Happiness can ONLY reside in the moment you’re in. You can have a hope for happiness (the future) or a memory of happiness (the past), but an actual experience of joy only happens in the now.

Five year old's instinctively get it. They haven’t yet learned the madness of living in the imaginary future or the dead past. Intuitively they understand that the universe is endlessly fluid, that this moment is fleeting, and that it’s only moment we’ve got. So they get fully inside it.

I watched clouds waft together and apart for 20 minutes while the kids dug in the sand. Not a single thought in my head, until I thought “I am watching clouds waft together and apart…” – at which point, of course, I ceased to be in the moment. Awareness is ironic like that.

“Living in the now” doesn’t require the formality of a meditation practice if one can cultivate it as a lifestyle. I am actively nurturing my inner 5-year old, catching myself psychically tilting either forwards or back and bringing myself back to where I am. Not sure how long I can keep it up, but I'm lucky to have good teachers close at hand!

4)      Trust You Are As Brave and As Capable As Your Mother Believes You Are

There were many times this week when the only reason the kids jumped across a pair of hoodoos, climbed to the top of one or held that mitt-full of earthworms, is because I told them I knew they were brave and strong enough to do it. As my daughter said at one point, poised to jump a small crevasse “Do you believe in me mama?” “I believe in you!” I shouted back. And that’s all it took to convince her to try.

Jumping Hoodoos. Photo by Carrie Gour

How often do we dismiss the (positive) convictions of those we love?  In my case, almost always. Why? Because I know so much better: “They don’t know how truly hopeless/fraudulent/incapable I am.” But they aren’t tilting at windmills either. They are wise and observant and we trust their opinions on everything else in the world – so why not their belief in us too?

I am committed to believing people who think I’m clever/original/strong/whatever other good quality. I’m committed to forgoing my usual M.O. where I immediately dismiss them; instead, like my daughter, I’ll try to let myself be lifted and propelled by their faith to jump the crevasse…

I want you to try it too. Try living like a five year old for a week, and share your observations! Keep in mind that in addition to the above, living like a 5 year old includes having a bath every night, going to bed early, crying loudly when you're sad, believing knock-knock jokes are the height of comedy and having a high level of comfort with your own filth. See what I mean? Loads of wisdom!

Writing on Stone Provincial Park. Photo by Carrie Gour