My daughter is 6 years old. Her name is Eleanor. Her name is the same as her grandmother’s, my mother, who is no longer here in physical form. Eleanor, my daughter, “Runs to the beat of her own drummer.” This was the caption of a Charles Shultz, Peanuts poster I had in my room growing up. It pictured snoopy running while listening to his headphones and oblivious to the dozen or more little yellow woodstock birds that ran in the opposite direction from him. My daughter does run to the beat of her own drummer. She embraces her spirit through song and dance. Any afternoon after school or on the weekends you will find her singing or dancing to her own made up songs. She is always coming up with her own words, music, and dances that inspire her and elate her spirit. She truly enjoys what she does and is able to bring her entire being into what she is doing while she is doing it. Last night she decided to sing ‘Opera’. She curiously asked me, “Mommy, what is Opera?” I responded with the best answer I could, “Well, it is a type of singing where the singer sings fully and entirely from the fires of their belly. They bring up the most incredible sounds that are loud and long sounding where it almost seems like they can create their own echo in a room. They are not yelling but rather they are able to produce these beautiful sounds in such a way that their song is soft and soothing to your ears.” Wow, I thought I could never get all of that out and she would never understand all of that in one breathe. But, to my surprise, she said, “Can you show me?” With that, I bellowed out in my most untrained and uncharismatic voice, “Yes my dear, this is what it sounds like!” I raised my arms and sang to her as well as I could. She loved it! And my daughter began singing her own version of Opera around the house announcing as she sang, “I am singing opera! I can sing opera because I am an opera singer!” I chuckled to myself and smiled in approval knowing that she is developing self esteem and a courageous heart through all of this experimenting she does around our house. She feels safe to be herself and that is something that is a gift.
I thought of my own childhood and how I too had a singer in me that wanted to sing all the time and dance around the house. I used to sing outside, sing inside, and dance anywhere my body would take me. I remember calling my mother to the front room window of our house so that she could watch below as her daughter told her to listen. I sat outside in the front driveway and sang the tune “Maybe” from the play ‘Annie’. I sang long and deep and did so without reservation. I wanted my mom to know what a good singer I was because I thought so! I didn’t care if people were walking by or if the neighbors were listening, I wanted them to hear me! I had a strong and open throat and a desire to be anything I wanted to be, even a famous singer. I also remember roller skating with my friends on the same block we lived on. With my friends we practiced our roller skating moves and were always putting on performances. We had sparkly skirts and outfits that we fancied in our skits that we performed in the neighborhood streets. Sometimes we just did the skits for ourselves and sometimes we gathered our friends and families. We were good. We knew it too. Our creativity and our sparks were open and on fire! To us, there was nothing that we could not do, create, or become. We were empowered little 6 year olds with a desire for life.
So, what happened to all of that? What happened to the little girl with a courageous heart? Well, she became scared as she grew up. As she grew older she witnessed abuse in her own home. She learned that it was no longer safe to be herself. She learned that hiding from her parents during their nights of rage was the only safe way to live and justifiably translated this over to several parts of her life which included the singing and the dancing. The skits and the singing became confined to her own bedroom four walls. As she grew older, she never stopped performing, she only limited her audience to her stuffed animals, her mirror, and the Peanuts poster of Snoopy and Woodstock that hung in her room. She always made sure her door was closed and that she was never too loud so that someone could hear.
As an adult, I now realize that this was the beginning of the closing down of my throat (5th) chakra and my empowerment (3rd-Solar Plexus) chakras. Your 5th chakra, which is around the location of your neck, allows you to be able to speak your truth. When it is open we feel that we can be who we are and speak of this freely to others. When it is closed we feel like our ideas and our thoughts are not worthy of being expressed and that we do not have the right to express these. Our 3rd chakra is right around our belly, above our naval. It gives us the freedom to feel safe and to be who we are. When it is open we feel safe and secure in ourselves and free to express our personalities with the limitless power to do so. When it is closed we feel powerless like there is nothing we can do to help ourselves. We feel tired and depressed. As you can probably see these two chakras are related and work closely together. If we feel safe then we have the power needed to allow our hearts to speak our truth. If we don not feel safe we close down and hinder our possibilities. Unfortunately, these areas learned to remain closed most of my life and affected many of my life’s experiences and decisions I made about my future.
Today, I have come to a point of healing in these areas. As I express myself through these words that I write, as I watch my daughter embrace and sing out her songs of truth, and as I continue to take risks throughout my business practice that thrives on helping others to heal, I continue to heal and open to further and further states of pure trust and gratitude. I have returned to my little girl and have embraced what I lost so long ago. Especially, as I watch my daughter, Eleanor, express and become the ideas that she makes up in her head, I too go back to my little girl and allow her to express her ideas that she has in her head. It helps me to remember that I will always, “run to the beat of my own drummer”. Only now, my inner child knows that it is finally safe to do so thus bringing my adult back to remembering who I truly am; a child of light. As we all are children of light that must remember the importance of play amongst our busy lives. We must remember the children we once were many, many years ago. We must embrace the children within us and remember what gave our eyes their sparkle. Was it going out into the woods for hours and exploring? Was it endlessly searching for rolly pollies in the back yard? Was it dressing up in costumes and developing our own story lines and characters? Or was it soaking up a book for hours upon hours? We must get back to what made us laugh and our spirits soar as children. We must remember. This is where we left our sparkle dust. It is still there, it is just waiting for us to reclaim it and to remember. Re-member, re-unify, re-join with our inner child and reignite the flames of joy, celebration, uninhibited bliss that we all share. This is when we are truly living. This is when we realize how our children are truly a gift to our hearts. This is when our spirits sing. Our children help us remember and rejoin with who we once were. They help us bring back the light in our eyes that they own without effort. They help us remember our own beats as our own individual drummers running to the tune of our inner light. This is their gift to us. Find your inner child and allow her/him to laugh again (-:
On Sunday, I plan to run a 3.2 mile race with my middle, 9 year old son. Some will be running to win, some will run for their own individual goals, some will be running for just the experience. My son will be running as his first time ever running a road race. I will be running mainly to experience the race through my son’s eyes and encourage him to keep going. I wonder what he will say and see and express. I wonder what kind of ‘beat’ he will bring to the race. I wonder what we will learn together. Until then, I wonder…
Namaste and blessings
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