Remember that sense of wonder you had as a kid?
The feeling that everything was magical?
That you could weave some of that magic and make it your own…
No?
Then you are not alone.
There’s a thing that gets in the way called life. It smothers and even extinguishes that spark until, one day, you wake up and realise that something is missing.
The good news?
You can reignite it. All it takes is the courage to strip back those layers…the safety blankets you threw over yourself.
We all have them – the masks and the defences we put in place to protect us from disappointment and worse. The problem is that they rarely work.
Instead, they dull the creativity and magic that still stirs somewhere deep in your soul. What fuels that creativity is the belief that anything can happen. What extinguishes it is the knowledge that this is true.
As life’s blows rain down or responsibilities weigh us down, we replace the ‘what if?’ with ‘what now?’
For any creator, ‘what if?’ is the spark that sets the imagination on fire.
What if dragons were real?
What if you could invent robots that helped save the planet?
What if a woman met the love of her life one day before she was due to die?
It’s in responding to the ‘what if’ that you can begin to heal the gap between you and the child you once were. Kids take those kind of questions seriously.
OK, maybe not that last one.
But they look at the world around them and wonder…
What if you could take a lump of wood and let the person you see within it emerge as a sculpture?
What if you take that same wood and rub it against another until you have fire?
What if you then use that fire to light up the sky?
Children don’t need to suspend their disbelief.
They have none while they are very young.
It’s only as they listen to those adults who tell them ‘no’ and that they can’t do whatever it is they imagine that their innate creativity starts to stultify.
The trick is to close your ears to the naysayers and to ignore anyone who tells you what you can and cannot do. For the truth is, you can do anything you can imagine.
Yes, you might need to adapt a little or refine as you go.
But the real magic starts when you dare to begin. When you throw back the layers that insulate you from magic and show the world the real you.
I dare you.
Be vulnerable.
Speak your truth.
Create it.
Listen to the drumbeat of your imagination.
Spend a day as the six year old you.
You will be astonished by what happens, I promise.
Because you bring to that child all the knowledge, experience and wisdom you have gained over the intervening years. Just remember to leave behind the doubts, fears and disillusionment.
Each day you are born again.
Make this the day you are reborn as you.
