Is your inner child running your life?

This poem by Jack Kerouac got me thinking:

      HOW TO MEDITATE

      -lights out-

fall, hands a-clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharging
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
i hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance-Healing
all my sicknesses-erasing all-not
even the shred of a “I-hope-you” or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes-and
with joy you realize for the first time
“thinking’s just like not thinking-
So I don’t have to think
      any
            more”

It reminds me of the time, years back, when I was headlong into panic over what to do what to do what to do about all my problems and how to fix them but I couldn’t see a solution.

So I started reading about Buddhism, desperate, and came upon the concept of do-nothing [PDF file]. I thought, “Ohhh, I can do that!” The relief I felt at giving myself permission to let go of all the shoulds and have-to’s was instant and indescribable.

Doing nothing was the only thing I was good at

It was what I loved doing as a kid, when everyone was yelling at me to STOP BEING SO LAZY and CLEAN YOUR ROOM and GET TO WORK.

All I wanted to do was read and dream and do… nothing. I would sit for hours in my messy room and lose myself in space, forgetting everything, forgetting me.

Maybe I was onto something. Maybe that’s what Buddha was talking about. (Of course, I was missing the part about mindfulness in everyday tasks but ya gotta start somewhere, right?)

After a while, the external yelling stopped because I was a grownup now, and the voice in my head took over. They had done their job. Only now, the inner voice was constantly at me to BE FAMOUS, because that’s what I daydreamed about as a kid.

I tried, I really did. I went to radio school because everyone said I had a good voice and when I finally got a real on-air radio job, I found my place in the world. I loved it. I even got to be a little bit famous, just enough to quiet that voice in my head — for a while.

Then I decided I wasn’t famous enough. So I went after more and got it. But that wasn’t enough for long. Always, I wanted more.

And then it all came crashing down — I lost it all

I tried to get it back but nothing worked. That’s where I was when the concept of “do-nothing” washed over me like a warm summer rain shower. I thought, “This I can do. I don’t have to BE anything. I can just be me.”

It wasn’t a profitable decision, I want you to know that. I didn’t suddenly find the secret to success. Just being me meant not working for other people and their regular paychecks, for instance. It also meant letting go of business ideas that might have paid the bills but didn’t fit.

But it also meant letting go of fear — the fear of never living up to my childhood dream

As it turned out, the six-year-old who decided to be famous someday was more of a tyrant than any adult who disapproved of my laziness.

Now, I am living a different dream, because it’s what grownup me really wants, not childhood me.

So I’m wondering, what six- or seven- or eight-year-old tyrant is ruling YOUR life? Are you willing to let go of the fear of disappointing childhood you?

I’m right here, if you need me.