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A Letter To My Inner Child · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, welcome back to Unlocking the Paradigm portal.
• 0:03
  My name is Sarah. I need to tell you something
• 0:06
  before I get into today's episode.
• 0:09
  So this week's Monday and Wednesday episodes, I made them,
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  I showed up, but I'm going to be really honest with you about
• 0:15
  where I actually was while I was making them.
• 0:18
  I didn't know it was Wednesday until 5:00 AM Wednesday morning
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  when my alarm went off and I freaked out because I had
• 0:24
  nothing planned. So I threw together an episode
• 0:27
  about circling back to your emotional meter when you've lost
• 0:29
  sight of it. And I recorded it, and I
• 0:32
  uploaded it. And then I went right back to
• 0:34
  what I'd been doing for days. And today I almost forgot that
• 0:39
  today existed entirely. I'm recording this right now in
• 0:44
  my pyjamas, on my couch, under a blanket.
• 0:46
  Because about an hour ago, I remember that tomorrow is a
• 0:50
  podcast day. It's about 9:00 on Thursday
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  evening. And this is a podcast about
• 0:56
  emotional honesty made by someone who has been so
• 0:59
  completely somewhere else this week that the days stopped
• 1:01
  registering. And I want to talk about where
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  I've been because I think it's the most important thing I've
• 1:06
  said in this series yet. I have been deep, and I mean
• 1:10
  completely, totally, joyfully lost in building a world.
• 1:14
  It's a fictional world. There's characters, storylines,
• 1:16
  emotional architecture. It's the kind of building I
• 1:19
  haven't done in more years than I can count.
• 1:22
  And when I'm in it, the entire external world ceases to exist.
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  I mean, literally, I notice nothing and I feel alive in a
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  way that's really hard to describe to someone who hasn't
• 1:34
  experienced it. Because it's not about
• 1:37
  productivity or accomplishment. It's about passion and drive and
• 1:42
  creativity. And here's why this matters.
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  I was five years old the first time that I felt that.
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  And I spent every bit of my free time developing characters and
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  storylines. And I filled pages and pages of
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  wide ruled notebook paper with stories and character
• 1:58
  descriptions. And I would bind those pages
• 2:00
  with little pieces of, I had a specific preference for this,
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  like maroon colored yarn that I would tie little knots in so
• 2:08
  that I made my own books. And then I went to college and I
• 2:11
  got a degree in creative writing, which was super fun to
• 2:14
  get. And weirdly enough, I loved my
• 2:16
  class in Middle English. It really had no purpose, but I
• 2:20
  loved it. And that whole degree was great
• 2:23
  to get, but useless unless you're going to be a professor,
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  which I was going to do, and then I didn't.
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  So The thing is, I was doing that and I was living it.
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  And then it went quiet and life happened, and other things felt
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  much more urgent and more practical and more like what I
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  was supposed to be doing because I was a goddamn adult.
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  And slowly, without me ever deciding to stop, the writing
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  did. And for years I told myself that
• 2:50
  my creativity was just gone, and that I'd had it once and somehow
• 2:54
  used it up like it was a finite resource.
• 2:57
  Or that it had kind of bounced off the back of my trucker out
• 3:00
  of my car along the way. And that maybe I wasn't really a
• 3:04
  creative person anymore. Or that I've been faking it all
• 3:07
  along. Or that if I tried, not only
• 3:10
  would it not be good enough, it would full on suck.
• 3:13
  And that spark felt dim. And I was genuinely afraid that
• 3:18
  if I tried to light it and nothing happened, I'd have to
• 3:21
  admit that it was really gone. So I didn't even try.
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  And then one day, my mystical, magical Unicorn of a daughter,
• 3:28
  Quinn, who was about 5 years old at the time, asked me to tell
• 3:31
  her a story and I couldn't. It was shocking.
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  I was literally stunned. I sat there and I had nothing.
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  And I told her the truth. I said I think my creativity
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  disappeared and I don't know where it went.
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  And she looked at me and said, would you like help finding it?
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  She was a child and she didn't go looking for it in my mind.
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  She didn't ask me to analyze it or explain it or figure out what
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  went wrong. She just opened a door and
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  something small and warm came through it.
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  And that was the beginning. But I still found other things
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  that felt like higher priorities.
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  I still told myself the spark was dim and that I might not be
• 4:11
  able to do it the way that I used to.
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  The door was open, but I wasn't walking through it until this
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  week. So this week, after months of
• 4:20
  deep internal work, mapping patterns, following threads,
• 4:23
  connecting dots across my entire life, something ignited.
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  And I don't mean it flickered. It full on ignited into a
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  bonfire and I realized something.
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  The spark was never gone. I just wasn't looking in the
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  right place. I was searching my mind and it
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  was living in my body. So I want to speak to someone
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  right now. And this is where this whole
• 4:45
  episode's going to change up, so stay with me.
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  And that someone is a little girl sitting at an old
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  typewriter. That's what I switched to after
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  the paper and I had a story. That little girl had a story
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  that she couldn't get out fast enough.
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  So I'm going to talk to her. I wrote her a little letter.
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  And if you have a version of that child inside of you, I'm
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  going to talk to yours too. So let this sink in, OK?
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  I'm just going to start, and I might cry a little bit, so just
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  go with it. Hey, I see you and I know you've
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  been waiting. Not impatiently.
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  You're not angry, you're just there the way you've always been
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  there, curled up somewhere quiet inside, keeping the stories
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  warm, waiting for someone to come looking.
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  And I know that I looked in all the wrong places for a long
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  time. I looked in my head and logic
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  and analysis and the question of whether I was still good enough
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  to do what you always did so naturally.
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  And I kept trying to think my way back to you, but you were
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  never in my thoughts. You were always in my hands when
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  they moved across a keyboard in my chest.
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  When a character said exactly the right thing.
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  In that really gentle kind of silence where the external world
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  goes quiet because something more real is happening inside.
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  I didn't lose you. I stopped feeling for you.
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  And when I stopped feeling for you, you did what any living
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  thing does when it's ignored long enough.
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  You got quiet and you waited in the shadows, and you've been
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  waiting this whole time. My daughter asked me if she
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  could help me find you. A child knew to look somewhere
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  I'd forgotten to look. She didn't try to explain you or
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  rebuild you from the outside in. She just made space, and you
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  moved toward her light. And I'm sorry it took me so long
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  to come back, but I'm here now, under a blanket on the couch, in
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  my pyjamas, snuggled up with Quinn's stuffed pink elephant
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  named Pinky, completely alive, and the entire external world is
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  gone. That's you.
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  That's what you feel like I'd forgotten, but now I remember.
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  Don't go quiet again, ever again.
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  I'm listening now. So if that resonated for you at
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  all, then roll with that. What it does your inner child
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  need right now? Where is that spark that you've
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  been searching for in your mind and not in your body?
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  Because that kid is in there for you too.
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  Whatever version of them exists inside of you, The one who used
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  to paint or sing or build things or move their body like it was
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  made for joy or love without protecting themselves first.
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  They didn't disappear. You stop feeling for them.
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  There's a difference, and it's a very important one.
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  Gone means it's over. Unfelt means you've been
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  searching in the wrong place. And most of us look for the
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  things that we've lost in our minds.
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  We try to think our way back to passion, to creativity, to that
• 8:09
  feeling of being alive, and we analyze what went wrong.
• 8:14
  We make plans to do better, and we try to logic ourselves into
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  feeling something we used to feel naturally, without even a
• 8:22
  thought. But the things we've lost, the
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  real things, those alive things, they don't live in thought.
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  They live in sensation, in the body, in the thing that happens
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  in your chest when you're doing exactly what you're meant to be
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  doing, and the whole world falls away.
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  So I want to ask you something, and I want you to actually stop
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  and feel for the answer, not think for it.
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  What is the last thing that had you so completely that you
• 8:52
  forgot what day it was? Not the last thing you
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  accomplished, Not the last thing you checked off a list.
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  The last thing that made the external world go quiet because
• 9:04
  something more real was happening inside.
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  If something came to mind, good. That's the thread.
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  Follow it. And if nothing came, that's
• 9:14
  information too. It's not a verdict, it's
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  information. And it might mean that child has
• 9:20
  been quiet for a long time, and it might mean you've been
• 9:24
  looking in your mind instead of your body.
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  And it might mean the door is just waiting for someone to open
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  it. Maybe you need to ask someone to
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  help you find it again, like I did.
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  And maybe, just maybe, that someone is closer than you
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  think. Maybe it's a child, Maybe it's a
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  friend, the part of yourself that still remembers.
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  So I'm going back to the book as soon as I'm done with this.
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  And I'm not going to apologize for that.
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  I'm not going to call it indulgent or irresponsible or a
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  distraction from real life. It is my real life.
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  The five year old who was sitting with her notebook paper
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  and eventually a typewriter is my real life.
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  But before I go, I'm going to do the thing I asked you to do on
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  Monday. I'm going to put a hand on my
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  chest and breathe into it and connect back to my emotional
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  meter right now. So do it with me, OK?
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  What's here? It feels warm, it feels full.
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  It feels like expansive, like wings expanding out.
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  Feels a little bit tearful, honestly.
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  And underneath all of that is this feeling of coming home.
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  That's what my inner child feels like.
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  That's what yours will feel like when you find them and you'll
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  know. So if this found someone who
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  needed it, fantastic. And if you know someone who
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  needs it, send it to them. It's not to fix anything.
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  It's just so you and they know that child is not gone.
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  They're just waiting to be felt for.
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  So tap into your emotional meter this week and see what you find
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  and share it with me in the comments.
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  All right, I will be back Sunday for a deep dive.
• 11:19
  Have a wonderful day.