#3 Sandcastles, Moats & Rivers of Hope
~ 15 minute read ~
Do you remember when you were a child on the beach, bucket and spade in hand or even just using your bare hands to build sandcastles? The sheer joy of taking a thought that you had and making something physical out of it. You had the thought “I want to build something, I think I know what it looks like, or maybe I don’t but I’ll just collect some damp sand, begin building and see what comes”. Keep this image in mind, because we’re coming back to it later…
The innocence of a child’s mind is a wonderful thing. Why then do we allow this to be programmed out of us? From, let’s say, 10 years old onwards the focus on ‘play’ seems to be reduced - replaced instead with school homework, chores, being here or there at specific times. It’s bewildering, hang on Mum/Dad I was playing and now I’ve got to suddenly forget all that ‘nonsense’ and do this mundane stuff?
Why?
Why indeed?! Sit still, brush your hair, tuck your collar down, smile, stop looking out the window, make sure you’re on time STOP TALKING! We’re told that we need an education, but what kind of education is it? It’s a school system not too far removed from those brought in during Victorian times to get the children out of the workhouses. To sit in rows in a room, passively listening, rote learning, learning dates and facts to then regurgitate in exams as proof of our ‘learning’.
Heaven forbid you fail these exams OH MY GOD WHAT WILL BECOME OF YOU?! We’re programmed to become compliant, to learn things we really don’t want to learn (algebra anyone?), we’re disciplined if we show the slightest signs of dissent DETENTION!!!! See me after school. Or, if like me, you were a ‘good boy’ or ‘good girl’, ‘good as gold’. I remember one school report my behaviour was given as ‘Exemplary’ - is that because I was good at sitting still and not causing a fuss? My Mum was chuffed. The rest of the report was perfectly mediocre. But that exemplary for behaviour was really something son! Yay, go me.
Thinking back, that report doesn’t sit well with me at all. All that programming from my parents, my teachers, from wider society and from the TV shows and cartoons I loved (He-Man, Transformers, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Thundercats, M.A.S.K. etc) - I loved the stories and the morals but I was distraught to realise as I grew up that these were just glorified toy adverts! How naive was I? I loved the toys, although they only served to distract me so I’d be quiet.
Did you get caught up in this too? Then you find out about Father Christmas! And the Easter Bunny, well Easter is lame anyway - just give me the chocolate without the weird backstory - I could never piece together how a 2,000 year old zombie arising meant that an imaginary rabbit distributed chocolate eggs to kids? I’m open if someone cleverer than me wishes to explain… These beautiful lies that we’re brought up on, the myths and the stories we so loved that taught us morals, the proverbs and tales that lit up imagery in our own little mind cinemas. What was the point of it all?
To keep us safe? Maybe. I’d say it was to teach us about compliance.
DO AS YOU’RE TOLD.
All these apocryphal tales of derring do, the tragedies of what not to do and heroes slain because they strived too much or heroines killed because they had dreams? Designed to scare us into compliance, stop dreaming and to play it safe. Replace those dreams of Myths, Demons, Gods and Monsters with those of houses, cars and flatpack furniture. Be a dear and pass me the Ikea catalogue please?
The reason there are so many unhappy (and ill) people in the world is because too many of us are living out of sync with the natural seasons, out of alignment with our true selves, we’re betraying our Inner Child. If the 5 year old me met me now at 41 and I told him our life story, he’d be devastated…
He’d ask, “So you entered a career we didn’t want because you had no idea what else to do?”
41 yr old me: “Yep, but we had a big overdraft from uni…”
5 yr old me: “Ok, I’m 5 remember, what’s money got to do with stuff? The job you didn’t like, you changed it right?”
41 yr old me: “Nope, stuck at it for 20 years…”
5 yr old me: “You have fun though? What about the stories we used to write? The sketches we used to draw? Playing in the woods?”
41 yr old me: “Listen little buddy, I stopped it all. Work makes me tired, too tired to do all that silly stuff…”
5 yr old me: “SILLY STUFF? Sitting in an office for 8 hours a day hoping for the time to pass sounds pretty silly to me!”
41 yr old me: “C’mon little man, you don’t know what it’s like - you’ll see when you grow up! In the real world you need money, you have to get a job!”
5 yr old me: “Ok, this ‘job’ does it pay you bazillions then?”
41 yr old me: “Um, no - it pays me just enough to live but not enough to be free”
5 yr old me: “When can we be free then?”
41 yr old me: “Not sure. Maybe 65, 70 when we retire? Maybe never?”
5 yr old me: [Cries]
Grim isn’t it?
Well it doesn’t have to be. Change is what is needed. Start doing the little things that light you up, that makes your Inner Child happy. Do 5-10 minutes of it each day, keep doing it - that’s achievable. Like Tony Robbins says; “if you don’t have 10 minutes you don’t have a life”. Follow your bliss. Think the thought then act the action. Do it everyday for long enough and a new habit has been formed. Drop the bad habits, the ones you know you need to stop. They diminish you, cut them loose.
Create more time for yourself - get up slightly earlier, cut down on TV, play with your kids cos they’ll teach you more about yourself than you know, get moving, walk, stretch, run, be active. Eat less, you really don’t need all that extra food. Cut down on sugar, up your veggies, drink lots of water. Create more energy.
So back to the sandcastles. Change is hard right? Otherwise you’d have done it by now. Well, remember on that beach building the sandcastle and then shaping a moat around it, then letting the sea tide come in and fill it? You shaped a pathway for the water to follow didn’t you.
You used your hands or the spade to scrape out a river and it was so exciting when the water started to flow into the hollowed out riverbed that you’d made. So, just like you did as a child shaping the sand to show the water where to go. Do the same with your thoughts. You can change yourself, instead of shaping the sand you shape your thoughts and actions. Think, feel then do.
Repeatedly.
Day one, drink water, day two, drink water… day 21 drink water - hang on, I feel more energetic, my skin is clear, I feel healthier, I might go for a walk.
Day 21, go for a walk, day 22 go for a walk… day 42 go for a walk, wow - I’ve lost weight! I might write in a journal, I’m feeling inspired.
Day 42, write in your journal, day 43, write in your journal… day 64, write in your journal. Hey, my thoughts are much more lucid and I have clearer intentions now.
I might do yoga, write a blog, start a YouTube channel, record a podcast, bake cakes, call an old friend, help heal someone else… all things are possible.
By carving out your moat and then branching it out into a river network you’ve created and manifested something ethereal (a thought) and turned it into something physical (an action). By repeatedly doing that action you create a flow, a state of Being, you’ve positively affected your whole life. You are now the author of your story. Our brains are like sand, they can be shaped, moulded and made into whatever we want. By witnessing your thoughts through stillness, meditation, or if you can’t sit still, something that helps you get in the ‘zone’ - for some people that is running, swimming, cooking, painting - whatever it is, do it and quiet your mind.
The brain has a property called ‘neuroplasticity’. According to the definition provided on study.com:
Neuroplasticity is the change in neural pathways and synapses that occurs due to certain factors, like behaviour, environment, or neural processes. During such changes, the brain engages in synaptic pruning, deleting the neural connections that are no longer necessary or useful, and strengthening the necessary ones.
Just how you shaped your sandcastle, moat and branching rivers on that beach - you can do the same with your brain. “People never change” is a myth, we change every day - we shed our skin, our hair re-grows after we cut it, we cut our nails, our cells regenerate. Biologically our body is constantly re-creating itself, cells die, new cells are created. Just like thoughts, old thoughts can die - if you let them go, don’t cling on to them, it’s in the past. New thoughts come, if you nurture those thoughts and really feed and water them, like a plant, then see what grows and becomes.
Look how powerful rivers are, they run high or low, they carve new routes, humans try and concrete them in or re-direct but then eventually it floods and the river finds its own way. Allow your mental rivers to flow positively with hope and good intentions and you’ll carve new neural pathways in your brain - leading to new behaviours, new actions, raising your vibration, sending out better quality signals and attracting more of the things you hope and wish for.
Change is difficult if you only ever start get disheartened then quit, but if you do a little bit everyday, it’s more sustainable, it will culminate into a bigger change. The time will pass anyway so what have you got to lose?
It may start with just a glass of water a day or lacing up those shoes and going out for a walk.
Try it. Now. Do it everyday for 21 days then see where you are. Then add in another change, repeat.
Build those sandcastles, moats and rivers of hope towards your new life.
Love
LP x
