Smile Baby, Smile!

Ever looked at an old photo of yourself and thought, "Wow, I peaked at 5"? Join me as I try to rediscover that kid who smiled in bathtubs, rocked a xylophone, and didn’t care what anyone thought—except maybe for snack time.

Transcript

Do you remember laughing and being joyful and cheerful as a child. Do you remember just laughing and being cure free and just enjoying yourself and being creative and curious? Because I have to tell you, I as I get older, I have a hard time going back to remembering times like that, remembering joyful, happy, exciting times like that. And you know, they may or may not have existed for you, and I wasn't really 100% sure if they had existed for me. So, so here's what I did. I was able to dig up some old photos of me. I mean, when I was almost newborn, you know, to a young boy, up until about, you know, I like high school ish, but I looked at the pictures, and I made a concerted effort to pull out the pictures of me either smiling or laughing or just having a very cheerful, curious Look at my face. And I can't even begin to tell you how I was able to relate to that kid, that small child. And you know, you think about it, you're when you're a kid, and you're now the age that you are. At what point you were that child. At one point you probably did laugh and smile and you were a child like so when you look at the pictures, at least when I looked at the pictures, I was able to connect. And I have to tell you that I've had a really hard time, the older I get, connecting with children, which, as a Catholic, is really weird, right? Because we believe in the the family and children. And I gotta tell you, for whatever reason, I just, as I get older, I look at children, I just, you know, I began because of my own pain, of my own childhood and the pain I had of, you know, having my own children, then going to through divorce and all the pain that goes with that. And now three out of the four are estranged. So it's, it's a very painful thing, but when I saw these pictures of myself, I was able to connect with that little child, the joy, and I just saw the look in the eyes. And on my YouTube video, I was actually will show the pictures I found, and all I can do here on the podcast is describe them. But there's one picture of me, probably five years old, we're out. It's a black and white photo. We're out looking for Christmas trees, and it's just a picture of me by myself with just a big old smile on my face. And as I look at I think there I was just happy to be out, happy to be tromping through the snow, happy looking for trees, and just happy and joyful in the moment. There's another picture, and I think every parent took pictures of the kids in the bathtub at some point, but there was a picture of me, probably a year old, same thing in a bathtub by myself. Big old smile on my face. It looks like a bar of soaked my hand, but just happy and joyful and excited, and you can almost hear the squeals of little kid. They're just like, How happy is? You know, in there, I've got a couple more pictures of and here's what I think is interesting. If you know, if you're co dependent, you've spent most of your life trying to please other people, to be a people pleaser, that you kind of conduct yourself in your life so that you don't upset other people. So I thought that's really interesting. I have two photos, and again, you can see them on the YouTube video. There's a picture of me, again, five or six years old, and in the background is a picture of my younger sister, who's five years younger than me, and you know, my mother's playing with her, but there's me not paying any attention to these other people. Maybe this is pre co dependence. If there is such a thing, I've got a little sack of candy in my hand. I've got a big smile on my face, and it's just like here's this kid just being excited and joyful in the moment without worrying about other people or whether anyone cares whether he's laughing and smiling, which I thought that was quite, quite a picture, and it really helped me to see that there was a time in my life and there can be again, and there is now times where I can be just happy and joyful in the moment without worrying about other people. There's another picture of me playing on a little kid xylophone. And then my my eyes are this look of, you know, just curiosity. You can see, you know, the wonder of how you know what sounds come out when I'm hitting it. And next to me are my older brother and sister. It's almost like they're looking like, Oh my gosh. Can I have, can I have a chance of playing with that? Can Can I do it? Can I do it? And again, I've got this look on my face. It's kind of like totally ignoring these two it's just me playing. And I love both of these photos, because it just shows that there is that time where you just have that child, like awe and wonder and fun. And then the last photo I showed was a picture of me in the crib, and I can almost hear this child just screaming with laugh. I don't know. I don't know if I'm five months or six months old, or something in this this picture of my face is my eyes are wide wide open, and my mouth is wide open and my fists are clenched, and you can just hear the screams of a little child. And I don't know how you feel when you hear little children like that, little babies just cooing and screaming and everything, but when it was me, I was able to connect with it. Now I understand that you you know, maybe you are. There's people you know that they don't have any pictures or videos of them as a small child, you know, laughing and enjoying themselves. They may have grown up in very, I don't know, cruel circumstances, a very alcoholic and abusive family, physically abusive, sexually abusive. They may not even have pictures like that, and you may be in that boat. So I can't really relate to that. What that would be like to not be able to find any images of yourself as that small child laughing and everything. So I would encourage you to just bring yourself up in your mind's eye, even if you can only see a picture of yourself as a small child, just not even you know, not even smiling. Just imagine what it be to smile. Imagine that little kid being excited about something, passionate about something, excited about something, and try and crowd out that pain, if that's at all possible, and even with a video same thing. So another thing you can do in unfortunately, we're in the 21st century, and it's probably more of a creeper thing. But if you can go out to like a playground or a place where children are playing, you know, you can get away with it. Sadly, you know people seen a adult sitting there by themselves, and they wonder, but I don't know, bring your lunch or something. Make it look like you're supposed to be there and just watch the children play. Watch them as they go up and down a slide or a swing set, or they're playing with each other. And, you know, I think is really fascinating is when you see children playing, they just seem so, I don't know, uncaring about what other kids or people think like, they'll say what they think like, you know, Oh, give me that shovel. That's my shovel here in the sandbox. Or someone says, Hey, what are you making? It's like, I'm making a, you know, big castle, and it may look like a lump of sand, right? They don't seem to really care about what other people think. And do you remember when that happened for you? Do you remember when you just really didn't care what other people think, and not in a bad way, not like you were, you know, being mean to people, but you were just in the moment. You were excited about what you were doing. You were happy and laughing.

That's why, I think a lot of times when you, you know, you get back to that child, like, not even childlike, that that child that you were and do some things to help you get back into that moment. I think a big thing that you can do is again, close the door, go into a room somewhere, don't tell anyone where you're going. You don't have to tell anyone or shows anyone. I have Box of Crayons. You're like, oh my gosh, that is so weird. A box of crayons. Come on. I'm an adult. I'm dead serious. Go to Walmart or, you know, big store somewhere, just get a box of crayons and get those big ones. They have, like, eight colors or something. They're bigger in your hand. You just draw with your non dominant hand. Use the color black to, you know, do something angry or red. Do yellow for cheerfulness or purple. Purple is my favorite color. Use a lot of purple and just start to explore and express yourself and reconnect with that child inside of you. So if you're really struggling again, whether you can find pictures or not, like I said, it was a big help for me. But even if you can't find those, take some time to just just draw in color and create, and again, use your non dominant hand. You'll see that. You'll see what I mean when you try it. But go make pictures in it doesn't matter what you make. It's not, you know, for your architectural firm, it's not to be put on display in the Guggenheim Museum or something. Just draw it, just make pictures of people, of the sun, of whatever you want to and have fun with it. And then if you want crumple up and throw it away or burn it, do whatever you want with it. Because I can't tell you how important it is that you get in touch with what you may never have had, and that was maybe just a happy childhood. So I'm suggesting you go back, find the times. You know, if you have to dig great, go through photo albums. Find what you can find pictures of you smiling, find times in your life when you were just that happy, creative kid I said I've done that many times. I really, and I'll say this here in public, I've just done stuff with paint. I've done stuff with crayons. I've done stuff with pencils where I just drew pictures. Here's something, here's something I haven't tried. Maybe you can try it. Let me know how it goes. Go get some some. What does that think? Finger paint. Finger paint, where you just go and you're just getting all sloppy and everything. Another thing you can play with is clay. Play with clay. Just shape it and mold it and throw it and throw it on the table and have fun with it. And all this stuff may sound crazy, and you may just dismiss it out of hand, but I can't tell you how important it is to reconnect with that, because again, you probably grew up without the parenting that you needed, that you wanted so badly. You wanted love, you wanted acceptance, you wanted mentorship, you wanted guidance, and maybe instead you got abuse, maybe you got abandoned, maybe you got pushed into the corner, maybe you got no guidance or direction of any kind. That's why it's vital that you become that parent. And I gotta tell you, I had a hard time, and I still do sometimes, being a parent to that little child with him, giving that child what he needs, I have a hard time saying to my younger self or even my adult self, hey, that was a great job. Hey, that's wonderful. Hey, it's okay. You had a bad day. It's okay. I am the king of was it self flagellation, where I just beat myself to a pulp. You know, the end of the day comes, you're like, Oh, I didn't get this done. I didn't do that. I didn't get hardly anything done. So I'm really good at beating myself up, and maybe you are too.

So take some time, have some fun to connect with that child within and

see him or her laughing, giggling, smiling, and hopefully you'll feel your heart grow warm, get some warmth going down there. Because I gotta tell you, another thing I had an issue with was and let me know if you've done this too, but I'll walk past a mirror, or even worse, like in the morning, when I'm shaving and getting ready to you know, for the day, I find that I'm looking in the mirror and I see myself, and I'm not looking at myself. I'm not looking into my eyes, I'm not saying nice things myself. I'm either saying nothing, or there's just this flow of negativity. It drives me crazy. But

try this. Next time you go by the mirror, you're looking at your mirrors, see and take note if you actually look at yourself, if you stop and say some nice things, like, hey, it's I'm having a good day, or, Hey, it's, I really like you. Hey, I love you. Can you say that? Can you Have you ever looked in a mirror yourself and just said, Hey, I love you. I've tried that before. I've I've looked into my eyes in the mirror and I said, I love you. And it creeped me out in a way of like, like, I almost couldn't handle it, so I had to repeat it over and over again, because if you have a hard time loving yourself, if you even can't love yourself, how do we expect other people to how do we expect, you know, our spouses, husbands, wives, children's friends, to love us? If we look in the mirrors like i You can't find that love for yourself. That's why I think it's vital to to play. Find things that bring out that you know, that child is joy. Sing a song, if you have to. So

if you get a chance, find some pictures, photos of yourself. Be creative. Use your non dominant hand. Connect with yourself. And you know what? Try to fall in love with yourself. You know, maybe start by liking yourself. I don't know about you, but I sometimes have a problem. Just like, look in the mirror, it's like, Dude, I don't even like you, which is so ridiculous, because I have other people who like me, right? My wife likes me. There's a lot of people who like me. Isn't it bizarre that you would not like yourself, though? Again, I don't get off track here, but it gets to me, it gets back into connecting with yourself, liking yourself, falling in love with yourself. Because I read somewhere that Jesus not only loves you, he likes you. He sees you going to confession. He sees you going to Mass. He sees you receiving the sacraments. He sees you trying to overcome everything in your life that you have to overcome. I mean, think about the number of people in this country, in the world, who don't even bother trying. They'll take drugs, they'll, you know, they'll experiment and this or that. They'll do all these terrible things. They'll do almost anything but try and figure out what they can make better in themselves, what they can overcome. So I challenge you, you know, as soon as you listen to this, start by connecting with that child. Fall in love with that child, start liking that child, start giving that child in you what you never had as that child growing up. It's it may it may not be easy. It hasn't been easy for me, but it's so worth it. It's so worth it. When I look at these pictures of myself, and I feel a smile, I start to fall in love with this little kid, and I start to see this creation of God, and it's just it's mind blowing. So if you're having a tough day, if you're having a tough week, if you're having a tough life, try try connecting with your your little self, your younger self, and feel yourself start to smile. Fact, look in the mirror and force yourself to smile. That's another exercise. So I hope you try it. I hope you have some, if not outright memories of being a joyful child. Maybe you can find physical proof of it. You know, dig through the photo album. See if you can find yourself. Find the pictures of you smiling, happy. And, you know, go to talent, go to town on it. And if you if your child was really that horrible and terrible one, first of all, definitely please go, go see a therapist, go talk to somebody, but

be kind yourself, and think about what that little kid needed at that time, and start giving that child what it always needed it Still needs, even today. Love, lots of love, and start liking yourself and falling in love with yourself. Okay, have fun with it. Explore it. Cry if you have to be joyful. I hope it brings joy to your heart, and I hope it puts a smile on your face. All right. God bless you. We'll talk to you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai