The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described the inner child within each of us with these words:
“The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling on its own, a prime movement, a sacred Yes.”
I love the phrase that concludes that sentence… a sacred Yes.
It brings up a feeling in me of deep joy and pure excitement… a quickening of the heart, a fullness of the soul… both lightness and strength in the body… the sensation of being at the perfect place, at the perfect time, and having been guided to that exact moment by unseen, loving hands.
When was the last time you experienced a sacred Yes?
Were you doing something you loved? Were you in the presence of a beloved partner or friend? Were you standing in a beautiful natural landscape?
I believe these sacred Yes moments are some of the most significant, meaningful moments in our lives.
They are signposts confirming that we are on the right path. They are divine messages affirming that we should follow wherever this sacred Yes leads.
A life lived in true authenticity and awareness brings these sacred Yes moments regularly, daily, moment by moment.
And yet many people can go months, years, even decades without feeling a sacred Yes.
Often brought on by trauma, family wounding, and social conditioning, too many of us grow accustomed to a feeling of No in our bodies - the deep, uneasy feeling that something is wrong, or more specifically, that something is wrong with ME. When that inner No becomes our normal experience, our baseline of experience, we live from a wounded smallness, we shrink back from possibility, we feel defeated before we even get started.
Maybe this has been your experience lately… of living from a scared No, instead of a sacred Yes.
But there is a path for getting back in touch with your sacred Yes.
As Nietzsche suggests, it is the archetypal inner child that reminds us of our innocent capacity to feel the joy of life once more, to say Yes to being alive.
When I lead clients through my 1-on-1 Finding Purpose program, I take them through a visualization journey of meeting their playful inner child. We go back to a memory of their childhood self at play, doing something they loved, captivated by the wonder of a game or activity or place where they felt happy & safe. In the exercise, I invite the client to receive a gift or a message from this child… a reminder of what brings them deep gladness, what fills them with a sacred Yes.
Even if these childhood memories were fleeting, even if they occurred in the midst of a tough, traumatic past, I believe most of us can connect with moments when the child in us was drawn to something that brought us genuine joy. And I believe that whatever called us closer to our own joy as children is a clue to what will bring us fulfillment in our adult lives. As Carl Jung wrote, “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
So, if you have felt disconnected in the past few years from your own personal sacred Yes, one place to begin looking is in your childhood joys.
From there, you can begin to better hear your inner language of Yes. How does your body feel when you’re doing something you really enjoy? How does your heart react when you choose to honor what you feel? How does your soul respond when you follow the path of your truth?
These are all the ways your whole being says yes… yes… YES!
Learning to listen to your own sacred Yes is inner work that can completely change your life. My 1-on-1 coaching work, particularly my Finding Purpose program, is deeply centered on helping clients hear their own inner Yes more clearly & to make choices in their lives in alignment with the sacred truth. Listening to the sacred Yes gives us the information we need to transform our lives - from our careers, to our relationships, our creativity, our health, and beyond.
If you are interested in learning how my life coaching services can help you experience your sacred Yes, comment “Yes!” below.