Through Her Eyes.
A seven-month-old meets the world before any frames arrive – and her mother starts unlearning her way back toward that.
The freshest teacher on this way is seven months old. Bella watches her daughter meet the world before any frame arrives – no standards, no "wrong", no thought of how one ought to look – and calls it what it is: a clean sheet, on which other people's attitudes will soon start writing.
What she draws from it isn't nostalgia; it's a practice with two edges. Toward her daughter: shield the sheet as long as possible, so the girl keeps hearing herself and not other voices. Toward herself: she notices she has stopped judging, stopped labeling – because every person walks their own path and learns their own lessons. That lands squarely on the sentence this whole site grew from: your way is the way. And Surfing the Ocean of Truth is about the same hearing – recognizing the voice under the noise and trusting it enough to move with it.
Try it, she says, at least sometimes – a child's eyes. Not to become naive again, but to remember what the sheet looked like before the writing.
The real world.
My daughter is only 7 months old, but she has already taught me a lot. And there's one observation I want to share.🤗
The whole world around us lives without rules. Animals, insects, plants, the weather – they have no frames and no imposed standards.
When a baby is born, it doesn't see its mum as fat or thin, tall or short, beautiful or plain. It has no idea that you have to look a certain way for others to like you. It simply lives. It is a pure soul, growing, loving its mum, studying this world with enormous interest.
A baby is like a clean sheet. And little by little, other people's attitudes begin to appear on that sheet. First the parents explain what is right and what is not. Then school joins in, friends, work, social media, society. Step by step a person grows a shell of frames, beliefs and the fear of doing something "wrong". And at some point they no longer live the way they themselves feel – they live the way they think others expect them to.
And looking at my daughter, I myself am learning to see the world through her eyes.
I very much hope that when she grows up, I'll manage to do everything possible to shield her, as much as I can, from imposed opinions, fears and other people's expectations. Because I want her to hear herself for as long as possible – not other people's voices.
And you know what's interesting? More and more often I notice that I've stopped judging people, hanging labels on them and sticking my nose where it isn't wanted. Because every person walks their own path, lives their own experience and learns their own lessons.
Try, at least sometimes, to look at the world through a child's eyes. You might learn a lot – not only about the world around you, but about yourself. 🥰🤗
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan