A poem for when you’re feeling the need to reconnect with the child within… ✨
Flowers reaching for the light
Through her mind’s delight
Irrigated by memories
Of sunshine, bikes, and crayons
Paper dolls, mud puddles
Swing sets and freedom
Planting seeds to write
Some future day
From darkness into play
©Ashley Castle Barnes ~ Cat Lady Poet
Bare trees
Skinned knees
Her child soul
Longs to play
Follow the sun
Smile and run
Her child soul
Finds the way
©Ashley Castle Barnes
She plants the seeds
But can’t ever know
What will come
Or what will grow
So she propagates
She cultivates
She waits
And in between
She loves, she plays
She dreams, she creates
©Ashley Castle Barnes
I never what’s going to come from my daily writing.
Sometimes it’s angst and offloading.
Sometimes it’s creative insight.
Sometimes it’s rhymes.
Whatever comes, it’s almost always what I need.
In that day. In that moment.
How do you tap in and receive?
What if she does the unthinkable
What if she thinks for herself
And trusts the voice inside that says
Play! Be light! Your voice is powerful!
And so are you!
What if she trusts
And the fear she’s always known
Doesn’t dissipate but grows stronger
And she uses it as stepping stones
To her most empowered life
©Ashley Barnes
In all her days
And wandering ways
She never found the answers
She thought would guide her days
Instead she lingered and played
Until the answers found their way
Into her prayers, unanswered
And unswayed
©Ashley Barnes
It’s those moments when we feel most in-between…traveling, transitioning, traversing new terrain…we have the most opportunity for something new and better to emerge.
Those spaces where we’re no longer on the shore and not exactly out to sea.
When we feel lost but may also secretly be a bit in awe of what could be.
That’s when play takes new forms. Play for the sake of moving forward.
Natural. Nurtured. New.
All nestled around us, keeping us safe.
We may not feel the safety in the same way, but we can trust it to carry us onward to the next adventure.
What are you exploring in the in-between today?
When I started health coaching school, we had a daily journal to complete. It was optional, but I’m a good student, so I did it.
One of the question prompts at the end of each day was “What did you do for fun?”
And on weekdays, I always had to leave that question blank.
All week, I carved out time for work, but I never carved out time for fun.
I suppose back then fun seemed frivolous.
I was raising small kids and that can be a lot of work. I was also newly remarried, and new relationships can be work too.
But, it’s all in how we look at it. And what we want from life.
I was also carrying a great deal of sadness that I didn’t recognize. Those unexplored feelings can rob of us the things that make us truly alive, like joy.
The kind of joy that comes from having a healthy balance of work and fun.
So often, we’re told we have to work hard to get ahead & that it’s acceptable – even expected – for that to come at the price of everything else.
But when I think back about the awareness from that old journal, or I think of all the time fretting over the work of raising kids and how they’re now practically adults, or when I ask myself, “What do you really want?” the answer is never hard work.
Yes, to achieve our goals we have work to do. But being a slave to the grind isn’t the only way to get there.
It mostly serves to keep us small and right there in the same place, year after precious year.
Where are you avoiding fun today in the name of hard work?
So often we hide away the part of us that is pure joy and unabashed play for the treachery of the daily grind.
What would you do if you could harness your inner child?
Who would you be?
How would you act?
What if, just for a few moments, you let her run wild and free?
Cat Lady Poet 