Looking for Magic as an Adult and How it Can Help Create a Sense of Safety in Our Bodies
As a child, it was easy to believe in magic. When you’re a kid, you don’t quite know the truth about the world yet or what is and isn’t realistic, acceptable, doable, or attainable. The possibilities are endless and you truly believe that anything can happen with a little bit of hard work and fairy dust.
When I was a little girl, I loved basketball. I attended all of the summer camps, practiced my dribbling, layups, and jumpshots in the driveway, and played in every Saturday morning game during my school’s fall and winter leagues. When I was in upper elementary, I remember a teacher asking me at school one day what I wanted to be when I grew up, and telling them that I wanted to play in the WNBA. Their first response was that I would probably be too short and wouldn’t be tall enough to play, and while that did end up being true (not to mention my love for volleyball eventually grew stronger than my love for basketball), my immediate response to this person was simple - I would just have to work really hard so that my skills could make up for my height.
I didn’t have any concept of my dreams not working out because of something outside of my control like height, and thought that anything could happen purely because I believed it could.
What’s the point of being logical when you can dream?
Eventually, as we get older and obtain more knowledge about the way things work, whether through first-hand experience or other people reminding us to come back to reality, we start to lose that spark. We’re told who and what we should and shouldn’t be, and more often than not, what we are and are not capable of. We’re encouraged to stay in our lane and stick with what we know, and this advice often stems from logic and what makes sense based on other people’s own experiences. And although this doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing or bad advice, it usually creates an imbalance in our sense of self.
We lose precious time as children - it doesn’t take long before we’re wanting to grow up, take on more responsibility, or in some cases, for parents to encourage more independence. The outside world begins conditioning us to think, act, and feel in ways that are more acceptable, and we slowly start to hide or lose parts of ourselves to fit in and make it easier on others. Our interest or excitement for the little things begins to slip away - watching raindrops race down the car window, jumping into a big pile of leaves in the fall that your dad raked up, seeing how long you can hold your breath under water, making a new friend who has the same shoes or backpack as you, collecting leaves and rocks while on a walk, at the beach, or running around the yard… We begin listening more to other people’s opinions rather than our own, and choose to forgo something that’s drawn our attention because of what someone else might think.
We get into adulthood and struggle with making decisions and knowing our favorite food, color, artist, song or music genre, how we want to dress and do our hair, or even how we want to be loved. We might dread waking up in the morning because it’s just another day, and we become so used to doing what other people say because, surely, they know best. We stop questioning what we want out of our own lives because what if it doesn’t make sense or it’s too hard. We live for the freedom that only weekends can bring and place ourselves into teeny, tiny boxes, and then wonder why we no longer feel optimistic or why it’s so hard to feel a sense of safety in our own bodies.
We have spent so much time listening to the voices of reason that we forgot what it was like to believe in magic; to be so sure of yourself that not even other people’s doubts could sway you; to feel safety, excitement, and connection to your own self in the smallest of interactions. When was the last time you bought something or engaged in an activity simply because it made you smile? When was the last time you let yourself be drawn to a person, thing, or situation just because you were curious, even if it didn’t make any logical sense? When was the last time you let yourself go somewhere without any plans or agenda, just to go wherever the wind might take you? When was the last time something stopped you in your tracks just because it was pretty, cool, or you liked the color? What would make you feel physically and emotionally safe enough to do all of the above?
Magic might look different as an adult, but it still holds the same weight as it did when we were kids. What does magic mean to you?
