Day 148: The stigma of innocence

16022013

How did I ever see this as "dumb"? I seem to be enjoying myself.

I've been thinking about the concept of innocence. I have come across moments where I compare myself to another and perceive myself to be “like a child” compared to the other, him/her appearing to me as “more adult”. For example, I might see another woman who appears to me as “mature” and “adult”, and I have a look at myself and see a pitiful child who hasn't yet “grown up”. Or I might talk with a person who appears “mature” and “wise” in his/her speech and have a look at myself and see a kid still learning to form sentences.

So I asked myself: why is it a “bad” thing that I see myself as child-like? Every time I reflect myself like this I see myself as inferior to others, as if I'm underdeveloped or just plain dumb for choosing to remain so innocent, and I judge myself for who I am, thinking “I should be a grown-up already”.

So I returned to thinking about my childhood where I at some point started to want to become an adult already – something that happens to most of us, I guess. So being a child was seen as “dumb” and being an adult as something “cool” - the innocence of a child was dubbed as negative and the anti-innocence of an adult as positive. Now that I look at it, which one of these states of being is closer to the actual nature of a human being? The one which is born pure, or the one that has adapted to the gruesome ways of the world? The unlearned or the learned?

A big part of this issue for me is about how I look and dress – about sex and attractiveness. (Another part deals with intellectual inferiority, and I will get to that later.) For example, today I was dressing up after yoga class and another girl next to me stripped to go to the shower. I was pulling on a huge comfy sweater which is in no way sexual – just a practical piece of clothing – and as I glanced at the naked girl next to me I was somehow reminded that I'm “supposed to” display my body and that this shirt is thus “child-like” because it does not support the idea of adulthood which heavily involves sexuality. So I was left feeling a bit dumb in my unattractive clothing even though I like my clothes very much. This reminded me of something that happened last night: I had an encounter with an unknown drunken man, who complimented my clothes and told me I looked “huggable” (and we hugged and it was fun). In that moment I realized I haven't really received compliments like that from people – not from drunken men during the weekend, at least – because complimenting another's looks always somehow revolves around sex and attractiveness. In that moment where I appeared huggable I was simply a human being, not a sexual object. And this is what innocence is actually about: returning to being the human being we are underneath all these fantasies we have built upon images of ourselves.

The definition and origins of the word 'innocence' as worded by Oxford dictionary:

• the state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offense
• lack of guile or corruption; purity
• from Old French, from Latin innocentia, from innocent- ‘not harming’ (based on nocere ‘injure’ )

My old definition of the word innocence:

• something inferior to adulthood; thing that was in the past but which all people grow out of; the stupidity, naivety and inexperience of a child; being blind to the dangers of the world; not knowing the dark side of things; lack of knowledge; lack of understanding.

My new definition of the word innocence:

• innocence = inner sense / common sense; the true nature of a human being; seeing things for what they are; no strings attached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for being “like a child” when I have “lost” in comparison to another in terms of what I have defined to be seclusive to “adulthood” (power, control, sex, money, knowledge, skill, freedom – all the things I didn't have access to as a child and perceived adults to have).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to envy adults for “having permission” to do things I did not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child, when I was comforted with the phrase “when you grow up, you'll get to do this as well”, to perceive adulthood as an ideal state where one had all the things that children were denied, and thus create an expectation that adulthood will be awesome and anticipate adulthood, and as I became an adult by age take advantage of all the things I had new access to and feel like I had “won” and left the dreary state of childhood behind me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there are boundaries to life other than those of the physical reality, as these rules of social conduct (only adults have sex, only adults handle money, only adults have enough knowledge to be heard, only adults are appreciated as members of society*) were taught to me as a child.

*[I am not including the use of alcohol or other drugs as it has been shown that they damage the physical body, especially the brains of under 25-year-olds that are still in the process of developing, and thus the limitation of alcohol and drugs is based on the physical and not just a social agreement – the age limit should actually be even higher if this scientifically gathered information is correct.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to start resenting my own state of being because of my age because my age denied me access to many things that I wanted (mostly freedom and power over my own life) and thus create a desire to be “old enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not realize that the reason I was denied complete power over my own life was to assure I did not make fatal mistakes and survived to adulthood – an act of fear by the society, but it serves a purpose – as this was never properly expressed/taught/communicated to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react to the phrase “you'll understand when you're older” with frustration because I wanted to understand now and wanted a clear explanation now because now was when I was denied things – and because I saw no other way out of the frustration, settle for waiting for adulthood when things would make sense as promised.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see innocence as inferior to non-innocence, as I have defined innocence to be lack of understanding and knowledge and non-innocence to be full understanding and knowledge.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to associate non-innocence with a specific age and thus define non-innocence to be a set of things that comes with this certain age.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to glorify corruption (non-innocence) because as a child I was denied access to it and I thus learned to see it as something “above me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that as an adult one gets access to “the dark side” of the world as this “dark side” was restricted from children.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to see the things restricted from children as “dark” because they were forbidden, as I did not find any other explanation for why some things were limited and others weren't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to create a fascination towards this “dark side” of the world as sex, money and power.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to define “adulthood” to mean “knowledge and understanding of the dark side of the world” and in comparison see “childhood” as “not seeing what the world is really about”, thus giving the word “innocence” it's negative and demeaning connotation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe that the information that was withheld from me was the “true information” about the world as compared to the limited information I was allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I was actually craving for as “the true information” was all of the mind consciousness system we have created on top of the physical reality as fantasies, energetic constructs, entertainment, illusions and images, and that as I was fascinated about this I had already created a desire to be a part of this system and had already integrated into it.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that children are fed these hints and tips about this Great Secret Adult Life beyond their reach so that they would want to be a part of it when they grow up – as seen in marketing, products, entertainment and such that is directed at children, and in how the society purposefully keeps “the world of children” and “the world of adults” apart even though we all share the exact same reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not see, realize and understand that I was chasing after energy as I desired to be an adult and be a part of all that I perceived to be included in adulthood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to reinforce my stigma of innocence as a teenager when I was bullied for not being “mature enough” and “being like a kid” - not realizing that the bullies were kids themselves and were chasing after images, fantasies and ideals just like me as none of us had any idea what adulthood was actually about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a teenager to believe the words of my bullies and perceive myself as “not mature enough” and believe that I needed to become “more mature” to be accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a stigma of innocence and being child-like based on experiences in my teenage years when I was bullied based on my age, physical maturity and behavior and got told I was “like a child”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a teenager to perceive some other kids to be “more mature” than me and see them as “closer to adulthood” based on their age, physical maturity and behavior, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus see them as superior to me because they had more access to “the dark side” of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be able to appreciate the simplicity of childhood and innocence, where the reality is seen as it is – no social structures, images, fantasies painted upon it – and instead crave for something “more”.*

*[Where does this craving originate? Is it simply in being denied access that the desire is created – or is a misunderstanding caused by the miscommunication that didn't assist me as a child to understand how the reality is built and why?]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent innocence and thus separate myself from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as one and equal to innocence as a state of purity, non-corruption and sincerity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see the value of purity, non-corruption and sincerity as I have glorified “the dark side of the world”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that innocence as purity, non-corruption and sincerity brings us closer to and back into unity with what is actually HERE whereas corruption further separates from it through lies, insincerity and dishonesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that in its essence innocence is honesty – that this “inner sense” is in fact self-honesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from self-honesty by stigmatizing innocence, childhood and sincerity.

I commit myself to embrace my “inner child” (who I really am) by seeing myself as primarily a human being – not an adult, a woman, an employee, or any other definition that is based on statuses, competition and/or hierarchy.

I commit myself to re-build myself based on self-honesty in order to live as innocence instead of corruption.

When and as I compare myself to another being and judge myself as “childlike” or “immature” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that this comparison is not valid as it is based on an ideal image of adulthood I have created as a child from a mal-informed perspective. I realize we are all human beings and that I am in fact one and equal to the being I am comparing myself to. I embrace my state of being in all its “immatureness” and “childishness” by standing within and as myself as I am at the moment (and I assist and support myself in this by stopping and stabilizing myself in breath) and I investigate possible points of resistance that I might face while accepting who I am within the moment.