What Is Lost Within Us Can Always Be Found

It’s Christmas morning and my wife and I are sitting on the living room floor in a sea of tattered wrapping paper, watching the television where our firstborn Aidan is toddling around the tiny living room in our claustrophobic first apartment, twenty years ago. My wife digitized our old home movies and gave them to me for Christmas, and it feels, basically, like a time machine.

Aidan is in the middle of his second year. A sheen of drool glistens on his chin. His big, brown eyes are lit from within by a soul that has not yet retreated into the safety of a psyche that has not yet been constructed. He gladly babbles answers to our endless questions, not thinking twice about what he should or should not say. He tries to do things he can’t yet do, like climbing onto the couch, and then he tries again. When he falls, he cries if it hurts, and then he gets back up and starts exploring some more. He is truly, fully, and simply inhabiting who he is.

As I watch him on the screen, I have the same ecstatic and dumbfounded thought I had so often in the early years of our kids’ lives:

I was that once!

We were all that once. Our eyes were once filled with soulfulness rather than protectiveness. Our lips once spoke without reservation. Our hands once reached for things without fear of failure. Our tears once flowed when they needed to. Once upon a time, we all truly, fully, and simply inhabited who we were.

I suppose we could all do without the chin drool, but I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t yearn for some of that lost innocence. That’s why, in my first book Loveable, I wrote of the epiphany that has animated much of my life since my kids were young:

What has been lost within us can also, always, be found within us.

Here’s a passage from the book:

It turns out, there is a little one in all of us.

The little one inside of you is your truest self—the you who existed before things got confusing, before guys started telling you that you had to bring them a sandwich to be interesting, before an industry started telling you that you had to buy a product to be beautiful, before you had to be tough to be enough, before you had to be cool to survive in school. The little one inside of you is the you who is most aware of your worthiness. But it is also your most wounded you, because that little boy or girl was on the front lines when the world started telling you that you weren’t enough.

Recently, our oldest child, Aidan, who is in middle school, walked up to me and, out of nowhere, said, “Dad, I wish I could remember what I was like when I was a little kid.” When I asked him why, he said, “Because then I’d know who I really I am. Middle school takes that away from you.”

There is a worthy yet wounded little one in all of us.

Aidan is twenty now and has dedicated himself to learning improv comedy in the Second City conservatory. Improvisational comedy is the most childlike thing a person can do. If you retreat for a millisecond into the safety of the psyche you’ve created to protect your original innocence, the comedic moment has come and gone. An improvisational comedian must become like a child again, babbling answers without thinking twice, trying and failing and trying again, and yes, crying when it all hurts and then getting up and exploring some more.

In other words, my kids are still inspiring me to be more like them when I grow up.

What is the innocence you see in the world that makes something throb at the back of your eyes? When does your heart quicken at the sight of someone reaching for something just beyond their reach? Who is it that awes you when they have the gumption to say exactly what’s in their heart of hearts? Where in your body do you feel the longing to cry about what hurts without having to hold anything back?

Those experiences are your own epiphany waiting to happen.

You were that once, before your innocence was lost.

And what is lost can always be found.

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I’d love for you to get a copy of Loveable today, because I believe it can be an essential guide in any awakening. If you’ve already read it, grab a copy for someone you want to see awakened to more of their worthiness.