Written by: Mona AlHebsi, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It’s fascinating how much little children can teach us and change our perspectives towards life. As a first-time mother, I initially didn’t realize the amount of learning that I’ll be experiencing and (still doing) while I’m on my motherhood journey.
Khalid is my first baby, and he has just turned two years last month. I consider this, one of my biggest and hardest achievements in life so far! Having already been a highly accomplished woman who had worked in some of the most complex work environments, led diverse teams and dealt with different people and situations; still, I believe that mother-child relationship is quite unique and more sophisticated than any other relationship in the world.
An integral part of raising and educating children is to start seeing them as innately wise and capable beings, only then we can play along in their world as life is all about evolving through play and exploration. I therefore, thought of dedicating this article especially to highlight the 5 valuable life lessons that I’ve learned from Baby Khalid till date:
1. The Art of Living In The Moment
We all have heard it over and over that the real joy of life lies in being present in the moment by not getting annoyed about the past neither worrying about the future. But how many of us really know how to practice that? Look at toddlers while they are playing and learn this amazing art of living!
When I watch Khalid while he is playing, or better, play with him myself, It astonishes me how he easily manages to get me engrossed in the present moment and forget the time element. It’s so much fun when we do anything with wholeheartedness and utter involvement because then we tend to transcend all implied boundaries of place and time.
The deep sensations of joy resulting from being in the here and now is not comparable to anything neither expressible. This is the real beauty of learning this particular art from our children that makes every moment worth living and exploring physically, mentally and emotionally all at once. Being present will help us feel more grounded and less anxious about life and its affairs and we can surely perfect it by constant practice.
2. The Art of Being Curious
Mashaallah, It fascinates me how Khalid never seems to be out of things to do by creating interesting activities throughout the day, (And sometimes the night)! This is another thing I admire about children. They never feel bored because there is always something to do, and there is always something to do because they are curious and excited about everything around them. The prime reason why we adults complain of boredom occasionally is that we have blinkers and we got conditioned to see the world around us in the usual same way!
This is an interesting observation, even though the world around us is constantly changing, but our egos dictate us to approach things around us from the place of “knowing” because that seems easier and looks smarter while in essence, that’s what creates the whole problem! Children in contrast, approach every interaction with people or objects as an enchanting new experience and rarely have motives or agendas out of doing something. They neither care about how they will be perceived, all they care about is to be fully immersed in the moment and enjoy every tiny detail in the experience regardless how it’s going to turn out.
How Khalid does that? By pointing at people or things and inviting me to wonder about what he is trying to communicate. That makes me curious and more creative in trying to guess and understand him. Sometimes, he tries to utter few words or scream with excitement when he sees something, in other occasions, he tries to question using cute sounds so that I also start seeing the world curiously the way he sees it. This indeed, has made me more observant and given me a fresher view about my surroundings while helping me to see the sheer benefits of being curious in the various life scenarios.
3. The Art of Negotiation
Another great art I’ve learned from Khalid is how spontaneously he uses all his verbal and non-verbal expressions and body language to get me willingly (and sometimes unwillingly) to buy-in his demands. Everyone in my family noticed how diplomatically he is already behaving at this very young age. My sisters get amazed to see his ability to know which buttons to press when dealing with each one of us so that we gladly agree to give him what he wants!
It’s remarkable how with his basic skills, abilities, and little cuteness he can create a win-win outcome out of a specific situation, something, that many adults lack the capacity to do. If this shows us something, it is really that it doesn’t take a lot of efforts to win and let others win too. All we need is clarity of purpose, sincerity and connecting with others on a human level.
This is particularly interesting because during adults’ negotiation, ego tends to jump in and spoil everything! The intent then becomes to win at any cost rather than to seek a win-win outcome for all involved. That’s why I feel this is a great lesson I learn daily by observing and interacting with Baby Khalid that if we adults understand and practice, it can get us more rewarding results when dealing with others.
4. The Art of Expressing Needs
We all know the famous proverb “ask and you shall receive” which is a very simple law of life. Yet, as adults, we tend to complicate things a lot for ourselves by not following such simple divine laws. Children on the other hand, operate on pure instincts and still retain the original universal laws inside them, before their views of reality become distorted as a result of bringing up, education and societal conditioning.
The art of expressing needs genuinely and in simplistic manner that children do, teaches us adults that the most important and meaningful things in life are simple but we tend to complicate them. Instead of asking directly for what we need, we have been taught to stuff our sentences, sugar-coat, and have expectations from others, which are all by the way obstacles to effective communication. These things, lead to confusion and sending mixed messages to the external world while we actually mean something else, so we mostly don’t get exactly what we want because there is no alignment between what’s inside and what’s outside!
Simply asking for what we want, makes life much easier and us more content because simplicity boils down to two steps: first identify the essential, then eliminate the rest, be it behaviors, words, attitude, or anything else in life. Children know this secret formula, that’s why they know how to ask for what they need, and they end up receiving exactly that most of the time.
5. The Art of Unconditional Love
The most phenomenal lesson I learned from Baby Khalid so far is unconditional love and I will tell you why I find this phenomenal. By observing him, I noticed he doesn’t require the physical presence of people whom he loves or enjoys playing with like my sisters and brothers as a condition to be happy or continue loving them. As a family, we only gather during weekends and share some wonderful moments and laughter. Khalid always cherishes those moments when he plays with his aunties, uncles, and cousins during the short weekends, and he is at his happiest time then.
However, unlike most of us as adults, we tend to miss our loved ones when they are not around, may even shed some tears or attach our happiness to them being physically around, Khalid fills his entire week with happy moments by calling his aunties, uncles, and cousins names with the same excitement & joy even when they are not around and continue laughing and being cheerful just by remembering them. What a fresh perspective he showed me about love and relationships! He taught me that our relationships are beautiful elements of our life that certainly add to our joy, but the absence of people we love in no way makes us less happy or lessens our love to them. In other words, love is meant to charge our energy not to suck it, as Eckhart Tolle beautifully expressed it: “Love is a state of being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it; and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body or some external form”. I’m truly thankful to be able understand love differently from Baby Khalid, as I believe no one else could have taught me this in such a profound way.
Other things that we all must learn from children around us that can enhance our wellbeing include being active, laughing from the heart, eating slowly, breathing from the stomach, sleeping peacefully (like kings or queens) and many other traits that can alter our reality and improve the quality of our lives!
At the end, I cannot help but to agree with the famous saying that goes: “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children end up teaching us what life is all about”!
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Mona AlHebsi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Mona AlHebsi, is an Award-Winning Hotelier, HR Practitioner, Success Coach, Renowned Author, and Speaker. She has recently been named “M “st Influential Woman in Hospitality Human Capital”” nd “I “spirational Female Leader”” ue to her eminent contributions to the hospitality industry and Human Resources profession. Through her book “Beat The Odds,” Mona aims to provide a roadmap to all hoteliers and working professionals on how to make their work a vehicle to delivering excellence and achieving astounding success. She instinctively knows how to ignite the courage in others to stay true to their values and capitalize on their strengths, which will ultimately steer them towards success and fulfillment. Mona’s life mantra is “The more odds you beat, the greater will be your feat”!
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