joyful baby

During the first time I saw Her, only a few months old, I was already fond of the way She interacted with the world. The idea is that She laughs, because She is happy. Most of the time she is already in a space of joy. Most of the time she is happy is not because of something, because of a reason or an event. She is already feeling joyful most of the time. It is like she smiles out of nothingness. It could seem like she smiles out of faith, out of a belief. A belief that the world around her is good and that she’s welcoming it with her joyfulness.

The beautiful thing is that we often enforce her to be like that. Most parents do it consciously or unconsciously. On a level she is already changing the reality around her just by the way she is. Changing the world around her from inside out. That is what She is already practicing. When she is laughing, unconditionally, without reason so it seems. What happens is that the reality around her smiles back. We, the parents and friends, respond to Lise’s smiles and joy by smiling back. She feels joy inside, she shows it, and her reality shows it back to her. Like a giant mirror. Powerful learning for a baby.

During my life this dynamic got lost. But I would like to get back to it. I would like to be joyful and because of that doing the things I do with joy. Not doing things to yield a joy out of it. Like joy is something that only can be accumulated from the outside world and stored inside of me. Making it in a relentless journey in doing things to accumulate joy to feel good. But when I look at Her, it seems that I might have it backwards once again. Because that joy springs from inside her. It does not come solely from the interaction with the world around Her. She has got it right from the start, she maybe does not get it but she is doing it, being it.