Emotional work can be difficult at times. Sometimes it’s even exhausting. What makes it more challenging are works that are hard to understand and even harder to practice. Some writers on these subjects seem to think that including lots of challenging concepts and long words that are tough to pronounce (and which require constant looking up in the dictionary) makes their work more meaningful, effective, or valuable. It doesn’t. It makes it ineffective, confusing, and impractical.
There’s an idea about being able to explain something in such a way that a little kid can understand it. As much value as I’ve gotten out of practicing the central technique in David Hawkins’s Letting Go, the book has a lot in there that can be confusing at times. Some other books are much easier to follow. That’s where kids’ books come in. Kids’ books rarely have the problem of being difficult to understand. While many adults have trouble grasping metaphor, subtlety, and lessons hidden within a story, even more kids struggle with this, which is why so much content made for kids uses clear lessons that are spelled out so that almost everyone can understand them. They also almost always include practical steps to help anyone start moving toward where they want to be from wherever they are at the moment. That simplicity is valuable for anyone, whether kid or adult.
When I’m feeling incredibly upset and overwhelmed, I have even more trouble than usual understanding things. I need to keep things simple during those times. I’ve found a few kids’ books to be wonderful in those situations. The one I’ve used the longest is When A Pet Dies by Mister Rogers. I love all of Mister Rogers’s work and this is one of my favorites. It helped me so much with the pain of my dog Sawyer’s death when that pain was still incredibly fresh and it still helps me when I need it at times, such as this morning when it brought out some tears and made me feel a little more peaceful. The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld beautifully illustrates how much listening to someone can do to help them feel better. It’s right in line with my own approach to helping others, how I prefer others to comfort me when I feel upset, and what I’ve gotten good at doing for myself. The most recent finding I’ve used is a box set one of my best friends sent me from Diane Alber called A Little SPOT of Emotion. It contains a book, poster, mirror, and set of eight plus figures representing different emotions. The box set is all about helping kids identify and handle their emotions in healthy ways.
Even though I’ve only had that box set for a few days at this point, it’s already helping me recover a level of emotional acceptance that has been missing for years. It reminds me of the huge breakthrough I had in early 2021. That was around the time I was going through some powerful life coaching, doing a lot of work from John Bradshaw’s book Homecoming, and still benefiting from all the pain I released in the second half of 2020. I was feeling pretty good at the time and realized while listening to this song on YouTube that it was peace and friendship with myself that I had been missing for so long. The combination of all those things gave me this incredible sense of peace and oneness with myself. That has been a rare sensation over the past several years. Seeing those little emotion plush figures as my friends and loving all of them (including anger, sadness, and the other ones typically thought of as negative) has given me back that sensation. I feel a lot more at peace with myself now and a lot more hopeful. I’m so thankful to have that back.
The easier something is to do, the more likely I am to do it, especially when I feel overwhelmed. Many kids’ books and shows contain powerful lessons despite their simple appearances, and that makes those lessons far easier to put into practice than most works aimed at adults. There’s only so much that can be gained from learning and endlessly intellectualizing about certain concepts. The healing and growth come from finding what works and using it. I’m so thankful for all the great resources I’ve found, whether they guided me during my formative years as a kid or are currently helping me heal my inner little kid. I hope they help you as well.