Lost Innocence

As we age, we tend to think of ourselves as accomplished beings who are measured by our responsibilities and roles. But I think we need to always reflect on the fact that our roles and responsibilities aren't who we are.  A lot of this seem to stem from the way we see ourselves according to our resume, and tend to buy into an acquisitive model of the self. The more we can accumulate in terms of accomplishments and accolades, the better we tend to feel about ourselves. But if we are able to see that these roles are passing, what is it that endures beyond these roles?

  I once heard it said that meditation is compared to "regaining lost innocence" (see Mark Epstein's outstanding book Zen of Therapy for a deeper discussion on this). I think what that means is that we tend to have a cynical view of ourselves and life. People are seen as like players on a chess board, vying for position and power, rather than as beings who all want to belong in some way or another. "Wounded innocence" happens when some original part of us feels violated: for instance, we are carelessly dropped by a caregiver when we're young, or something happens that makes us feel that the world is impersonal. But when we are able to see ourselves as like children who are really looking for belonging in the best way we can find, we are no longer stunted by the view that we are somehow just players on a chess board (again, a kind of metaphor that suggests or even reduces our connections to power plays).

Recovering lost innocence means being able to convert the language of "power and persuasion" to the language of "belonging and love". Yes, we do seek to be powerful in the world, but power is not necessarily a bad thing, and nor does it necessarily signal ego, dominance, selfishness, and so on. Sometimes the urge for power is really a disguised (or not so disguised) wish to feel we belong in the world, when there wasn't enough evidence in our childhood to suggest that we unconditionally belong in the world. We don't need to "prove" this to ourselves or to those around us.

To recover our original innocence, it seems that we need to adopt the idea that we are unconditionally loved and accepted as we are, and nothing can destroy that original sense of acceptance.