Enlightened Leadership Blog | Reconnecting with the Child in You | October 2025

Think back to fond memories of yourself as a child. Focus on the good times. Take a couple of minutes to let your mind wander through the memories. Close your eyes and relax into the feelings.

What were the first thoughts to pop into your mind? Where were you? What were you doing? Who was with you? How did you feel?

This is a glimpse into the child in you who wants to come back into your life and play. Let’s start playing today.

Why Reconnecting with Your Inner Child Makes Sense

Do you remember asking why as a child? Children are curious. They wonder about things.

Do you remember skipping around a park or playground? Kids do this when they feel happy. 

The objective here isn’t to start skipping around our workplace. It’s to bring the child back to life, strengthening the adult version of you by:

• Reconnecting with parts of the real you; 
• Reigniting a sense of wonder; and 
• Reimagining a less complicated life.

This is possible because the child is embedded in the core of who you are.

How We Lose Touch

I’ve seen and experienced how business leaders lose touch with their inner child in the pursuit of success. This happens after:

• Prioritizing achievement over enjoyment;
• Abandoning spontaneous play time to explore or create; and
• Being harsh with ourselves and others.

Your inner child is part of you, so it’s not too late to let the kid in you hold space in your life.  

Lately, serendipitous events have reconnected me with childhood memories of things I enjoyed. As a result, I remembered my first pony ride in Hershey Park, my big childhood dog Max, who I used to pretend was a pony, dressing up as Wonder Woman for Halloween (the picture and inspiration for this blog post), playing with my purple Barbie Corvette, and listening to music records my parents played in the living room.

The Real, Younger You is Still There

Bringing the child in you back to life isn’t about acting like a kid again; it’s about becoming whole by integrating the wisdom of adulthood with the wonder of youth. Youth is a time when it’s safe to be joyful, silly, playful, curious, exploratory, and adventurous. At some point, the default mode happy skipping stops, and the unhappy stressing starts.

Who says you can’t have fun and be playful while making some of your most powerful business and life decisions? There is a professional balance to be captured. I demonstrate this in Align Your Business with the Real You by introducing an exercise I designed by saying, “To help you trust yourself and your inner guidance to create a new phase in your life, this exercise will reconnect you with the natural trust in yourself you had as a child whenever you created something new…Imagine yourself as a child…”

The Real You Business Model ^SM at the heart of my work is built on the idea that alignment between who you are and how you lead is the key to sustainable success. Reconnecting with your inner child is a personal, and strategic, journey. It helps you lead with levity and create with purpose to build a business that reflects your true self.

How to Bring the Inner Child in You Back to Life

Bringing your inner child back to life to wonder and play can look like this:

1. Listen to what you loved. 

If you’ve been reading and connecting with my work, you know I love music. It holds the power to start a great day and turn a bad one around. Revisit music you grew up listening to, especially during the teen years. Turn it on and turn it up.

2. Do what you loved. 

Revisit activities that once brought you joy. Did you play sports, music, dance, build, draw, paint, write, or read? The objective is to reconnect with activities you enjoyed exploring and creating because you want to experience an activity without having to perform. This is healthy playtime.

3. Ask “why?” again. 

Remember asking your parents a question as kid? They would answer; you would ask, “Why?” Be that curious kid again. Question yourself more. Why am I doing this? Why do I believe this? Where did I learn this? You get the idea.

4. Create without a plan.

Let yourself create more without a plan. Think cooking, baking, building, gardening, drawing, painting, journaling, writing, dancing, etc. You don’t need a reason. It doesn’t have to be scheduled each time. You will benefit from an outlet for yourself. Sometimes that outlet needs to happen spontaneously.

5. Take your time. 

Kids playing on the beach or in a park aren’t rushing. You don’t need to be always “on” either. Take your time to savor what you’re doing. 

6. Be Present.

Children live in the now. By making an effort to stay present, you can too.

7. Speak kindly to yourself.

Would you speak to a child the way you speak to yourself? Ease up on yourself. Love yourself, and the child in you will reemerge.

Let Your Inner Child Lead You

You can move toward a more vibrant life where you feel younger and lighter. Let your inner child lead you to laugh more, dance in your kitchen, ask big questions, and build things.

Pause and listen to the child within. What is your inner child telling you?

By Jennifer Musser 

See more and order Align Your Business with the Real You Here The Book – JLM & Associates Consulting and Align Your Business with the Real You: Connect with Yourself, Create What Matters Most, and Define Your Success by Jennifer Musser | Barnes & Noble®

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