Happiness, like almost all states of human existence, is not permanent. It is not automatically contained in great feats or acquisitions. I think being happy can be associated with possible autonomy, with the freedom to make one’s own choices and not be passively subordinate to people and contexts.

To reach that point, there is a journey of understanding who I am, where I am and with whom I am where I am. Simple to chain into a sentence, each fragment of the statement points to paths to travel.

Before going on, a request is important. People care for babies with the resources they have. Our parents bring with them a saddlebag packed with learned strategies that are often applied without thinking. So it does not seem legitimate to assign blame to anyone.

These reflections, which follow this first one, are meant to give us courage to take on our inner child: to thank and honor those who came before, but to bring into our arms the care, the healing and the expansion of possibilities for joy, lightness and happiness.

Who am I? What did my tiny self go through? Each human I related to in my first months left intangible gifts that strengthen, or do not, my trust in myself and in other people.

Was my skin touched with affection, validated with tenderness, or with haste, irritation, impatience? Did I receive a welcoming, attentive, loving lap, or did I meet my first loneliness in the crib? The little baby has not yet completed six months and already feels good or not. Safe or not. Loved or not. Confident or not. They cannot imagine the meaning of words, but already feel their effects in the body and the viscera. Adults connected to their own inner child will know how to read the signs.

As adults, taking the initiative to seek our happiness or to solve the problems that prevent it seems a logical way out.

In adulthood, happiness requires courage and trust to be qualified and enjoyed. The learning that serves as the basis for this happens before age 2.

There the child experiences initiative, begins to perceive options and rehearses solving problems. At this stage, the children sheltered in their caregivers’ adult bodies, often frightened, repress and silence the child they guide. The opportunity to strengthen that little being’s trust is lost, and the chance to strengthen their self-confidence to try the possibilities of learning goes away.

And the child goes on with the journey, gradually reducing their wondering gaze to fit circumstances, people, demands, society. Subtly, without noticing, they lose, little by little, contact with themselves and with what could bring them closer to happiness.

There, at the core of the inner child, trust, courage and self-esteem together can form a formidable base to support the perception, identification and adoption of happier patterns. When we examine what keeps us from those patterns, we find trust, courage and self-esteem broken. The loveliness of life is that we can take on the task of recomposing the patterns, stitching the fissures and tending the pains so as to free the child to run and experience happiness fully.