Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could join us again. This week I've been thinking about the relationship of rhythm, which you've heard me speak a lot about in these podcasts and books and such.
But the relationship of rhythm and its connecting power and how rhythm helps our day flow. One of the things that having a rhythmical, predictable day gives to children, tweens and teens as well, not just little kids, is that it gives them this feeling of safety, of safety and trust. When they know I'm getting up in the morning, my clothes are just there.
They're on the chair ready to put on. I work that out the night before and I get dressed. And then I come downstairs and I sit in this particular chair and I have my breakfast.
And then I get ready for school or whatever it is. And then I go to the cupboard and my coat, if I'm putting a coat on, it's just there. And that's the hook it hangs on or the hanger it hangs on and it's always there.
And then we do and then and then and then. Rhythms are the big kind of when, when it happens in life. Rhythm is so important for kids in general because while they're developing their frontal lobes, their executive brain, which is still at a very, very basic level, even right through into the tweens and teens, that frontal lobe, neocortex, that whole front, the ability to hold the big picture is still forming.
For little children, it's hardly there at all. And even for teenagers, it's still in its early stages. So what rhythm does is that it provides in life, for a kid, what in later life will be done internally through our own capacities.
But rhythm sets it up externally whilst that brain capacity, that social emotional capacity is not strongly present. Now, rhythm also moves us from what I think of as a forcing current. It moves us from pushing things into a flow, a much closer to a flow state.
What I mean by a flow state is when a child can or a tween or a teen can feel safety and trust in what is going to happen. In other words, rhythm sets up an expectation of just the way the day goes, because that's the way days go. And then it comes true.
And then a child will have a picture of what comes next. After supper, we clean up. And then it comes true.
After cleanup comes bath time. And then it comes true. It's saying to a child over and over, you are secure, because they have that picture, and then it comes true.
It also has built within it clear and non-conflicting goals. That's a foundation of flow, is that the goals that you have, the way you're trying to move the day along, isn't always chopping and changing. There is a predictability about what we're doing and the direction we're going.
And then we go, to a large extent, in that direction. That's another foundation of being in flow, being in optimal creative experience. The third aspect of how rhythm creates a flow state is that challenges are matched by skills.
In other words, what you're asking a child to do, asking a teenager to do, they have the skills to do because they've done them over and over and they've been refined. Maybe when you first started out with this whole rhythm thing, you overestimated a kid's ability to do something. But over time, as things become rhythmical, one of the beautiful things about it is that it becomes much more brought back into the realm of doability.
And rhythm brings about this, yeah, I can do this because I've done it before. So it's not a feeling of overwhelm. I'm being asked to do too much.
I just can't do that. It's a feeling of, yeah, I can do that because I've done it many times. And that feeling of I can do that is fundamental for something flowing along because when you can't, then a child is going to put the brakes on.
They're going to refuse. Another aspect of the flow state of really being in flow is when focus and concentration really starts to come more to the fore. In other words, duality disappears.
A child is no longer caught between do I do this or do I do that? Do I clean up or do I go outside to play or do I do this or do I check my emails or whatever if it's a teenager? There's no duality anymore with rhythm because rhythm says, no, we do this. There's one single focus point in what we're doing now because we do it that way every day. And that kind of duality, which is very much fragmenting, if you want to move a child through a day, that disappears to a very large extent.
Now, a couple of other things are that there's a feeling for a child of well-being and rhythm, that I'm in control of my life. I know what we're doing. I know when we're doing it.
I know how we're doing it. And there's a feeling of competency, is perhaps one way of putting it, that a child can actually get on and do things. And to a large extent, they can actually do them on their own, which is really rather lovely, even if they're very little.
If they've done something over and over and over, let's say the bath time, if it's a little child and they know that when they get out of the bath, they pick up the bath mats and they put them on. My bath mat goes on that rail because that's where my bath mat goes. And then I get my little stool out so I can reach the sink and I brush my teeth because that's where I get my toothbrush from.
In rhythm, there's a built-in competency that children, because they've done something over and over and over, they actually know how to do it and don't need our help. It also means we don't always have to be there pushing and pushing. So one of the great benefits of rhythm is that it gives a child a feeling of mastery and of competency, which is a really big deal, actually, as they grow up.
And the last couple of things is that when there's rhythm, there really is a feeling of I'm in the flow of things and I don't have to be defensive. I don't have to feel separate. I'm a part of the whole and I'm not self-conscious anymore.
Flow state has a lot to do with that loss of self-consciousness, and that's exactly what rhythm does because one doesn't have to be defensive anymore because it's just what we do every day in the way we do it. Now, finally, rhythm gives a strong sense of timelessness. Now, this is almost counterintuitive because you're moving the children and the kids, the teenagers, whatever, through the day.
And you would think, okay, this is designed to be able to keep things moving along. But actually, when you're in rhythm, you're not so much bothered about time anymore. It's very much more task-oriented and not time-oriented because we do these tasks and we do them this way in every day.
And that feeling of being hurried and rushing is almost absent. And it's really rather lovely because you're getting done in a smooth way. You're moving things along, but it doesn't feel rushy.
Last of all, the last thing about rhythm that I want, and perhaps one of the most important parts about rhythm, is that it creates connection. It creates connection between you and a child or a teenager because you've got that space, that spaciousness that rhythm brings to actually have your energy between you and a child be connecting rather than being forcing. And that's a really important, just lovely benefit of having a day that is rhythmical.
Okay, well, I sure hope that helps because, as you can tell, I'm the biggest fan of rhythm and the connections that that brings into family life. Okay, I sure hope that was helpful. Bye-bye for now.
