Post by Rhodes to Change Coaching

There’s something powerful about returning to the places that shaped you. Recently, I revisited somewhere I used to holiday as a child. The sights, the smells, the tastes, even the feeling in the air, all of it unlocked memories I didn’t realise were still sitting inside me. At times, it caught me off guard emotionally. One place in particular stayed with me: the Venus Grotto, created by Ludwig II of Bavaria (also known as The Fairy-Tale King). The huge underground Grotto is completely man-made... A fantasy cave inspired by Ludwig's love of Richard Wagner and his obsession with beauty, myth and theatre. The water was heated so the king could swim there. There was a shell-shaped boat so his servants could sail him around at night, there were not one but two thrones for his private performances. Utterly extravagant. Utterly unnecessary. And yet… Standing there, I felt something that was difficult to explain. A kind of childlike awe. Wonder without productivity. Beauty without justification. I came away torn between two reactions: “How wildly ostentatious.” And: “Thank goodness somebody created this.” Because several hundred years later, people are still queuing up to stand inside that strange little fantasy world, feeling something pretty magical. Maybe that’s part of what reconnecting with our inner child really is. Not abandoning responsibility. Not pretending life is simple. But allowing ourselves to feel awe again. To experience beauty without needing to earn it. To remember that wonder has a special value too. Somewhere along the line, many of us learned to dismiss joy, creativity, softness and imagination as frivolous. Children rarely do. And perhaps that’s why revisiting places from our past can feel so emotional. They don’t just reconnect us to memories. They reconnect us to parts of ourselves we may have neglected for a very long time. What places take you back to yourself? #innerchild #Bavaria #awesome #wonderscometrue #fairytale

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