Edel Coffey: Use an old photo to remind yourself of who you are

Author Edel Coffey pictured at home in Galway. Photo: Ray Ryan

A few weeks ago I was reading an article by a writer when I noticed her author byline was a picture of her as a child. 

The image was of a little girl blowing out candles on a birthday cake. The article, which was on a sad subject, suddenly became all the more affecting. 

I found that while I was reading the piece, I had the image of the child in my mind’s eye. 

The innocence of the picture, juxtaposed with the pain of the article swiped at my heart. 

I wanted to pick the writer up and return her to that point in time, where all was still well, she was still a child blowing out birthday candles and most likely making wishes for future hopes and dreams. 

It got me thinking about how much more compassion and humanity a childhood picture can bring to any given situation. 

It made me wonder: shouldn’t we all have childhood pictures as our profile pictures on X? 

Might it give the trolls pause if they could see the vulnerable children we once were, the children that still live inside each and every one of us?

A few weeks later I came across a post by the Irish therapist and writer Sarah Crosby, better known online as the Mind Geek. 

She had posted a picture of herself as a teenage schoolgirl and wrote that as she has gotten older she increasingly resembles her younger self, the very one that she had tried so hard to avoid being. 

She said she now sees this girl in the mirror every morning. 

In response, one person wrote ‘the closer I get to the younger me, the happier I am’. I wondered is that the secret. 

Is finding happiness in life just a process of undoing all of the influences of the world until we eventually find our way back to the children we once were, the point in time when we were free to be truly, unselfconsciously ourselves?

I read about a woman who had put a childhood picture of herself on her phone’s lock screen so each time she picked up her phone she would see her young self staring back at her in such a way that she found herself reconnecting with the hopes and dreams she had held for herself as a child, as well as being kinder and more compassionate to her adult self.

Author Edel Coffey pictured at home in Galway. Photo: Ray Ryan

Eager to see if I could relocate my inner child, not to mention be more compassionate to myself, I pulled out some old photos, photos I hadn’t seen in a very long time, photos of me as a child, photos of me on a stage, photos of me on holidays with friends, always smiling, carefree and looking happy. 

Had I forgotten how to be that girl? Maybe. Was she still somewhere inside me, just dormant, waiting to be kindled back to life? Hopefully.

I actually think it’s a really good idea to put an old photo of ourselves on our phones or on our desks. It’s easy to forget the people we once were, the place we started out from, the hopes and dreams we once held dear.

Of course, we can’t remain children forever, but there is an innate wisdom that we have in childhood that can sometimes be eroded as we get older. 

As children, we trust our gut and our intuition. If we don’t want to do something we refuse to do it. We follow our passions, doing only what we enjoy and we spend time with the people we like. 

As a child, I knew my own mind very strongly. I knew what I liked and didn’t like, I knew what I enjoyed doing, how I wanted to spend my time and who I wanted to spend it with. 

When I think about it now, I feel sorry for my poor mother who had to wrangle with this single-minded child every day, but I also wish I still had some of that child’s courage and determination.

Photos of our younger, more irrepressible selves can be a useful reminder of who we once were, what we have forgotten of ourselves, and they can also serve as a starting point, a first step on the path to reclaiming those parts of ourselves that we may have lost.

Having gone through old photo albums I’m thinking of getting some bold highlights, the same ones I had swished through my hair as a 20-something in New York City.

I’m also encouraging you to pull out a happy photo of yourself as a child or a teenager and see what you notice. 

These old photos might just remind you of something you haven’t done in a while whether it is sports or drawing, painting, crafting, playing an instrument, collecting dolls, reading… whatever it is, doing it again is an easy way back into childhood joy. 

Your adult brain will likely thank you for it.

No matter how old we grow, how mature we become, how many birthday candles we blow out, I think the children we once were always remain inside. 

They might be buried deep inside, like the innermost Russian doll, but they’re still there. 

How brightly they shine is up to us.