(This original article was written almost five years ago as was the article, “A Time For Healing”. As noted in that article, the world is a different place; and not necessarily for the better. We have watched political upheaval, media circuses, a rise in hate crimes and protest riots, and a pandemic unlike anything the majority of us have ever lived through.
As I sat down to re-publish this article, I wanted to see what the numbers were saying in regards to our youth. Unfortunately, even as a relatively intelligent and unbiased person, I found myself mired in reports and accounts that were more of the political media frenzy that we’ve been living through for the last several years. After a couple of hours of researching online articles and making no sense of the numbers game that media sources on both sides of the political spectrum were playing, I finally gave up. One source claimed suicide rates amongst teens 12 to 17 had skyrocketed over the last year, another source refuted such statistics and claimed that the rate had were no more than the ‘normal’ annual increase (we should be happy about this?). One researcher said that there was no evidence of suicides being up, but that the numbers of teens being seen in emergency rooms and the number of health insurance claims dealing with teen mental health crisis, had indeed increased. And still another author gave a long dissertation on how the numbers were skewed by this, that, and something else. Back and forth it went; media for drama’s sake and not to truly inform.
The one thing that nobody said, in even the weakest of statements, was that the rates of suicide or mental health visits were down. We are going to be debating the numbers for years, but what we aren’t debating is how we start making this world less confusing and traumatic as it is for our youth. We aren’t debating how to reverse the trends we’ve seen over the last twenty years. Why are we happy when we don’t see spikes in numbers, and rejoice at the status quo?
I add my own voice to a din of voices that probably amount to just white noise anymore. This year, however, I write for a different reason. This year the intention in writing is only one part of a greater whole, one part of raising the energy for change. I hope others will read this and also decide that it’s time for the words to be replaced by actions. Together we CAN make a difference for the future of our youth.)
I don’t remember where I was, it could have been passing through an airport gift shop, or possibly perusing the magazine rack at Barnes and Noble, but someplace along the way I happened to catch the headline, “Anxiety, Depression and the Modern Adolescent”, in the November 7, 2016 issue of Time. I read the article, and was moved, but unfortunately for anyone who has, or has had in the last 10 years, adolescents in their lives, the issues didn’t seem new. A young woman in my own little world was wrestling with many of the cited demons 8 years ago. It wasn’t until the recent national turmoil of dealing with a political climate that has become so completely toxic on all sides and at all levels, that I realized that although the issues have been there, they might be getting dramatically worse.
In the Time article, a brief nod is given to the view that some take of adolescents in our culture. There does seem to be an underlying image of adolescents and young adults as being more, “…fragile, less resilient and more overwhelmed than their parents were when they were growing up.” Yet, for all of the supposed softening of our youth and parental mismanagement, the author of the article; Susanna Schrobsdorff, points toward much darker problems.
Shrobsdorff continues, “They are the post 9/11 generation, raised in an era of economic and national insecurity. They’ve never known a time when terrorism and school shootings weren’t the norm. They grew up watching their parents weather a severe recession, and, perhaps most important, they hit puberty at a time when technology and social media were transforming society.”
Although Atomic Age counterparts of our modern adolescents “ducked and covered” under their school desks during the 1950’s and early 60’s, national insecurity was buffered to some degree by a relatively sheltered social structure that emanated from the family and community, and was only penetrated by a few, edited, news and media sources that opened our eyes to the rest of the world. In contrast, ALL of the problems of teens’ existence today; from school, to family, to relationships, to even the anxiety over our environment, are continuously fed to them, 24/7, through unfiltered channels that never sign off. Compound that with the fact that many of the images and information they get is in a constant state of turmoil and contradiction to what their family values might be, what their groups might subscribe to, and most importantly, what they actually FEEL.
It’s not only the shear amount of information that can, and does, go out into the world, but the shear pace at which that information has been adopted by our society. Personal computers, as a true part of the modern home weren’t even developed until the late 1970’s and were, in no way, as important to our lives until decades later. The very first commercially available cell phones, as well as supporting networks, didn’t appear until the early 1980’s and were only the toys of the very wealthy. Those two things alone are within the lifetimes of the parents for the teens we are discussing. There has been a total paradigm shift in a generation’s time, and it’s not so much keeping up with each “innovation” and the buttons that need to be pushed to make it work, it’s keeping up with the implications of what those buttons bring us.
Next, take into consideration that such ubiquitous social outlets like MySpace and Facebook weren’t conceived until 2003 and 2004 respectively, and the means to make sure we are ALWAYS connected to it, the Smart Phone, wasn’t widely available until less than ten years ago. Those are within the fundamental maturing stages of the demographic we are speaking of. It’s like giving a ten year old a Ferrari and expecting them to be able to drive it at the max speed it can go. We can’t, and shouldn’t, keep up with it just because it’s there.
To be fair, it’s not the technology that has brought us to this point, it’s the shifts in the information we move with it and importance we put on that information within our own lives.
The Time article cited several factors that are affecting the emotional health of our adolescents; threats to personal and community security, anxiety over the future, and a feeling of disconnectedness within a hyper-connected world. I’d like to take some time, however, to look at one issue in more detail as a sample of the rest. I chose relationships because fundamentally we are as vulnerable and raw as we can be when we look at ourselves in the space of our relationships to another individual and by implication in our relationships to ourselves that we are forced to deal with in order to truly be with someone else.
A relationship with another person can be a very intimate and intricate dance of physical closeness, mental sacrifices and compromises, and emotional energies that can bring us great joy, as well as great pain in some cases. The very natures of such things as physicality, and emotions have been changed in society’s view by the dissemination of not intimate portraits of these ideas, but displays designed to attract, on some level, the masses. When I say, “on some level”, I mean that we are constantly bombarded with images that will provoke the most primal responses. And, as those responses get desensitized by the onslaught of images, we need even more to stir the same reactions. Unfortunately as a natural coping mechanism we then turn to ignoring the images all together and further disconnect from the true, inherent, nature within our world instead of the vehicle that brought them to us.
Instead of viewing the body as a temple, we now choose to view it as a thing to overcome in order to get happiness. We look to images of others, who are surely happier than we are, because they have the “correct” attributes. We give great lip service to body image issues in our society, and yet we still worship the false goddesses we see in Vogue or Cosmo.
When it comes to the images of relationships, there are few that are contemplative of the intrinsic and intimate spiritual journey of two souls. Instead we are more easily goaded into emotional response and thus primal reaction by images of drama and discontinuity; further alienating us from others in the world. The sad thing is that such images have never been for the furtherance of love in the world, but solely for commercial gain. We really don’t learn anything from Jerry Springer or the Kardashians, yet we pay with our pocketbooks and our hearts to tune in again and again. Networks don’t make money off of happy endings anymore. No board of directors goes into a room and studies a report titled, “The Social Change, and World Healing Report.” It doesn’t exist. They study their ratings, and thus their financial importance to their advertisers, and make decisions based on creating greater spectacles to entice us to come back.
As we become ever more devoted to reality people and less connected to, and honestly more distrustful of, real people, it becomes easier to objectify, negate, and degrade all people. Mass media and even things like the porn industry (which is also available to anyone, of any age, at any time) become our social norms, because they don’t portray people, they portray things. We shouldn’t have to worry about the growing need for even more repulsive imagery because it doesn’t affect anyONE, just the objects on camera. An alarmingly growing segment of our population honestly can’t understand why we should get upset with a president elect talking about grabbing women by the pussy, when we are faced with the real images of that kind on a daily basis and NOT just in the porn industry, but in advertising, music, sports, and even business.
We don’t understand these things in our own adult worlds. Some of us even contradict our recited words concerning our desire for real connection with our actions that seem to promote the exact opposite. That is the foundational climate our teens are dealing with. Those are the attitudes being instilled in them. Some families choose to ignore that there is a problem. Other families, might exacerbate the issue by trying to ignore the basis of human need altogether. More than a few will turn to a dogmatic religion to demonize such fundamental human traits and needs as the human body and sexuality. At times it’s hard to blame them for wanting to protect against, what often feels like, an evil in our world. Nevertheless, in doing so we’ve only disconnected from the nature of the world in an attempt to understand a manifestation of that nature. Once again connection is discarded with the vehicle of disconnect.
I’ve written at length about the confusing cloud of emotions we get caught up in as a society only to drive home the idea that THIS is the world that is transposed over the already trying times of puberty and adolescents. The same confusions lie in the struggles to understand how we protect our nation and our borders and yet show love and acceptance of those truly in need. The same confusions are inherent in guiding our youth to forge successful futures as we struggle with what we feel is successful in our own lives. How do we define our own relationships to such things as money and power while constantly being subjected to images of those who are held in high esteem not for their vision and hard work, but because a sex tape thrust them into the spotlight?
Finally, the pot boils over when you take all of the above and mix in the inordinate number of voices that are out there, crying to be heard in one adolescent’s life; family, teachers, counselors, friends, the media, and a social machine that can range in the thousands for any given person. Each individual feels a pseudo-connection with thousands of people while at the same time feeling very much alone and lost. Each of those thousands of “friends” begs for time and energy at the speed of an IM, Tweet, text, or post. The same emotions of confusion and fear in one adolescent mixes with those of thousands of others and may even be projected negatively on someone. The knives and daggers of sexism, sexual harassment, racism, exclusion, and insecurity are wielded like machine guns with often tragic effect. All too often we hear stories of a young life ended because they couldn’t stand the pain anymore of being the horrific targets of peers who once again see only objects on which to thrust their own issues and not actual human beings.
Unfortunately, suicide isn’t uncommon, but there are other levels of coping that leave behind emotional and physical scars as well. Substance abuse and practices like cutting have become normal coping mechanisms. It isn’t hard to understand why the extremes of behavior can go from something like sexual promiscuity to a polar opposite desire to not be around anyone when you see society at large make the same gigantic leaps.
HOPE
Looking at the issues, one feels a very deep sense of loss for a generation that is in the darkness. One could quite easily get caught up in the pain of watching our children struggle in that same darkness. I think it is a matter of fundamental importance, however, to summon the strength and courage to be the leaders and light for our children and not additional people on the sidelines; our voices just part of the immense tumult.
First of all, let me say that I think there is a time and place for professional diagnoses and treatment of things like depression. I also believe, with much conviction, that some of the diagnoses and treatments handed down by “professionals” are stopgap measures and bandages that cover up the wounds but don’t heal them. Seek advice and counsel, but don’t ever close off to the options abundant in this world. From a spiritual standpoint, I’d like to offer a few insights.
As with any road to healing, I believe the only place to start is by looking in the mirror. We MUST look to ourselves first; not to find a place to lay blame or guilt, but because our greatest powers are those that come from within. Through harnessing that power, we’ve already increased the energy of our homes by at least a factor of one. We must make sure that our intentions are pure and our energies are focused. If, during honest introspection, you feel that you have actually done something to promote the cloud hanging over your adolescent, then you must next forgive yourself. Perfect love IS NOT a product of perfection, it is a manifestation of a true desire to always be growing and moving toward a place of enlightenment for the highest good of all. We are human; we are fallible. We have also built the Pyramids, sailed the oceans, explored space, tested the mind, survived the Dark Ages, and begun to realize that there is a world out there that can’t be explained by modern science. We are pretty amazing beings! Tap into your rightful universal power.
The process toward healing will be just that, a process. In the beginning it is important to reconnect with universal values and not the judgments of organizations or modern societal norms fueled by the incredible pace of change. Take time to meditate on the true and fundamental nature of things like success, friendship, sexuality, love, and spiritual meaning. Look for inspiration not through your eyes or ears, but through your deepest feelings in a quieted mind. This won’t be an easy journey, and I can guarantee that it won’t be painless. At your very center you will find demons of your own past, but you will inevitably find your inner Goddess or God as well.
When it comes to our children, we must learn to identify the true nature of their wounds. We might decide to limit their use of computers, cell phones, and social media; feeling that they are too connected with the cruel world “out there”. In doing so we still haven’t addressed the fact that many feel disconnected from what is real. The biggest problem is that they have never seen or felt what is real. The angst lies in feeling disconnected from something that is faceless, nameless, and intangible to the outer self. Although there are many influences that can bring negative energy into their world through such channels, the greater need isn’t to take away, but to add in the connections that they are missing. That’s not to say that there aren’t truly sinister people out there that mean harm to teens. Those influences must, of course, be guarded against. Nonetheless, for every predator, there are thousands of voices that are just part of a chaotic symphony. Unfortunately it’s a recital that they are all too used to. Depriving them of the background noise will only, superficially, feel like they are getting farther removed. The reality, however, is that a reaction of this kind won’t have any lasting effect one way or the other. Whether they are tuned in or out, the “it” that they are lacking is a connection with something far deeper. Once they have found that thing, the voice of ultimate power will finally overcome the static.
As we work to correct the feelings of disconnect, the place to start is with our personal relationships to our teens. Invite them into your own insights regarding your meditations about fundamental questions. Let them know what you are feeling, and the struggles you also have about some of the issues. Then take time to listen to how they are feeling. Remember that in some, if not most cases, they don’t have the benefit of life experience and are dealing with issues for which their only experience might be directly linked to distorted views from outside sources. It might feel natural to want to relate your life story to serve as a roadmap for them to follow. Such wisdom is important, but remember too, that it is a connection to your reality, and not the reality they find themselves in.
We can educate through our own eyes, but then we must also give them the tools to look deep within themselves to solve their own mysteries as well. Many adolescents who “cut” say that the physical act allows them to transcend numbness they feel in life. The pain is, by their accounts, the only thing that comes through. The need to transcend consciousness, however, is not uncommon even among spiritual practitioners. Sexuality is also a transforming force, which may account for promiscuous sex practices among those who struggle. We can help them find tools like meditation, yoga, ecstatic devices like drumming and dancing, and spiritual practices that can help them find their own center.
The power of the universe isn’t something that disappears and has to be found, or something that has to be gifted from one person to another. One doesn’t need to be initiated into the eternal mysteries to find peace within the world. What our teens do need to do is learn to quiet the mind enough to feel the subtle energies that are there for everyone and at all times. They need to re-sensitize to the body, mind, and spirit connection that has been lost in the tumult. They need to learn the language of those energies, and then how to use them. The greatest gift we can give is that of support and a loving and accepting environment for them to journey from, as well as a safe place to return to.
From these foundations we can build other spiritual growth experiences and create the environment for our teens to find their own place in a world of light and not darkness. Maybe, as a family, you take time to go camping and connect with nature; including activities that offer a physical way to express our energies. Maybe you join your teens in volunteer opportunities that promote community or love of planet. In all things, connect with yourself first, teach and allow them to connect with their inner power, connect with the energies of nature, and finally, connect with the energies of others that walk with us in this same journey.
©2016, 2021 Marcus Everett & The Victorian Society of Metaphysics & Magic