Identity Cancelled
A lot of times I throw together a blog and have neat little checklists and really simple ideas for creating subtle yet helpful shifts in life. Today I don’t have that. I have a burden to share.
I am seeing, with the end of joyful Christmas, paired with “no end in sight to the virus,” a major shift in the well-being of the people who open up to me their hearts.
One trend I see? Compulsive habits and/or character defects that people usually keep under control through healthy coping, surfacing and negatively impacting relationships and choices.
One way people cope with a compulsive behavior is to replace it with a healthier distraction, for example burning off anxiety and boredom through exercise or pursuing sense of meaningful purpose by getting together with friends and serving others. Since those aren’t viable options, people are left to themselves with very few layers of protection between themselves and the worst of themselves.
I see a similar trend that has emerged among adolescents and young adults. The most recent shut down in our state has left them without their sports, theatre, places to go, and other outlets that give adolescents and young adults their sense of identity and purpose.
Normally students can find healthy escapes within their passions and pursuits. Competing. Performing. Studying. Preparing. Adventuring. Taking risks. For many, those have been wiped out. No longer accessible are aspects of life that develop Self and Identity; the most crucial task in this phase of development.
What we need to understand is that adolescence and young adulthood is a time to develop skills, a sense of competency, purpose, and identity. It’s a time for mastery, achievement, developing independence, and risk taking. Sadly, the situation we are in has left our young adults and adolescents malnourished in the most essential aspects of their purpose and developmental stage (in this case identity development). For many of these kids, this most recent turn in the shutting down of schools, gyms, and extracurriculars has also shut down what helps to define them.
And what defines us aligns us.
Goals keep us on the path of good choices and provide powerful reasons to avoid the pitfalls of chemical substances, porn, randomly hooking up, and any other form of entrapped self-sabotage. Removing their opportunity to take risks and stay close to routines that move them forward in life; shutting down their access to healthy pursuits and achievement result in removing from kids their internal motivators and inhibit their experiencing the natural high of knocking out a goal. So guess what? The trend is toward chasing down other, not so healthy highs and connections.
If you are reading this, please please consider what you can contribute to the life of an adolescent or young adult. Can you pull back to center and identity someone from this age group? Remind them of their gifts? Remind them of their destiny? Help them to reengage with their passions? Check on them? Hire them? Invite them?
Pursue. Pursue. Pursue.
They need us to reach for them; regardless of whether or not in response to our reaching out they snap, roll their eyes, or struggle to engage. Remind these guys how much they are loved, how important they are to you and the world, and how much this world needs them to keep moving in the direction of their dreams.
Dive Deeper…
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