When you were young you were always searching for the next big adventure, you were anxious or eager to have access and “stuff”, you were pretty much addicted to social pressure and expected to “compete” with your friends for who had more access to certain kind of events, people, or things.
Immersed in a culture of materialistic, hollow, and endless sea of emotions, additional to your internal chaos that during those years you had in terms of how you physiologically felt, the need to identify yourself with certain type of people, belong to certain kind of “friends”, your circle of people was influenced by so many things, that was hard to maintain your focus on things and therefore you got emotional or overwhelmed pretty much by the air you breathed.
In this digital era, is even more challenging for all the young people, since they’re 5 years old (or even less), they are biased to be reactive to become socially primed and of course not with the best emotions that we would desire as parents.
But, since that age we’re constantly generating a culture of whining and complains, compulsiveness, anxiety and of course increasing emotional turmoil, for many factors that will create a very hard sense of pressure on them.
No wonder, when you grew up, you simply didn’t know how to generate peace, how to start feeling it from within, how to stop the impulsivity and anxious way of thinking and stop the hamster wheel in your head.
What are the main factors that are affecting peace and emotional stability in new generations?
Lack of Physical Activity.
As “trivial” as it may sound for many of you, new generations have ridiculous amount of time performing physical activity, something that generates a lot of side effects, one of them regarding peace, starts with creating an enormous amount of neurochemical and hormonal imbalance which of course will have very profound consequences in everyday life such as allowing the emotional threshold to be even inferior to the one that by nature they already have.
Hormones and neurotransmitters have a very dramatic increase during those years and they’re the ones responsible to regulate their emotional pool of chemicals which will in turn be just like a boiling pot waiting for some “trivial” trigger to be spilled, to explote and to cause a lot of internal damage and chaos. Which unfortunately can then become a more serious or chronic issue, something that we are now seeing as amazing and unbelievable statistics of anxiety & panic attacks, depression, TDAH, or any other acronyms for mental illnesses that you want to use to label many of the reactions which were only provoked by a sedentary lifestyle.
Moreover, another kind of triggering consequence is the fact that children and teenagers are becoming emotional addicted to food, of course the type that can soothe their emotional state momentarily but that then will have a very drastic drop, making them prone to feel completely out of the social picture and leading them to develop any kind of eating disorder or even worse consequences that could end up and increasing a sense of unworthiness and take very irrational decisions.
Engagement with Nature.
Children and teenagers, usually have very poor contact with nature, they’re just imprisoned in their homes, engaging in mindless activities such as watching TV or interacting in social media hence the levels of sedentarism.
Being driven to have three preferred activities such as TV, Social Media or video games, they have an enormous amount of exposure to feelings of comparison, impatience, lack of confidence, envy, jealously, boredom and the list can go on ...
No wonder they have such poor adaptability to any kind of activity that requires them to move, that requires them to take more risks, that teaches them to be creative, that allows them to be in contact with the earth and every kind of nature expression which also little by little starts converting them in cold, socially awkward, selfish, and creates a toxic emotional cycle of thinking that they deserve every kind of entertainment no matter the cost, no matter the time, no matter if they don't even perform any effort to earn or deserve it!
I dare to say that they don’t even have a clue of the word “earn” as everything is accesible to them and they have immediate access to many kind of digital activities.
They also generate a false sense of thinking that everything in life is given, is easy and it will be there to be enjoyed, they just have to extend the hand to ask for it or they just have to throw a tantrum to humiliate their parents in order to win the attention and access things, and this is just a result also of the low levels of attention that children have with their parents and the amazing amount of time they spend alone in front of a digital device that eases their emotional pain and feelings of unworthiness by taking them to a crafted life created in social media by “other” children to call the attention of course, but cleverly designed so they would crave what "others" have. In addition to be more accesible to any kind of cybernetic danger to be brainwashed into almost any kind of crazy trend.
If they had a more “free of gadgets” life, with nature access, with physical games that involve human social contact, that involve creativity to find ways to develop a nature played game, that engage them into have more contact with other kids or teens of their age and with the same kind of exposure as them, they would generate many positive emotions such as empathy, kindness, confidence, creativity, self worth, patience, team work, they would start reclaiming their powerful human traits such as awe and wonder interacting more with a formless way of energy that would act as a natural hormone and neurochemical regulator!
Science now has performed several clinical trials where children or teenagers are exposed to more physical nature contact and they engage more in outdoors activities, measuring their biochemical and social effects on them and drawing as a conclusion that many of their metabolic and mental diseases have been reduced and sometimes even healed just by allowing them to be exposed to these kind of activities at least 45 minutes to 1 hour per day.
Social Pressure.
Just as the two factors listed above you can imagine the amount of children and teenagers that we’re launching to the world, to prime, entice or spread those type of emotional turmoil to others and provoking a chain reaction where many of them feel just overwhelmed and many times burned out by the amount of tantrums, bad examples and lack of boundaries that they see in their schools or in closed places where they spend most of their time.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise for us as parents that they sometimes come to home with many toxic messages, or just in the verge of having a very exaggerated emotional response that will just lead them to feel not understood, rejected and reinforce their own low worth and low confidence, because to you they just seem that they’re overreacting or they are just looking for trouble, when in fact, just as you feel sometimes energy drained and in a bad mood for a hectic day at your office, they sadly feel the same way because they have been in a school with children that have very toxic emotions, that crave attention, that don’t know any boundaries or manners but that they urgently need an outlet for such a heavy emotional load.
On the other hand this amount of emotional exposure and emotional drain is their reality now, and they’re being exposed to that everyday, so imagine the kind of internal imbalance and damage that is creating in them. That explains every kind of statistics and of prescription rate for antidepressants, anti anxiety drugs or drugs to “help” them control their attention.
That kind of culture that promotes medications in such a young age is just also predisposing them to generate in the future diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, more profound and serious mental diseases, in addition to many other autoimmune disorders that are just a result of all those drugs that they took when they were just children.
What are the answers then, to start reverting the damage and to literally heal them?
Of course, as many things in life we can look for a complex solution full of endless recommendations, but guess what in this case, the solution is in front of our face, is negotiable, is up to us to install it, and in the end of course it will be a solution that you will be rewarded with.
Children and teenagers need to be free, need to be faced with nature, need to be engaged with creating solutions, cared for with more attention time, activities that develop their patience, that given them also a sense of responsibility and feelings they are contributing with something to some kind of social help, where they also develop more curiosity, wonder and inventive ability to find their way in certain type of situations, where they feel empowered to face challenges, of course that they are up to their age.
The more we become and return, as ironic as it may sound, to the basics, to “ancient” times as they would label them, the easier it will be for them to grow, to be their own creators, to stimulate positive internal emotions, to move their metabolism and help them be healthier and depend less or not at all from any kind of drug or stimulant in order to be able to feel alive.
Some developed countries such as Finland, Denmark, Norway and some others are exploring this particular point of view where they have approved and pass even laws for children to have a different type of education where children are more exposed to nature, where classroom classes are taken outside, are designed to solve problems outdoors in nature, are designed to help some less “favored” society to grow, to develop emotions of compassion and empathy in a real setting and with real situations where they are part of the solution and they are primed to create inventions that allow them to give, to be exposed to social challenges where they are able to contribute and generate a more expanded sense of identity that little by little will start to generate a broader picture in their minds and ease them to transition to a more global perspective where they will be able to create social solutions not only for their country but for the ones that need them most.
That’s the key to produce and generate a different type of society that loss the sense of boundary and that is able to expand their horizons to create businesses in communities where they need them the most, promoting economical growth and employment and helping diminishing the migration rate of underdeveloped countries, giving access to services they are craving and needing them, which is one of the main reasons for migration issues all over the world.
Our emotional peace as a society comes from the fact that we are able to deal with our emotions, comes from the sense of feeling that we belong, that we’re contributing, that we have attention and that we care for each other, in addition to the most healing and powerful tool which is nature and all the emotions that awakes in us.
Sadly many people understands the value of simple things sometimes “too late”, although that is much better than never finding it. However this happens, because once you grow up and mature, in addition to have a more stable emotional amount of hormones and neurotransmitters, you have generated a lot experiences which many of them, I’m sure were painful in the moment but allowed you to see life in a different perspective, and you were able to get there just because you were exposed to those “struggles” or challenges and you had to find solutions, and you were faced with the fact that you needed to earn your own means to “survive” and to fulfill basic needs and of course if were smart, disciplined and in some what ambitious you were even able to generate a great life full with commodities that now you’re able to enjoy but that even if you were more wealthy would not give you as much peace, as the simple sense of a walk in the beach or the woods, a meal or coffee with one your most intimate friends or your partner, a fun getaway even for a day to explore something new, a new project that were just saving for when you had the time to do it, etc..
Learning to breathe, to be with yourself in silence, to let your thoughts and emotions pass and find the outlet peacefully and just have peace at your own will by knowing it exists within you and you just need to learn to pause, to reflect, to engage with your senses and your inner nature!
In summary, emotional peace, emotional freedom has to be cultivated for the new generations, has to be encouraged and help them to develop that sense of empowerment, of self control over their emotions, help them to learn since they’re children to find solutions, to develop an identity of community, to allow them to be exposed to situations where they need and will be able to find their way and “drop them in the wild” sort of saying but a strong confidence nurtured by attention, love, empathy and understanding that they can and they will be able to achieve what they set their mind to.
Is time to start treating that addiction to digital media, to sedentarism, to isolation and most importantly return to the basics and to the simple pleasures of life!