Mindfulness in adolescence, or the search for water in the desert

Being a teenager in the year 2021 is difficult, very difficult. Almost a continuous act of resistance, I would say. I want to start these lines with this idea, since I think it does not hurt to break a small or large spear in favor of all and all that this year they are going through this vital stage that in itself, and without global pandemics involved, is defined by the word “crisis”.

We could see it as a kind of matrioshka of overlapping crises that wrap around each other. A global crisis, a national crisis, an educational system in crisis, families in crisis and adolescents in a vital crisis for their own stage that they have to live and also living in the background of this onion doll that has become the year 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

• Related article: "The 3 stages of adolescence"

Lack of support and references in adolescence

From the first moment in which we decide to write about the psychology of development or the vital evolution of the human being, adolescence has been the stage of change par excellence

. Transition moment, it has been said, in which the boy or the girl transits towards adulthood, and which is marked by a series of palpable physical and psychological changes.

Until a few years ago, this moment in life was accompanied by a kind of generational guide. The ancestors of the adolescent and the immediate environment of the same understood that the infant was being left behind and was beginning to appear in that member of the family a small adult who had to be accompanied to maturity.

The implicit rites that marked this change and gave the adolescent or adolescent signs that the moment of growing up was approaching were common. They could consist of such an everyday act as being able to play cards with your father and his friends, learning to use the razor blade or sit at family gatherings in the area of ​​the table where the Adults. All of them, community symbols that indicated to the adolescent that while his body also changed the environment, it placed him in a different social place.

As the years have passed and life has accelerated exponentially, these community “rites” have fallen into decline and that guiding attitude provided by the immediate environment has been diluted in a sea of ​​haste, demand and lack of awareness. Young adults have recently lost a very valuable orientation in the chaotic and uncertain hormonal sea that comprises the moment they have to live.

They are, precisely, the speed with which we adults live, our minds occupied in constant rumination and the emotional disconnection that prevents us from seeing the other, which leaves our adolescents sold into hyperstimulation from a technologically voracious and labyrinthine world in the extreme in directing attention to growth and well-being.

With his prefrontal cortex immersed in the neural pruning of this evolutionary stage, boys and girls have less ability to manage their impulses; In addition, their critical thinking is emerging but still immature, which causes them to become cannon fodder for a system that will try to disconnect and accelerate them, seeking the follow-up of inertia prevailing.

The importance of Mindfulness in this stage of life

It is before this current drama, where the millenary essence of activities such as meditation are presented as more than appropriate tools to accompany young adults who are currently living in refugees and isolated after the protection of digital screens.

Since Vitalizes, we make a proposal before this challenge in the therapeutic work with these girls and boys, wanting to combine individual processes with a group space in which, accompanied by a professional, a safe place can be created for them where they can overcome that defense of isolation and emotional disconnection and favor the company of other boys and girls who are in the same situation, the rediscovery of the body itself as a drum where all the experiences resonate and vital guide of the path that they will have to travel to start a conscious, regulated and meaningful adult life.

Author: Arturo Lecumberri, psychologist at Vitaliza.