Emotional Growing Pains

I have been giving some thought to the challenges in recognising, dealing with and overcoming the stages of changes in our life. In identifying periods of change from one stage of life to another the clearest frame of reference would be teenagers: they are often uncomfortable to be around, grumpy, messy, rude at times, only interested in their friends, antagonistic and often physically awkward. All these outward signs that we have learnt to recognise and identify, and yet how much thought do we give to what is going on within? The emotional near-trauma that can be suffered through when changing from a child to a young adult, like a snake breaking through its old skin into the new one, underneath it is an intensely painful experience. However familiar teen-age has become it has only relatively recently been recognised as a period of life opposed to a passing of age (15 to 16 or 17 to 18 or 20 to 21) or ceremonial rite. Thanks to 1950s American culture it is now a much more widely recognised framework encompassing a period of life ranging from 13 upto 18.

It is plausible to further identify general categories of growth such as from 18 to 22 where intellectual and personality have deepened formation or 22 upto 30 where we establish as young adults; from 30 to 45 as a more formal responsible Adult, and 45 being the benchmark for ‘middle age’. Other ‘periods’ in life are also changing in the way we identify with them for example the period between 50 and 65 is no longer ‘old age’ it is the age of the grey panthers, the Saga years, for those nearing retirement with grown children, still looking ahead to their twilight years whilst enjoying the offerings of the latter stages in life. However we recognise and identify the characteristics of the different stages of human development, how much attention do we really give to the emotional growing pains experienced at the passing of one stage into another?

We know that the changes we go through and the perception we have of life affects us significantly and can last a lifetime, especially strong emotions or feeling ‘hard done by’ or wronged, or perhaps a feeling of arrival, or greater certainty. Yet most commonly these times of change seem to signify uncertainty leading to sense of insecurity in one or more aspects of life. Fear appears to still play such a great part, rather than an enjoyment of passing through the stages in life; each stage carries its own fears, whether the increase in responsibility (decision making) for ourselves, responsibility for others, loss of independence and freedom due to the demands upon us or to physical restrictions, also fears of growing up or getting older ~ ultimately a fear of change whether physical, circumstantial or perception.

 

There should be a serious question over where this fear comes from, is it really generated within us or is it generated and perpetuated within our social and societal framework? In either case, fear of change is a state of mind not an actuality, it is reality for us as that is how we experience it, and yet all too often it is possible to see alternatives and examples laid out by others if we chose to seek and observe them. I am a great proponent of tacit learning, whether you want to call it social learning theory, or just learning through the example of others, it is one of the most powerful personal development tools in our world today. So do we choose to have people around us perpetuating a fear of change? Fears that our innermost feelings are abnormal rather than normal? That we shouldn’t be feeling what we are; that there is something wrong with us, or that we are a problem. The continued struggle to cope with daily life whilst experiencing these awkward and challenging emotions; the way in which we reveal these emotions to others – passive aggressively, with confrontation, with uncertainty, with judgement, like a crashing wave or a perpetually lapping tide... What those precise emotions are will be unique to each of us, and yet the experience of them is common to us all. It is in part what makes us human.

Why am I saying all this? Because I believe emotional growing pains are not something to be afraid of, or to ignore, or to exacerbate with insecurity. They are normal, natural, to be acknowledged and accepted for what they are... periods of and for change. They are a chance to develop into an evolved version of yourself, not be feared but instead to be celebrated. There is on the whole quite an unhealthy attitude towards change and addressing our innermost feelings. There seems often a pain and an uncomfortability, a feeling that something is wrong with us, that we shouldn’t be having these feelings towards our family, or friends, or towards our lives... 

I think we should. I think it is really important to address and reassess our relationships to people and to the aspects within our lives. How else can we make improvements or things that little bit easier, or more comfortable or smoother? How else are we going to know what needs adjusting, more or less attention? To look at the natural world, we can accept freely and willingly that it changes on a near constant basis that plants continually grow and die, that seasons change, and yet our emotions can bind us so strongly to ideas or concepts of how things Should be that we lose sight of addressing how life Could be. This does not mean a pining towards an unachievable goal...”oh if I had money I would do this”...but a question of “what can I do about this now”? a recognition and acceptance of how you feel including, and especially, the negative emotions. It is a physical offering of reflection from your body to your mind, a way of saying ‘perhaps it is time to have a think about how I really feel about this’; an opportunity for greater understanding of ourselves and how we interact with life around us; a window to learn a lesson from life that can help us overcome the challenges we experience. It is also highly likely that within our environment (the things that we see and experience in the widest sense) there is atleast one positive frame of reference; whether a book, a person, a film, a song, a report or news item that can be used to encourage new or developed ways of thinking that support the adjustments that are beneficial to make.

I believe it important to make a clear distinction: emotions are not who we are but simply a guidance system to help shape and adjust our experiences through life. We can experience them to such depth that an emotion seems as though it becomes who we are, but it is not Us. The essence of who we are is apart from our emotional state. Even our personality is only in part, a physical representation of our life experiences and, learnt behaviour. Many mystic’s and religious texts talk of a soul or higher being, this is the frame of reference I chose to use as the most basic element of Who We Are. I would identify it in this context as a sophisticated collection of light strands whose composition provides us each with our own unique hue. Light does not have a personality, it has only what we project on to it, whatever we identify or perceive that colour or hue to mean. Why am I saying this, what is the context? I am using it to emphasise that our personality and the emotions we experience are a physical representation of this light and hue but they are not It. Making change does not mean that we are changing who we are, but merely adjusting the relationship we have to our external experiences. This is a far less threatening idea than the concept of change as changing our personality. More often than not it is only a change in perception where, like applying a colour filter to a picture, it does not change the components of the picture only how it is viewed. 

The essence of what I want to communicate is that from my perception, we owe it to ourselves and to those around us to take emotional growing pains seriously, to seek to recognise and identify their root cause and to seek a positive solution. That emotions are not who we are but an internal guidance system to help adjust and change the experiences we have; and that more often than not our experiences are due to our perception, not our personality. And finally that change whether internal or external is never to be feared, it only needs to be understood.