I've been handing out an article from last month's Shambhala Sun, by Thic Nhat Hanh, How to Heal the Wounded Child Within Us. It's a great article and I hope you don't think I'm too weird when I say - I love that Thic Nhat Hanh and wish I could give him a hug every time I read something he's written.
Though sometimes the words "inner child" make me giggle in a sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class way, I have come to believe there is really something important for many adults in trying to be kind and gentle with themselves in a way that a good parent would be kind and gentle with a child.
But this blogpost isn't about the Inner Child. It's about the sophomoric, sitting in the back of the class voice that I (so originally) call the Inner Adolescent. If the primary developmental task of adolescence is to create a stable identity, the Inner Adolescent is the part of us that gets triggered out of our adult identity. It is a poseur identity that looks strong on the outside, but the inside is insecure. When we act or talk from our Inner Adolescent we act and talk in ways that aren't necessarily congruent with what we say we believe and how we want to act in the world.
Though I have been known to indulge in watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a great part of the 'pleasure' in it is seeing grown women behave like catty, backstabbing teens. The part of us that gossips about others (even if we justify to ourselves that we're not gossiping), the part of us that makes quick judgments on the behavior of others, the part of us that is righteously indignant for reasons that can be as personal as someone not inviting our child to a birthday party or as impersonal as an editorial in the New York Times - this is our Inner Adolescent. Even watching the stinking Real Housewives is a way of 'taking care' of my own Inner Adolescent.
I'm going to posit that, like the Inner Child, we need to take care of our Inner Adolescent and not just try to squash her down without paying attention to what she (or he) is trying to tell us. (This doesn't mean we should consistently act from her/his gut instinct.)
Why do we have an impulse to gossip, to judge, to rage?
The answer may be different for everyone, but I think it's worth looking at places in us where our identity feels unstable, people we may spend time with who trigger old feelings of wanting to be liked or at least measure up.
When I think about my teen years, I remember worrying so much about my hair. It needed to be big, very big. Having a "bad hair" day could effect my mood (I'm even laughing as I write it). I remember finally realizing that all the other girls were so worried about their own hair that they really weren't paying attention to mine.
So, I go forth today, feeling good about my hair (grays and all) and grateful for the things I continue to learn from my Inner Adolescent, that wide-eyed good girl with the secret urge to do something rebellious, like be a poet.
I, too, like the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I just finished his book on Anger, which is about much more than that. Much of Buddhist philosophy makes sense to me. Explains why the Triptych of Poems I wrote for the SLPC/Craft Alliance poetry event are based on Mindfulness, and Breathing In, Breathing Out.
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