Izzy wasn’t listening, Grace was chewing her pen, Cara was scanning the room to avoid my eyes, Blake was sneaking a look at his phone. I’d lost them in the breathing section. I knew that was going to lose them. So I bring them back in the room with the Body Scan. Something just clicks with this meditation. They lie down on mats on their backs. Some distance between each other. Enough to avoid any prodding. A phone goes off. I remind everyone to switch it off just for 20 minutes. I see a look of relief in some of their eyes. Silence. Eyes closed. Body resting. No distractions. Nowhere else to be. No snapchats to miss out on. No tiktoks to learn. Silence. The sniggering stops. I start guiding them through the meditation. Grace stops fidgeting. Blake stops making jokes. Something just clicks with the body scan….After 20 minutes they’re still quiet. I gently tell them it’s the end of the meditation. Noise slowly returns. But it’s different, it is gentle, considered. Some let out a sigh. Some give me a big smile as they stretch. Izzy says “that was lush”. Cara says “I just felt the stress coming out of my fingers”. Blake says “can we do it for longer next time”. Something just clicks with the Body Scan.
And that’s just a glimpse of the power of mindfulness. Slowing things down for a while, reducing the business of the mind. And teenagers of this generation need it more than ever before. You have the typical teen challenges of school stress, friendship angst, family fall outs, body changes etc. and then layered on top of this is the suffocation of social media that only your generation can truly understand. Every like is a form of validation, every snapchat conversation is a chance to remain part of the group, every tiktok is a chance to remain ‘with it’. Your heartbeat reacts to this fast moving social media world…it is so hard to keep up. Teenage anxiety is increasing and it’s not hard to see why. And what about self-esteem? Perhaps you don’t realise it but just like any validation can give you a high….any form of disregard can give you a low…you know, those times when you’ve perfected that photo only to be ignored by many. Social media is going to take its toll on your self-esteem unless you take some steps to approach it more mindfully. It is a part of your world and I’m not suggesting that you switch it off entirely. You just need to learn how to notice when stress or anxiety is creeping in and then take steps to handle it healthily.
You see, I was an anxious teenager back in the 90s when social media wasn’t around (!!!). Stuff happened to me that wasn’t unusual for a teen. I was bullied, I shouldered a lot of school pressure, I fell out with my friends, I fell out with my sister, our home life became chaotic, I had boyfriend woes….life was complicated. It took its toll on my self-esteem, robbed me of sleep and kept me in a state of agitation, ready to snap at anyone and anything in my path. I kept a diary which brings it all back. This diary was written when I was 14 to 15 years old. At the time I didn’t have any coping strategies to help me handle the chaos. Tools like mindfulness were unheard of back then.
Practising mindfulness is like having a hidden superpower. Not only will it boost your resilience the more you practice, it will also help to boost your self-esteem along the way. No wonder I feel so passionate about it. And the great thing is, it is available to me on demand. I can tune into my breathing and my body sensations whenever I want, wherever I want. No matter what is going on around me, it is there to help. I’ve used it when I’ve felt overwhelmed with emotions. I’ve used it to ground myself before a big presentation. I’ve used it in the middle of an argument to prevent my inner beast from exploding. I use it every day to help me to balance my emotions in the face of life’s chaos. I still have emotional wobbles as I am human being and we all have wobbles from time to time, they’re just more like mini rainstorms rather than full on hurricanes.