“Young people don’t trust”
Hi, my name’s not important. You just need to know that I’m 19 and I would like to share some knowledge. When you’re 19, for more of a traditionnal way, you’ve started college (in these weird times, “virtual college”), with no real expectations from life. Or maybe you have some, but these are bond to your studies or the concept of, and around, money. Even if you’re no in this category, maybe you just relate to the fact that life seem fun, exciting but you have a weird gut feeling, like something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s generally called an “anguish”, it has litterally no reason, you’re scared without a subject. But what if it’s LIFE itself that you just… don’t trust ? It may seem a little dark, but it’s the dark truth. You’re : lost.
If you do feel like this, don’t panic. A lot of us do. And it’s actually for a majority of us, young people. We are built on the distrust of LIFE, because we are scared of uncertainty, especially right now.
Now I would like to make a warning : I am just trying to help and I am NOT a licensed psychologist, although I do study the topic, I read books and research a accumulated from your childhoodlot for the only purpose to understand people. Along the way though, I slowly understood me.
HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS ACTUAL FEELING ?
We need to go way back. And I mean in your childhood “way back”. How was your childhood ? Did you feel safe ? Was it joyful ? Or was it abusive ? Or you just don’t quite remember much about your childhood (If that’s the case though, know that you’ve inconsciously made yourself forget to protect yourself, it might be related to traumatic events) ? You’ve guessed it, first of all, you need to QUESTION YOURSELF, you need to start from the begginning, think “you” with some sense of identity, WHO ARE YOU ? : what is your personnality and how did you discover that you were that way ? Is it because people told you or is because you noticed by yourself ? Now you’re going to ask me “why is this important ?”. Well, if you’ve felt bad reading those questions, chances are you’ve been avoiding them on purpose, for a very long time, and this has a lot of meaning : you don’t, and don’t want to, KNOW YOURSELF. Lots of kids like us became to slowly developp inconscious self-hatred, whever it’s because you’ve been comparing yourself on social media or because you find yourself trying to please everyone, the cause is basic, you don’t know yourself. Now I know lots of you think that they do know themselves, through their sense of style, their handwriting, or the way they look, but these are superficial aspects of you. I am talking about what’s underneath your physical body, your mind. Being a stranger to yourself means you can’t developp real compassion for yourself, you developp a certain sense of disdain for yourself.
Some of us are trapped in the cycle of social media. Here’s an example : You have problems in the physical world, you think about those, you have dark thoughts and you don’t want to face them. So you start going through social media, distract yourself, make yourself stop thinking. But then, you see everyone else’s life, you start comparing yourself. And here we go again with the dark thoughts. You developp an inconscious self-hatred, you need to stop thing again, you go back to social media. Again, and again and again…
Maybe you don’t relate to what I’ve just exposed, maybe you do. In any case, you can relate to the fact that you’ve once stopped yourself thinking by any sorts of distractions (video games, movies, TV shows, anime, videos, drugs etc.). First of all, I am not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s more of an inconscious habit. You didn’t do it on purpose, you just tried to help yourself actually, although it’s a temporary solution to a remaning situation : you’re not trying to face yourself. Lots of us keep saying “I have too much thoughts”, but it’s a natural thing to think, it’s unatural to try and avoid them by distracting your mind, it’s taught. And I know I keep repeating myself, but it’s such an inconscious habit that lots of you readers will probably deny what I’m saying. What I am affirming is that YOU DON’T TRUST YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU’RE A STRANGER TO YOURSELF. Now, what’s the link between your trust in LIFE and your trust in YOURSELF ? Get this, Life is just a reflection of what’s in your mind. Everything is perpective. You put your glasses made of beliefs, knowledge and intuitions, accumulated from your childhood to this day, on and that’s how you picture LIFE in the daily basis. What’s in your mind today ? You didn’t sleep well ? Life will feel overwhelming and annoying. So please, start asking yourself questions and figure out if you do trust yourself enough, this weird gut feeling will explain itself.
LIFE STILL SEEM BLURRY AND SCARY, WHAT IF IT DON’T WORK OUT ?
When a friend/family member/someone you’re close to comes to you to talk about a problem, what’s the first thing you do ? You listen to them. It seems silly, but in order to come up with a solution, you need to listen to the problem. So be a friend to yourself, hear yourself out. Your thoughts don’t define you, how you react to them define you. Don’t be scared of them, they’ll only hurt you if you let them. More easier said than done, I know. But now I want to propose a concept. What if you observe your thoughts ? The thing is, we tend to worry about our thoughts overwhelming us because we’re afraid that they might be “too strong”. I guess you’re stronger because you’re actually the one in control, if you don’t react, they won’t have power.
How do we observe them though ? By medidating. I know, I know, you’ve heard that before. But allow me to really explain to you the purpose of meditating. It’s all about harmony within yourself. When you meditate, you focus on your breathe, your inhale and your exhale. Thoughts will naturally come up, but this time you won’t be distracted, you’ll be focused. The common factor between those two is that they are habits, it’s all about repetition. The more you do it, the more your mind register. Now the differences are the durability, one’s helping you temporally, the one helps you through them on the long haul. Another thing is the perpective behind the two concept, by distracting yourself, you see your thoughts like ennemies trying to harm you, by focusing, you developp compassion and actually care for them.
To conclude this part, you need to change your views on yourself, because your thoughts are a big part of you, and Life itself will feel different. What if that person you find MIGHTY annoying has a silent battle with themselves too ? What if bad experiences are actually lessons and you learned something about yourself that you didn’t know before ?
WHAT TO DO TO WORK IT OUT ON THE LONG RUN ?
I guess you might need to understand that this isn’t an easy journey, and it takes pratice. There are days that might feel like giving up is the only way, but it’s actually the easiest, and by doing so, you let yourself down and developp more self-hatred. My advice is journaling everyday. Buy yourself a little notebook or a bullet journal and write down whatever you want : how do you feel ?; how was your day ?; write as if it was a letter to a friend, but it is actually you, you’re letting your thoughts be in harmony with you, there’s no more conflict within yourself, let them go on paper. Maybe when you’ll read them two weeks after, you won’t relate to them anymore. The important thing is that they won’t be so scary if they are illustrated. By the way, you can illustrate them through art. It’s actually more of a release when you can express them in your own way. Find your own sense of release, but you have to do it everyday, in order to feel heard and appreciated by yourself.
Another advice is what I talked about before, meditation. It helps the wandering mind and teaches you to find peace through breathing techniques. I recommend on Spotify or Podcats “the Morning Ritual”, a guided meditation where Lilly Bach is talking you through your breathing and helps you focus on a specific theme. There are 5 minutes meditations just like there are 20 minutes, you can start gradually. Days will feel more peaceful and less loud, once you’ve learned that you can breath through everything.
Last but not least, you might need healing music. You’ve learned that what you’re feeding your mind has an impact on your thoughts through the addictive (and let’s be honest, toxic) use of social media. By deduction, listening to music that’s calm will influence your thoughts therefore, your perspective. Create yourself a playlist with songs that makes you peaceful, it’s a subjective matter. Frequencies have impact on water, so it has impact on us. I’m not saying listen to lo-fi everyday, but when you feel like drowning, sinking into life, put on that playlist and relax.
I really hope I helped you. There’s so much I haven’t said, but I’ve said the essentiels. If LIFE do still feel useless to you and hopeless, please, talk to someone : you’re your bestfriend but sometimes, you can get into deep self-hatred and depressive states. Feeling lost might be a consequence to a lack of purpose though, that’s another topic for another article, I have been more focusing on the concept of “distrust in LIFE” on this one.
Stay safe and listen to yourself.
