Each individual has a purpose, a uniqueness to contribute to the community. This unique purpose is expressed through the many life stages: in womb, infancy, toddler, child, young teen, teenager, young adult, adult, middle-aged. senior, elder, and crossing to the other side. The teenage zone is particularly complex as it bridges the gap between childhood and young adult. There are many words/phrases that describe this gap — Rite of Passage, hormone-crazed, rebellious, impossible. Everyone enters and exits the Teenage Zone, but in differing ways. A life experience is not a neat and tidy package. The age zones are not always sequential.
That said, we can recognize the varying life experiences as energetic zones with specific purposes to be checked off. The Teenage Role, when examined closer, seems to be the time when we refine Overthinking, either by releasing the practice or strengthening it. The teenager is in a vortex of questions: which of their beliefs are passed along through the family network, and do they want to retain them or release them; most important. how do they use their strengths to uncover their authentic self?
The teenager has long been branded as hormonally challenged. They are written off as crazed, people who must be endured until they come to their right mind. The right mind, in this case, would be the emergence into young adult life, in which they will learn to settle down and make sacrifices for the bigger picture of future stability.
But, really, the teenage role is all about feeling the pull of the past and the push into the future simultaneously, to work the range between the two; to feel the breadth of their wings unfolding.
It’s never too late or too early to exercise the individual wings unfolding. And real-time teenagers are well-advised to value their teenage years by focusing on discerning between that which is theirs and beliefs that have been passed down through the family system. Respect the pull of the past and don’t rush into the future. Life is but a balance between the two ends of the range.
