Positive Affirmations

I was reading an article the other day about young people today and how the positive affirmations on Instagram are actually causing teenagers to feel worse about themselves.

Why? Because no one has shown them how to be more positive or to raise their vibration or to succeed at life yet!

I couldn’t agree more! We aren’t born knowing stuff….it has to be taught. Affirmations are amazing for those of us that already know but have forgotten or have let life and pain get in our way. It’s a way to snap us back to a way of thinking that we probably already knew.

Not everyone already knew they were enough or not to be afraid all the time. To let anxiety control their lives or how to eat properly.

This really hit home for me when I saw the post. I tried to and put my younger self into that situation but it was hard actually. Although I often look back at my life and can remember what things felt like but no matter what I do…..I’m still always looking thru the filter of my life at this point. Thru the lense of all my cumulative experiences. How would I feel really if I have been young in the age of Social Media? I embraced FB as an adult as I loved keeping connected with my friends and families. However it has broken my heart to see how much insecurity and pain is being caused in young people’s lives but the ‘fake’ lives people lead on line.

I had an eating disorder as a teenager…..it was bad enough dealing with the trauma that led to the issue, but having it all on line and in my face daily I think would have been much harder to handle. The Judgement, the expectations, the feelings of failure that seeing posts that should have inspired me but instead simply made me feel helpless and insecure? I can hardly imagine what that would have been like.

I think it’s important as parents, guardians or mentors today that we help young people understand that they aren’t alone, perfection is a myth, growing in any area is usually painful but that everything can be overcome…..with help. We really can’t expect to just dump kids into high school and assume they’ll figure it out. They need an example and sometimes we need to lead my example.

My own son has seen the efforts I have gone thru in my life to heal myself and have better relationships so when he was facing his own demons he was better able to advocate for himself. To reach out and find the help he needed to continue to grow as an individual.

We need to have more focus on information going forward for young people. They need to learn how to get thru the things that will happen in life, good and bad.