Adulthood: What I've found out so far in my own journey

Adulthood: what?

Adulthood is defined differently and consists of different components depending on who you ask. However, more or less directly, all fingers point in a few of the same directions. These directions are probably so heard of that everyone reading ths probably could either guess them, identify with them or has heard of them.

Directions:

a) Independence/self-sufficiency
b) individuality
c) Authenticity/idiosyncracy (uniqueness)

How to get there: We start with your parents/parental figures

Yes, as psychologists, educators and health professionals often look at, we go to your parents. So why is this so important? Well first let's go through the obvious reason why it's important to take your parents into account when talking about Adulthood.

Your parents basically made you aware of what adulthood means at a subconscious level. They were your role models. They taught you and showed you how relationships are supposed to look like, what maturity looks like, what responsibility looks like... I can go on.

Now it's time to... destroy your parents

I obviously mean this figuratively or metaphorically. Please love, cherish and feel thankful for your parents! Unless they were abusive and actually bad parents.

So what do I mean, exactly? So besides your gorgeous eyes, your creative instincts, your love for nature or good food, your parents also gave you a good handful of traumas and thereby also gave you survival mechanisms and defense mechanisms.

Mechanisms

The important point to make here when considering these mechanisms is that they're not a good thing... now. When you were a child, hey, yes, they were. You needed them to be accepted, to be liked, to be recognized. So yes, congrats for being able to use them when you were a child.

Now here comes the bad news about your dear survival and defense mechanisms: Now that you're all grown up and have adult relationships, friendships, etc, these mechanisms are worth literally nothing. They're actually worth less than nothing. They're an added bother, they're a rock in the road. These mechanisms are outdated, they're a part of an operating system that no longer exists (namely your childhood self).

Seeing the patterns

Like everything we notice in life, there’s a pattern to be seen. The pattern is not too obvious at first, but once you see it, you can’t avoid laughing yourself silly. The process of seeing the patterns is what I call in my book “Sorting out the Feedback”. What feedback? The feedback you’ve gotten from your parents throughout your life. It seems to be one of the biggest things that influence us. The feedback you got from your parents defined your identity as a whole. How much you should talk, how much pain you’re allowed to show… All this makes you develop in a very specific way.

Legitimate, conscious and intentional feedback
This type of feedback, is what we usually just call “socialization”, where our parents, teachers among others teach us how to behave in a group of people and in a social setting. This is of course something necessary, even if there is a false self that is created in the process. This happens because we need to learn how to live in society.

Illegitimate, unconscious, unintentional feedback
This type of feedback is related to how your parents are human, and live in the human condition like everyone else: they have a life to keep going. Because of this, they had bosses to be frustrated with, spouses to be angry with, a washing machine they were pissed off at, a phone call they were dreading… just like everyone else. When we’re children (especially in the ego-centric phase), where we think everything has to do with us, we mistake our parents’ negative, angry, frustrated reactions to the outer world to be because of us, and we understand the reactions as a way our parents say “You are wrong, you are a wrong person” or “you are a bad person”.

Illegitimate, conscious, intentional feedback
This type of feedback is basically what we would call unreasonable, uncalled for criticism and nagging. This type of feedback is where the parent thinks that he or she is “just socializing” the child, trying to pass it as legitimate, conscious and intentional feedback, but it’s actually just the parent projecting insecurities, opinions, tastes, preferences, priorities, etc.

Adulthood: What Ive found out so far in my own journey

Being a parent to yourself - and your own child

So after you identify and articulate these patterns, and see how each of the three have been expressed at some time or other, you can start working toward reparenting yourself. This, among other things, is correcting and rebuilding your self-talk. Do you notice how your thoughts and inner dialogue turn sour and mean and critical of yourself as soon as you either feel like you just can’t take on a mission, or be a part of yourself you deem unworthy? “Oh definitely not. I’m not good enough for this.” or “Oh… Cringe…”.

My suggestion? start observing these thoughts and see them, close your eyes and tell yourself exactly these words: “It’s okay, I see you, I recognize you, it’s okay now. I know why you would think that”. And do that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME you identify that voice and those words. This way you will retrain, reparent yourself and you will be the person you needed your parents to be in that moment, and you are being it out of your own worth, your own merit, and your own effort. How big of a KUDOS do you owe yourself for that?!

Now, further: rewriting the narratives for your and everyone’s sake

So since your parents weren’t the only ones in contact with you due to second socialization, look into different moments when your self-worth was set into question by peers at school, bullying, marginalization, etc. It is very possible that you were the bully not the bullied. And in that case, it’s about looking inside and noticing what made you act that way (I can guarantee 100% that it was not the bullied person’s fault). So there’s that.

If you were the bullied, excluded, marginalized, ridiculed, etc? Well more of the same. Every time you feel like you’re questioning your abilities and your ability to solve something, then close your eyes, and repeat the mantra: “It’s okay, I see you, I recognize you, it’s okay now. I know why you would think that”. Do this for everyone’s sake. Your sake too, obviously, but also so others can love you. Let others love you.

“If you don’t heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you”

Why adulthood? - Becoming your own best friend

So why do all of this inner work? Why not just keep all your traumas intact and your old narratives and mechanisms intact and continue operating as if you were an adolescent or a child? Well there are many different answers to that question, and they’re all legitimate and valuable in their own right. However, the one I am most interested in is:

Because the purpose of life the whole time was to become someone you can live with. Become someone that you can not only withstand, but also to some extent enjoy in all colors, all moments, all moods, all situations. Because you are the only one that is going to be with you all your life, like it or not; so make the most out of the game! Be kind to yourself.

That’s what it was all about all along! Not your girlfriend, your sex life, your job… It was always about being able to be someone you can live with.