3 Lessons from my younger self

You can listen to a recording of this blog post below!

I was having a conversation this morning with a friend about our younger selves. It was about the fact that I often see the question “what advice would you give your younger self?” and I always laugh when I read it. I remember my younger self. That girl would not listen to some forty-something year old woman. She was pretty stubborn and single minded, but she was also smart and funny and didn’t care about much other than freedom. 

I've thought a lot about what I might say to her that she might actually have taken on board. My teens were difficult, and I was in survival mode back then. I've even written about what I would say to her (see here). But these days I don't know if I would give her any advice at all. For one thing, with twenty-something years of hindsight, I am not sure she needed any advice back then. I mean - she could have used a bit of guidance - heck we all could. But it is also true that she did pretty well all things considered. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if I couldn't learn a thing or two from her. 

So today, instead of thinking about what advice I would give her, I am thinking about what advice she might give me, if she even deigned to look in my direction. 

1. Don’t be so uptight. I recently found some of my writing from my late teens and early twenties, and I was struck by how open I was to having fun at that time. I loved playing practical jokes (and I still do) and I put a lot of thought into making them elaborate. These days, even though I love those things still, I spent so long thinking that I needed to grow into a proper adult, that I let go some of that fun loving nature I had. I have always been told that I look a bit young and I wanted to be taken seriously, which meant that I should be serious. I think that that teenage me would probably look at me now and tell me to chill out, and have some fun in my life.

2. You can do anything. This is something I believed when I was younger - that if I put enough effort in I could do anything I wanted. These days, I tell myself that was because in those days, the things I wanted to do were pretty simple, and they are so much more complicated now, and I should be realistic. But is that really true? Or is it the weight of so-called failures, mistakes and rejections that I have received over the past 20 years that have made me fearful to believe in myself that fiercely? And given what I achieved as a young woman on the strength of my belief, what would be possible if I could have even a fraction of that again? This is definitely something that I am thinking about.

3. I’m still here. If my younger self could see me now, and if she was disappointed about anything, it would be the idea that I feel like I am such a different person now to the one I was then. I think she would want me to know that she is still in here somewhere, and all I need to do is remember. That youthful stubbornness and self belief are still there. While I feel as if I have mellowed with age, and become more compassionate and empathetic, more evolved and so on, and sometimes I look with disdain at that younger version of myself, I was still a pretty cool person. And she would love it if I embrace some of the essence of her, the parts of her I tried to bury, and her choices I didn’t approve of. 

I love these three lessons from my younger self. As difficult as those times were, she was ok.

I have thought about this more recently, as I’ve had conversations with friends about our younger selves. Many people I spoke to had plenty of advice they would give their younger selves.

It's tempting. I mean how many of us wish that we had a glimpse into our future as a teenager and could avoid some of the choices we made. That we could go back and stop ourselves from taking part in our misadventures.

But I also got the feeling that they looked on that version of themself with some disdain. The culture of healing and expansion is a good one - but sometimes I feel as if it gives the view that our past selves were inadequate and someone that we want to distance ourselves from. We want to distance ourself from the “bad” decisions, and lack of self control, because we are so different now. That their raw pain and possibly unhealthy coping mechanisms make them “less” than who we are today. I find that it feeds into a hierarchy of consciousness which I think can cause us to (unintentionally) look down on those who aren’t as healed and conscious as we are.

I wrote some time ago how I have ditched self-forgiveness in favour of self acceptance, simply because I felt like it was about making the past version of myself wrong. Sure she made mistakes, but I’m pretty sure I’m still making mistakes, and will continue to do so. Does this mean that she has nothing to teach me? Heck - the same way that my 6 year old nephew teaches me stuff daily, and my teenaged Godchildren, that past version of myself might have had some wisdom and fire that this 40 something version of myself could do with remembering, having buried it under years of “outside behaviour”. And while there are many things that I think I am more open about now, I know that I also have fears and hesitations that a teenage version of myself did not have.

I think we can learn from oursleves at all ages. My teenage self was a badass. If nothing else, she paved the way for who I am today, and so did your teenage self - whether you want to accept it or not.

And so, I have decided to refresh this post, and bring the question back around.

What would your younger self say to you - if she or he even dared to look in your direction? Would she tell you to have more fun? Would he tell you take some more time for yourself? To take more risks? Could you take this advice and overlay it with your current knowledge to make different decisions?

What lessons would your younger self teach you?

And I send you big love from a small island!