Who is the Inner Adolescent?
I am in a small, crowded building—no windows, low ceilings, small rooms laid out in rambling, incomprehensible patterns—some kind of religious school or institution. My anxiety and claustrophobia are palpable, and I feel the authoritarian, menacing presence of an unseen older woman.
As I wander through the halls of this dream I encounter one of my former students. Ilse is still young, a wild, willful teenager. She is glad to see me and tells me that doesn’t want to be in this place any longer. She attempts to seduce an attractive teacher who has some measure of authority here, though he is not the final authority. She struts, makes eyes at him, flirts. She has a red pen and starts writing on the walls. On one wall she sketches a syringe and needle. It’s outrageous behavior for this place, and I’m afraid for her.
Ilse wanders into another room, away from the male teacher and from me. I follow her. She scrawls across the walls here as well and doesn’t care. I want Ilse to calm down. I want her to obey the rules, even though they restrict and repress all of us. Then Ilse reaches out and demands that I dance with her, like a line dance or doo-wop singers, so that we are dancing in synch. I dance but I am extremely anxious and apprehensive, so worried she’s going to get in trouble.
Then I hear the menacing woman, whom I still have not laid eyes on, say to someone, “She’s had two losses. One more significant loss, and then she’ll be ours.” I understand they are referring to Ilse and the losses she has had to bear. I hear people coming for us from another part of the house. Ilse still doesn’t quite know what’s going on, but I am filled with dread, knowing that it is me they are coming for. They are going to take me away from Ilse. I don’t know what they’re going to do to me, but I know that she will not survive this loss. I know that when she witnesses me being caught and taken, she will be broken and will not be able to ever recover. She will then be imprisoned here forever.
I start screaming; Ilse screams. I run, try to find a weapon. The teacher Ilse flirted with runs into the room, his face tight and sorrowful. I can tell he doesn’t want to do this, but he, too, is under the orders of the dictatorial woman to grab me and take me away. I am desperate, not for me, but for the girl who is my friend and dance partner.
I wake knowing that I must not be separated from this wild girl or she will perish, and we will be forever kept apart.
Ilse is my Inner Adolescent.
Inner Adolescent work
Most of us are familiar with the idea of the Inner Child and may have engaged in Inner Child work, which often entails nurturing, reparenting, and tending to the vulnerable places within. The work we do with our Inner Adolescent and similar parts requires tending as well, but in my experience, these parts need something very different from us. Inner Adolescent work addresses the unmet developmental needs from our teenage years, parts that come into fruition during adolescence, and parts burdened from the inevitable injuries we experience during our teen years. Some of these needs may include:
forming a healthy relationship with our body as pubertal transformations occur;
exploring sexuality;
learning who we are when we are alone and when we are with others;
how to be our wholehearted self while also being included in our communities;
defining our values;
how to take appropriate and necessary risks;
exploring our strengths, talents, gifts, and passions, how they can inform our lives, and can contribute to society;
strengthening our unique and individual voice and discerning where this voice needs to be heard;
how and when to effectively rebel;
how to navigate the grief that inevitably accompanies adolescing, when we must leave behind what feels comfortable and familiar;
making time for creativity, play, and also the doldrums;
how to take accountability for our actions without holding on to regret, guilt, and shame.
This is not an exclusive list.
What our Inner Adolescent needs
What our Inner Adolescents need from us is to be with them without fear, judgment, criticism, or shaming energy. After the dream of Ilse, my compassion and validation for who I was as a teenager deepened exponentially. I remember being snarky, whining, sneaking out of the house late at night, lying, the drama and angst amongst my peers. Before Ilse, I often cringed remembering how I dressed, the poems and journal entries I wrote, how I mooned over the boys I was crushing on.
The dream which I entitled “Ilse Held Captive” changed the trajectory of my life. Other dreams and dreamlike reflections of the teenagers I have taught and counseled over the years continue to teach me why we must turn toward our Inner Adolescents and accompanying parts and listen to them. They need us, we need them, and the world needs us to do this work.
Bill Plotkin writes that we are living in a patho-adolescent world—-entire generations of people who are chronological adults but have not yet completed the developmental tasks that move us from adolescence into true adulthood. Some of the most essential qualities we need to navigate healthy relationships, to address social inequity, to live lives that have meaning and purpose are those found in the Inner Adolescent. And yet adolescent service providers and parents often tend to pathologize those qualities. More painfully are those of us that shame and criticize our own Inner Adolescents.
Questions to leave you with
Take some time and get to know your Inner Adolescent. Pay attention to when adolescents show up in your dreams, when you’re triggered by the teenagers in your life, the judgments you have when you’re standing in line behind a group of teens at the grocery store.
Here are some questions that can help you get to know your Inner Adolescent.
What is the value of being snarky and defiant? When did these behaviors benefit you?
When did you last feel something so deeply that you were moved or were ecstatic or devastated? Can you touch into that memory with compassion and courage rather than trying to tamp the feelings down?
Where are you repressed in your life? Who or what is responsible for that repression? Is it internal forces? External forces? Or both?
Do you allow yourself to be rebellious and fierce? How do people react when you are rebellious? Is there internal backlash when you get fierce? Do you tell yourself to “calm down?” What would it be like to just let it pour forth every now and then?
Harken back to your teenage years. What did you dream of for your life? What were your passions and goals? Where are they now? Where is the spark in you now?
Photo by: Juha Saastamoinen