Brain Development & Launching into our Lives
Okay… I graduated college. I should know who I am now, and what I want to do with my life, right?
When I graduated college, I felt extremely lost! All of my friends seemed to have an idea of the direction they wanted to go, or at least were okay with their prescribed path that their family/ society suggested they take… but for me, nothing felt right. I also had this sense that I was kind of floating around in this new, big, scary world, whose rules I didn’t understand, without a strong sense of self. While it had been very taxing and hard… succeeding in school and sports was something I had mastered (no matter the rather significant physical, mental or emotional costs at the time… and that I accomplished this through various coping mechanisms, one of them being prescribed drugs I took for a few years for an ADHD diagnosis). But upon graduating, the game of life was one I didn’t know how to play or win at.
I want to share some brain science and perspectives that can help explain this phenomenon for those of you who may have experienced something similar, either upon your own graduation or another time in your life where you seemed to be unable to move forward confidently and clearly or with a sense of ease. The following is informed by a mix of teachings I’ve collected from childhood development researchers like Gordon Neufeld, brain/ ADHD research from Gabor Mate, Deb Dana and her work in polyvagal theory, and also information from Dick Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems.
Do we Have to Learn/ Figure out how to Grow and Evolve?
Or are the biological blueprints already within us…
You can’t teach people to be ready to put themselves out there in the world, to leave home and their families and what they’ve know, to graduate from college and launch themselves into life, to unfold their wings, to take risks and face rejection in love or in their careers, to know clearly who they are and what they like and feel solid in their identities… You don’t learn these things and you are not taught them… There’s no such thing at excelling in these areas or being gifted or particularly gritty and accomplished in these areas… This is actually a matter of the brain developing on its own, as it feels safe and as it’s ready.
All of our brains are wired to develop to full maturity by way of the integrative process of the pre-frontal cortex. (The part of our brains in charge of many executive functions like decision making, identity, problem solving, planning, rationalizing, regulating emotions, and interacting with the world in a thoughtful, organized way) The brain, and the individual, just needs the conditions and environment that are conducive for that natural and biologically driven development. What is needed here, and has been needed since infancy, is actually emotional safety. A sense that if we fail, we have loving arms to rest in and fall back to. If we fail, we are still good and whole. If we meet hardships, we can have someone helping us to process and organize our emotions and upsets. Ideally this happened with our parents growing up but for many of us, it just didn’t go this way, no matter how good intentions were.
So, if you are later in life and facing areas of your life that feel held back, stunted or stuck, like they just can’t seem to work or get off the ground… or are just plain terrifying! … whether it’s in career, love, relationships, creativity, identity, money or somewhere else… know that it’s not your fault and what you are needing now is more safety. And the way your brain needs to feel that safety is through a sense of safe attachment. Your brain needs to feel it can rest in love, connection, compassion, contact and closeness... To feel that we matter and are seen and exist and to know our significance because loving witnesses have reflected it back to us… We can do this for ourselves, for our younger inner parts who are often “stuck” in time at ages where they didn’t receive the care they needed, or we can do this with a caring coach or therapist, friend or loved one. This is also the work that can be done gently together in NeuroEmotional coaching sessions.
When we feel that safety, we can move out of our survival brains and into play, creativity, curiosity, and exploration. We can begin to take some risks! And we can begin to put ourselves out there in the world. Our brains continue on their natural development towards maturation without us forcing them, pushing or trying. The shame, force, pressure and push that we (or those around us) apply to make us go faster in any area of development at any age… actually creates the sense of unsafely that prevents us from the development we so deeply want.
If you’d like some support on your own journey of integrating into life in a safe and sustainable way, and help creating the conditions for your brain and whole system to thrive, feel free to reach out! I offer 1 on 1 NeuroEmotional coaching sessions where we can do just that, together <3.