How Alive Do You Really Feel?
Your Inner Teen Gift #3
In the quest to wake up our collective consciousness to the lasting impact and profound value of our teenage years, you have a choice…
Listen to the audio of How Alive Do You Really Feel? Or read below.
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Or, just dive in and see where you land~
How Alive Do You Really Feel?
Ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1=barely breathing / 10=jumping the joy train) how alive are you right now?
How alive were you rolling into the day?
How alive do you think you’ll be before the day ends?
A quote from the post … What’s Up With Exiling Our Inner Teen? the pain is not the point... ... where I first mentioned Inner Teen Gift #3 …
" When I was in the middle of my doctoral research, interviewing high school juniors over a period of months, I was struck by one, consistent observation: their aliveness.
Individually, and in a group, these teens radiated a passionate, inexhaustible enthusiasm for life. Their irrepressible aliveness sharpened the edges of any mood: angry, depressed, excited, curious, frustrated or elated.
These teens seemed inexorably wired for experiencing the thrill of each moment no matter its tone or color, no matter dark or light, no matter sunshine or storm, and especially no matter adult approval or not.
It was as if aliveness flowed, unimpeded, from the core of their being."
And The Point Is…?
Back in my mid-thirties, certain words or belief systems triggered a headstrong I know! reaction from me.
If I was lucky, Life might hand me an unexpected epiphany to shore up my innate knowingness.
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This was long before I understood, much less articulated, that because the knowing in my bones arrived whole and irrefutable, that did not mean I was right.
All it meant was my sense of knowing a thing felt complete, without doubt or inner controversy.
In other words, I couldn’t not know what I knew.
My personality didn’t have the hedging genes so many of my women friends used as protective shields of deflection: “I’m not sure, but…” “This might not be right, but…” “Well, I don’t know if this is a good idea, but…” “Maybe, it could be this way…what do you think?”
My unabashed confidence in my killer-knowing led to more social misery than I can recount. Let’s just say that the phase, “a know-it-all,” captures the social slap heard ‘round the room.
Nevertheless, the knowing in my bones persisted.
In time, this trait, so irksome to others, began to either point me in fruitful directions (like knowing that adolescents are not aliens no matter how loud the blaring, cultural billboard codified otherwise ), or it offered me unexpected affirmations, like my unplanned encounter with a Bill Moyers’ television interview. (Who’s Bill Moyers, you ask? A link follows …)
Before that interview, these five words put my back up every time:
“…we (me/you/everyone) are seeking the meaning of life.”
I’d shake my head.
Tsk Tsk, I’d think.
What on earth does that mean? I’d think.
Why do people keep saying this, as if seeking the meaning of life is Life? I’d think.
For a very long time that phrase drove me crazy because I could feel it was not serving people in the way they were expecting (hoping) it would. As if seeking the meaning of life solved some royal mystery. Or should even be a thing in the first place, much less on some Search-for-the-Truth-of-all-Truths pedestal.
Then Life graciously offered me The Reason that phrase put my hair on fire.
It was an odd choice to watch TV that night in 1988, since nightly television was rare for me. It was a time when, if a program came on at 8 o’clock, you sat your butt down because there was no catch-it-later option.
Tonight was the first part, in a six-part documentary on PBS, where Bill Moyers conducted an interview with Joseph Campbell, a prof at Sarah Lawrence, around his masterpiece, The Power of Myth.
I was watching by myself, so there was no one around to startle when Bill Moyers leaned forward, dropped his voice and asked Joseph Campbell, as if it were the single most important question ever, But, aren’t people seeking the meaning of life?
Campbell didn’t hesitate.
I leapt from my chair, fist pumping, shouting as loudly as I could (to absolutely no one,)
Yes! Yes! Yes!!!
To this day, that one, life-altering moment still illuminates my life-quest: to experience the rapture of being alive.
Now I ask YOU: what in your Life propels you from one day to the next?
What doorway into your awareness does each sunrise offer you?
This is not an idle question; it’s the question that burns brightest at the blurred boundary coupling our personality to our soul.
Take The Challenge in this moment, right now.
Seriously, I mean right now.
STOP THE CLOCK!
Begone distractions.
Skepticism… go sit over there… (for only a minute )
Pretend obligations, duties, the shoulds of life are hanging with the skeptics (just for now).
1. Pick up pen and paper (the physical thing)
2. With your dominant hand—if your right handed, start with the right, and vice versa— Write this question:What do I most value about being alive?
3. Pause. Notice your brain start to fill in the answer, but ignore it.
4. Write a response to this question with your with NON-dominant hand—if your right handed, start with the left, and vice versa.
(Note: if you can’t read your non-dominant handwriting, briefly switch hands and print above the illegible word, but continue responding with your non-dominant hand! This will not affect the response in any way.)
5. Notice how your non-dominant hand response either aligns, or differs, from what your brain started to give you earlier.
If this exercise fills you up, no judgment. You are welcome to stop here.
But, for those more curious souls among you, you can mine this challenge even deeper without a whole lot of time.
Mining the Deep-End Challenge
6. After your non-dominant hand’s first response, switch to your dominant hand and start a conversation, as if it’s someone you’re meeting for the first time and you’d like to know their name.
“I’d like to know who in my Inner Family just wrote back to me. May I please know your name?” (politeness counts when you’re meeting someone for the first time)
7. Let your non-dominant hand respond again. Remember to switch hands if a word is illegible.
8. Now, as with any conversation, go back and forth between your hands, asking questions or making comments, until you’re filled up with some inner knowing.
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What I suspect is that WindyWild (my Inner Teen) was leading my excursion of experiencing aliveness long before my conscious awareness of either my Inner Family or any of its members, like WindyWild.
What I do know is that once I sailed into the focus of my doctoral research—teens and creativity—my own aliveness meter carried me from a B.A. to a doctorate in four and a half years. To this day, experiencing aliveness electrifies the matrix of all my cells.
Tangible. Invigorating. Compelling.
Aliveness has become my most reliable indicator of whether or not I am navigating by my North Star, and whether or not I’m allowing my Inner Teen (WindyWild) to help guide me.
In my day job, with visual artists, aliveness plays a major role in the Artist Manifesto I wrote for them: Trust Your Path…a manifesto for artists who want more.
And this Substack post, with all of you keeping tabs on me, is living life in the key of aliveness. For which I am always and forever grateful.
What’s Next?
When adults roll their eyes as they talk about teenagers, there’s both a telltale signal, and irony.
Your Inner Teen Gift #4 reveals what the adult eye-rolling actually signals. And the irony that bubbles to the top of that exposure.
P.S. Do you have a question about any of this?
I promise that even the vague shape of a question is okay with me.
Just click the comment icon at the top or bottom of this post/email.
I promise kindness and respect, always. And I ask the same in return.
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Meanwhile, please …
1. Add a comment to this post because hearing from you makes my day! Your thoughts and questions can spark a conversation. Controversy welcomed!
2. Tap the heart icon if you’re resonating with any of this, or just because I light up knowing you’re out there and care!
3. Really? Inspiration changed from a what to a Who? Come Meet The Goddess of Inspiration and expand your creative options: a guided meditation for any time you hit a creative speed bump or doubts are stealing the show.
P.S. To continue this series, scroll down and hit “next”, or wait for the next post.
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