Welcome to Part 5 of this 5-part series about how the Gene Keys can help you specifically if you’re a parent. In this episode, I’ll share about my teenage years and talk about how the Gene Keys would’ve helped me as a teen.
As a teen, the constant theme for my struggles was lack of self-acceptance.
Being human felt too painful to me during that time, and I couldn’t grasp how I was meant to operate in the world I was growing up in.
I would have benefited from a map to guide me towards finding my truth …
A map like the Gene Keys.
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I always felt like a fish out of water during my teenage years. I blamed my external world to a huge extent, from the political unrest across my home country to the strict social traditions of my hometown and the dramas in my family, but at the same time I also blamed myself.
For some unknown reason at the time, I felt deeply ashamed of my own nature.
I couldn’t understand why things with me were the way they were.
And I lived in defensiveness.
I’d already been very sensitive and introverted as a small girl, and then I hit puberty early on.
What happened is that I started going through these physical changes, and I lost safety in my body. My self-trust and self-confidence plummeted downwards.
My body suddenly became this beast of its own, changing in ways I wasn’t ready for. Suddenly growing tall, developing body curves and body hair, heavy menses, severe face and shoulder acne, and the rest of the hormonal imbalance … It made me very self conscious (and again ashamed).
To fit in, to be socially ‘presentable’, to be ‘like normal girls my age’, I had to change the way I dress, the way I behave, the way I groom myself. I could no longer just be me.
I started believing there was something wrong with me.
I thought I was being punished.
This was what put me on the defensive, and I started pushing people out and isolating myself.
My mom and my aunties tried to start conservations. They told me not to make a big deal out of it. They tried to help and make it easier for me. They hugged me through it … But they couldn’t truly reach me, because deep down I’d walled up my heart.
I’d internalised many things, and I wasn’t speaking about what I really felt.
The place I was willing to go, that I enjoyed being in, was my mind.
My mind loved to escape in creative things: Books, fiction, poetry, art, music, as well as science, maths, geometry, anything to keep my intellect stimulated.
The upside is that I excelled academically. I learned new things quickly at school. I built strong creative skills and good habits around focus and organisation, which have stayed with me and continue to serve me well as an adult.
The downside is that I spiralled down deeper into my defensiveness. My mind trapped me in my own insecurities.
I became obsessive with my academic achievements because I tied my self-worth to my high grades.
I neglected friendships.
I neglected physical fitness.
I stressed out. A lot.
Things got better later, but my anxieties followed me into college and early adulthood.
It was only when my suffering became unbearable, that I was forced to look it in the face and be honest with myself. And then I saw my insecurities and limiting beliefs for what they were.
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I accept that this was my story, but I do have regrets.
I wish that as a teen I’d had a good map to navigate life and clear my misunderstandings.
Well, the best map I’d recommend now to my teen self is the Gene Keys Golden Path.
There are many reasons why. The biggest reason is that it would’ve helped me with self-acceptance.
First, the Gene Keys would’ve made me feel validated around what I was going through during my teen years.
After diving deep into the Gene Keys and contemplating them, I’ve discovered that my Gene Keys profile is a perfect mirror of my self, my tendencies, my patterns and my challenges.
It holds immense truth about my inner nature.
And it gives language to this truth.
I’m amazed at the organised and accurate way that the Gene Keys articulate human nature in general, and my own nature in particular, through the spheres and keynotes in my Gene Keys profile.
If I was exposed to the language of the Gene Keys as a teenager, I know that I’d have felt validated.
My fears, my worries, my resistance, all these would have been validated by my Gene Keys profile, instead of me being told not to make a big deal out of my feelings, and beating myself up for the way I felt.
Feeling validated would’ve been the first step for me as a teen to loosen my defences a bit, to open my heart enough, connect with others, and be willing to see other possibilities.
Also, the Gene Keys would’ve shown me a way out of my struggles, a way that’s in alignment with my nature.
See, the Gene Keys are all about finding the gifts within the shadows, about mustering the creative forces and building the bridge from suffering to peace.
The Gene Keys profile shows us our unique gifts, actually a combination of gifts, which are completely in tune with our inner nature.
Our gifts are already inside us.
We were born with them and we played them out when we were innocent children. But somehow along the way during childhood, we forgot them or they got shut down.
The Gene Keys help us remember.
Remembering my gifts as a teen and seeing them for what they were, as my superpowers, would’ve helped me develop my own style of meeting life’s challenges, a style which is natural and flowing.
At the time, instead, I only had what others had to say and what the social and cultural norms dictated, but their views were not always aligned with my nature.
I used to beat myself up for my inability to follow them or for my failings when I did follow them. I used to feel ashamed of my natural tendencies because I didn’t fit in.
And all that spiralled me into lack of self-trust and self-acceptance.
The Gene Keys Golden Path journey with its different sequences and intricate system, as well as its approach of patience, inquiry and gentleness, would’ve presented me with a good case to embrace the concept that it’s okay to be different.
It would’ve helped me get out of my victim mentality, soothe my mind, and connect to my own truth.
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I share my teen story with parents and caregivers, because I want to spread awareness, as well as give solutions.
I’m thinking of teenagers today, in this age of social media, info overload, global crisis …
I can only imagine the confusion and the stress they are going through.
I appreciate my painful journey into adulthood; it made me become who I am today.
But I don’t wish pain to be the path for others.
Instead, what if our teens learn by grace and ease and love?
Teen Soul Mystery School is my initiative for a solution.