Social and Emotional Skills are a fundamental pre-requisite for thriving as an Adolescent and an Adult.

The World Health Organization states “One in seven 10–19-year-olds experience Mental Health problems. Protecting adolescents from adversity, promoting socio-emotional learning and psychological well-being, and ensuring access to mental health care are critical for their health and well-being during adolescence and adulthood”.

We live in a culture, a society that is reactive rather than preventative. We deal with things after they have happened rather than creating positive learning environments that nurture thriving mental health and social-emotional wellbeing among adolescents. I think this is largely due to the fact that society has become more material, more external, more technological– so much so that the vast majority of us live almost entirely on the surface, moving at a frenetic pace without realizing or accessing our inner depths, our intuitive knowing, our innate resources, our capacities for beauty, connection and intimacy.

Evidence based Social and Emotional Learning needs to be embedded at the heart of our education system, promoted within our society and communities, but it is placed well below academic achievement and external measures of success even though Social Emotional Skills are a higher predictor of success in life than Academic achievement.

Social and Emotional Coaching then is a developmental necessity for thriving as a Human “Being” as opposed to a Human “Doing”. “Being” is what is means to be a whole authentic human, with self-regulation skills, vitality, character, heartful-ness, compassion and values.

Social Emotional Learning covers what it means to be human in the best sense of the word.

How to connect, and build relationships with others

How to relate to difference and diversity

How to relate to self-talk and our emotions

How to measure success by our values rather than external validation

How to find meaning through what we value

How to live and serve in community

How to live with heart, compassion and integrity.

Young people for example need to know, understand and create space for all of their emotional experience. Anxiety is not something to be eradicated, as many webinars propose – it is a part of our shared humanity and has a purpose. We CAN learn to see it and ourselves differently. We CAN learn to relate to it compassionately rather than reactively. We CAN learn to self-regulate and soothe the nervous system but shutting down anxiety only creates separation and fragmentation. When this happens, you can no longer listen to the thoughts and stories that arise with the anxiety, and you never get to assess their truthfulness, and choose an appropriate response.

As a struggling adolescent, I believed my thoughts and emotions were my identity. The way I used language echoed this belief. “I AM anxious, I AM afraid” rather than “Anxiety is arising within me”. I thought anxiety meant weakness so I shut it down at every opportunity. It was only in the last 10 years or so I realized the main storyline of my life - “I am broken” was not even true.

Imagine if young people could learn and embody these fundamental life skills early, at school or in their communities among their peers. If they knew they were more spacious, more powerful, more capable and expansive than they could ever imagine. If they learnt to embody and know the truth of the following statement.

“You have much more potential than you can ever express in one moment. You are never complete, never broken, always capable of growth”

Then we would have an education system, a society and communities that embody hope and love instead of fear.

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