Channeling Your 21-Year-Old Self

Recently, I made a triumphant pilgrimage back to my college alma mater. I was invited back by a dear friend who teaches at the school. She invited me to talk to administrators, coaches, and two groups of female athletes. It was an incredible day…but the young women. Wow, the young women! I had forgotten how full of hope and energy a young female co-ed could be. They were hopeful and innocent, yet smart and worldly. They were everything that I thought I’d be for the rest of my life.

And yet I wasn’t. I let adulthood pull me out of that joy and optimism, but mostly out of the confidence I had felt when I drove away from that wonderful mid-western campus thinking that the world was my oyster. I could blame a sexist world or adult challenges and they would be true, but why would I choose to give my power over to those forces? Why can’t we all look at the world with hope and confidence in our ability to find happiness in it?

What would it mean to channel our 21-year-old self?

What would it mean to channel our 21-year-old self? How would we have to look at the world differently to bring back that kind of enthusiasm and optimism? And most importantly, why wouldn’t we try? You’re in a bad relationship? Change it or get out. Hate your job? Either find a way to tolerate it or find a way to get out. “But it’s not that easy!” You say and I say, “You are right, but do it anyway!” Life isn’t that easy, so we can either look at it as a hopeless endeavor or the ultimate adventure. What are you going to choose?

What if we said to ourselves, “I will conquer this issue and be better because of it.”? What if we truly believed that we are here for a purpose and that purpose includes joy and happiness and contentment? What if we were all like the wonderful young women that I met who were looking forward to adulthood and all the challenges and hurdles it offered? What if we believed that no challenge was insurmountable and we moved through our life with just that belief?

So go find her. Go find your amazing 21-year-old self. By the way, if 21 wasn’t the age of empowerment for you, pick the age that was and channel that woman. Find your confidence and your playfulness and all the ways that you believed the world would be for you and take action right this minute to live your life that way. Okay. Maybe without all the shots of alcohol, but with all of the hopefulness and energy that you felt as that young woman about to take on the world.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC