Each year a number of my students are admitted and a number are rejected. Such is the life of an admissions counselor.

And on this day, my colleague and I had a similar task: we each were asked by parents of our students to explain the decision their child had received from X dream school. My colleague had the unenviable task of explaining to a family “why” their daughter had been deferred in the early round, and I had the welcome task of explaining to a family “why” their daughter had been accepted when the school seemed such a far reach for her particular profile. Neither of these questions actually have answers, but there are some clues:

The family that was disappointed complained incessantly that other students must be getting different advice, that their parents were doing the work for their children to pad their profiles with science fair accomplishments, and that some were even writing their children’s essays. These things do happen. A lot, sadly.

Yet, the remarkable thing is that this student hadn’t even been rejected. In fact, the school had merely deferred her application to the regular round, which in this case, for this particular school, meant that she was seriously being considered. But the parents described a scene of total chaos and desperation when they read the decision online: “my daughter was sobbing uncontrollably,” the mother said. I wondered if the tears were less about the decision and more about failing to fulfill the astronomically high expectations imposed by her parents.

While this conversation was unfolding, in another office, opposite my colleague, I was writing this email:

Dear ___________,

Of course, I cannot know what exactly went through the minds of the admissions officers as they read your daughter’s application, but a short answer to your question might be the trusty adage: “hire for personality, train for skills.”

Research internships, while impressive are also often attained through either family connections or paying for extremely expensive summer programs. I am not trying to diminish the value, because I do recommend both of these options to students who want to pursue research, but the research experience does not make the scientist (per se). What your daughter displayed in spades throughout her application was a unique combination of determination, grit, compassion, authenticity and self-awareness. You can’t underestimate the value of sincere self-awareness coming through in a college app.

At best, I think I play the role of helping students have the courage to really write what’s true for them and focus less on what colleges “want to hear,” though that may sound ironic coming from a college counselor. Your daughter risked putting who she really is out there for colleges to see and her enthusiasm for her chosen career was both evident and believable because of her authenticity.

I have no doubt that when she encounters the inevitable challenges of college life, she will move through them with the same grace and determination that were evident in her application and life experience thus far. That is the kind of student colleges like __________ are looking for 😉

***

This same mother had written to me a week before early decisions were released and said that she was so proud of her daughter and so grateful for my guidance and that these feelings would not be changed by the outcome of college decisions because she could see reflected in her daughter’s writing the maturity, growth and inner wisdom that had emerged merely from the process of working on college applications.

So on the one side, we have a family and a child who believe that future success is so contingent upon the extrinsic variable of a college decision that all the hard work and energy of a lifetime of academic success have been forever diminished by the evaluation of one school.

On the other side, we have a family and student who believe that even the process of applying was itself a learning and growth experience, as will be the next step and the step after that in this student’s lifelong journey. This dichotomy calls to mind Carol Dweck’s theory of the growth vs. the fixed mindset.  But it also touches on the very heart of why I love my job, why I really do what I do, and what in fact it is that I do when I work with students (at least as I think about it):

I mentor students in becoming the authors of their own lives.

This aspect of my work is present with younger students, but is most evident in drafting personal statements for college applications. When I begin the application process with students, I tell them that if they are open to it, this process does not have to be an onerous task, but holds intrinsic value in the form of self-exploration, reflection and values clarification. When else in your life will you be required to spend weeks, maybe months thoroughly and thoughtfully answering questions like: What matters to you and why? Talk about a time when you challenged a belief or idea, what prompted you to act and would you do it again?

The personal statement, I tell them, is its own genre of literature: it is a short story, in which you are the protagonist and everything that happens is true. And, most importantly, you are both protagonist and author. You may not have control over the events in the story, but you decide what they mean. You cannot be wrong, you can only be honest, and more honest as you peel back the layers and get to the heart of how each story reveals an essential fragment of the whole you.

In her now famous TED Talk, Brene Brown asks the audience: “How many of you associate vulnerability with weakness? Be honest.” Everyone raises their hands. And then she asks, “And how many of you, when you saw vulnerability up here on the stage throughout this week perceived it as ultimate courage.” And just as quickly everyone raises their hands.

That is where the power of the personal narrative lies: in the willingness to be vulnerable, to be seen. As readers, we know it when we see it and it is hard to look away once that courage shows its face.

It doesn’t mean you will get in; it doesn’t mean your great American novel will get published; it doesn’t mean people will like you or will appreciate what you put out into the world. But it is the recipe for building a meaningful life and if you do get in, get the job, get recognized, chances are it will not be what you said, but what you revealed of yourself to which the school, the manager, the audience said YES! 

The Japanese symbol for mindfulness is one of those elegant shapeshifting words that depends on context to reveal its meaning; it combines the symbol for presence with the symbol for mind, spirit or heart—in other words, the familiar concept of mindfulness could also be translated heartfulness. To be mindful is also to have presence of heart. I like to think of it as a moment-to-moment homecoming to the center of my own heart.

I was incredibly fortunate to begin my journey in mindfulness with a teacher who emphasizes the interdependence of mind and heart, Dr. Shauna Shapiro. Too often, mindfulness in its secularized form is treated as a tool to enhance attention, as though the capacity to pay attention can be separated from the attitude we hold toward the object of our attention: how we pay attention matters! “Otherwise,” Dr. Shapiro would say, “a sniper is mindful.”

My own experience as a successful academic, who has struggled for a lifetime with sometimes debilitating anxiety is proof enough to me of the significance of this distinction. At the “pinnacle” of my academic success, I began to experience panic attacks and met all the diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. The attitudes of fear, self-judgment, and perfectionism were literally undermining the very rewards I had reaped through years of persistence, concentration and intellectual grit. And now that I work with young people in an area known for intense academic competition, alarming suicide rates, and a sometimes ironic embrace of the mindfulness in education movement, I have never been more sure that heartfulness is what these students need, not mindfulness.

It is a beautiful thing to see a roomful of students earnestly experimenting with the practice of paying attention to the breath, resting in the being mode rather than the doing mode that so much of their lives demands. But as anyone who has tried one minute of mindfulness already knows, even when the body is perfectly still, the mind can be a war zone. Students quickly find that paying attention to the breath is not as easy as it sounds. Or as one student of mine asked, “Sarah, I get that we’re supposed to pay attention to the breath, but what is it we’re supposed to be doing while we’re paying attention to the breath?” My answer was: “Exactly.”

“The key is this,” I tell them, “Your mind will wander, that’s what minds do. The practice of mindfulness is actually noticing that the mind has wandered off and gently, with kindness inviting it back to the breath.”

The word kindness here is not trivial, but essential. It is what I mean when I say heartfulness. Our habits of mind, my students’ and my own, are not generally kind. They tend to be self-critical, often harsh, unforgiving. “This is so simple, why can’t I do it? If I can’t even pay attention to my breath, no wonder I can’t understand math!” “Come on, Sarah, just pay attention!!” Sound familiar? The voices we hear growing up become the voices in our heads.

Heartfulness is this: “Oh, I’ve wandered off again, here I am, welcome home.” With practice, this voice gets stronger; the heart grows. The mind does not change, what changes is how we relate to it and thus how we relate to ourselves.

The temptation among many of my bright, driven students, and I would argue the temptation to the Western mind in general because of our cultural conditioning, is to immediately apply the goal-orientation mode to mindfulness itself. This has resulted in a mindfulness “boom” that emphasizes how mindfulness reduces stress, enhances cognitive skills and helps students and professionals become more successful. While a growing body of research supports these claims, the language of the mindfulness revolution often forgets to tell the story of how mindfulness grows the heart and how like the opening of a bud, this process unfolds according to its own timetable; it cannot be forced.

Though I am familiar with the effects of mindfulness on grey matter density and cortical thickness, working memory capacity and insight problem solving, the mechanisms by which mindfulness generates positive effects are still tantalizingly mysterious. What’s more, as I walk by classrooms every day overflowing with students taking their 9th, 10th, 17th practice SAT, I am struck by the overwhelming evidence that these students are not incapable of paying attention.

Likewise, at home, I have watched my 14-year-old play video games, sometimes without eating, for hours on end. Trust me, it is not the muscle of attention that needs more exercise. It is paying attention when bored, paying attention when scared, paying attention when disoriented, insecure, vulnerable, and sometimes remembering to pay attention when happy that is the real struggle. Paying attention in these moments, above all, requires self-compassion and kindness, a presence of heart, without which the mind cannot stay with the pain and discomfort.

I tend to see it this way: What is procrastination if not a desperate flight from some internal or external experience, which we find difficult or impossible to accept with openness, receptivity and dare I say it, love? Without love, we cannot open to what is really here: Fear? Boredom? Self-doubt? The voice that says, “You’ll never be good at this, give up.”

Our attention is empty if it is not a container that invites these voices to speak. The transformation from mindless to mindful is catalyzed by the lovelight we shine on the dark corners of our inner world. If we want the bud to open, to smell, taste, live the benefits of mindful practice, the light of our own mind must be like the soft warmth of the sun. The invitation of mindfulness is not simply to pay attention, but to attend with kindness, to nourish the seeds of who we will become with a light that does not judge the seed for beginning its journey in the dark.  

You are probably expecting me to say that “fitting in” is a myth, that what matters is being yourself and not sacrificing your values and your authenticity for the sake of gaining approval. But before I offer that advice, which I inevitably will, let’s pause and acknowledge that we are in some sense wired to “fit in.”

Human beings are profoundly social creatures. We crave affection, admiration, and acceptance from others and this is not a bad thing. Our capacity to cooperate, coupled with the depth and complexity of our emotional lives is perhaps the essential evolutionary advantage that has carried us from our hunter-gatherer days to the days of Facebook and LinkedIn.

Furthermore, developmental psychology describes adolescence as a time in which the key learning and growth opportunities occur in the context of group identity, alienation, fidelity, peer pressure, and experimenting with new roles. In other words, asking oneself again and again, “Who am I? And do people like me?” I offer these frames of reference as a way of saying it’s perfectly normal to want to “fit in” and it’s perfectly normal to want to stand out. Between these poles of carving out a unique identity and finding our “tribe,” we come to an understanding of our own truth. It is truly a life’s work.

So what is fitting in? Is it being accepted by others? Do we have to be “like” other people to “fit in” with them?

Contemplating these questions brought me back to my own high school days when I wondered if I was popular (enough), attractive (enough), smart (enough), talented (enough). It’s that implied “enough” that captures one aspect of what “fitting in” means. But it can be hard to pin down exactly for whom we hope to be “enough.” For ourselves? Our parents? Our peers? Society?

When I read student essays, I often see this word “society” pop up as though there exists a set of monolithic standards, imposed on us all by a jury we call “society,” or sometimes “culture.” But the way I see it, who we hope to be and who we are change in the course of a single day, as we relate to others through our different roles: student, daughter, friend, wall flower, psychologist, stepmother, breadwinner. In other words, the jury is always changing. It changes many times in one day and infinite times throughout our lives.

Though the roles you play in life will evolve, you will always crave the acceptance, love and admiration of your peers, family, and colleagues. I can honestly say that at my age I do not worry about “fitting in,” but I do care about feeling connected, cultivating community and feeling a sense of belonging in myself and in the world. Experiencing a sense of belonging– to loved ones, in a chosen profession, within a community, whether that community is large or just a few close friends you can count on one hand, imbues life with a sense of purpose. The key is, to arrive at this place, to experience belonging as I have described it here, we have to cultivate compassion, not only toward others, but more importantly, toward ourselves.

This is why I have resisted the temptation to advise you to simply “be yourself.” I worry that even “being yourself ” becomes a new yard-stick against which we do or do not measure up. The best advice I can offer you is not to “be yourself,” but to be kind to yourself. You will change, you will make mistakes, you will wake up some days and feel confident, you will wake up other days and feel insecure, you will at times succumb to peer pressure, at other times you will find in yourself courage, resilience and inner strength that you did not know you possessed.

You can choose to look at these experiences through the eyes of an internal critic, who asks even of your accomplishments, “Are they enough?” Or you can choose to listen to the voice that says, “You are enough,” or as my own mother used to say to me: “You are perfectly imperfect just the way you are.”

Which brings me to the role that parents can play in helping children to navigate the minefield that is adolescence. Let me start by making an important distinction: helping your child cultivate self-acceptance is not the same as being a permissive parent. It is possible to have high hopes for your child and at the same time maintain an awareness that these hopes will not always come to fruition and that our own dreams for our children are not always the same dreams our children have for themselves.

In my role as an admissions counselor, working primarily with Cupertino area schools, I have to be honest and say that, more often than not, I see students who at this crucial juncture in their lives feel incredible pressure to become something that they are neither suited for nor deeply passionate about. They also feel compelled to apply to a long list of colleges with names that will impress rather than a short list of schools that represent the best fit for their personalities and interests. It has happened that I’ve seen a few students who are so focused on their future profession that I have no doubt they will be both successful and fulfilled in their careers, but it is understandably rare to encounter that degree of focus in a 16 or 17-year-old.

And the truth is, the indicators of future success that make me most hopeful about a particular student are not test scores, GPA or college admissions profile, but the student’s attitude toward life, toward set-backs, toward the influence of their peers, an ability to keep things in perspective. They are the students who have the capacity to listen to the voice that says, “You are enough.” And they can hear that voice because it is the internalization of a voice that has echoed throughout their lives, since the moment of their birth.

If I get really honest, brutally honest, I can also say that as a stepmom, I find it incredibly challenging to let go of the high hopes I have for my own beloved stepchildren. I know the deep urgency to protect and shield one’s child from the pain of failure. I know the shame and embarrassment of wondering what other people will think if my own kid doesn’t get good grades, or get in to school X —after all, it’s my job!

I also know that much of this fear has less to do with my children than it does with my own struggle to be kind—not to them—but to myself. What I can least tolerate in myself, I can least tolerate in others, including, and perhaps most intensely felt, in the others with whom I share my home and heart.

So my advice is both simple and incredibly challenging: be the voice of compassion for yourself and be that voice for your child, so that when peer pressure comes knocking in one of its many disguises, your child can say, “I don’t need to ‘fit in,’ I already belong and that is enough.”

Thank you for joining us for Wellness Month. Please check back next week for more information and advice from our Insight Counselor Sarah de Sousa. 

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A version of this blog post was first published in Lynbrook High School’s truth publication, Aletheia, Vol. 2(7)

Additional Resources:

Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke. This book was given to me on my 16th birthday by a mentor and has been a constant companion in my life ever since.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough. The story we usually tell about childhood success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score high on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control.

The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers do the Things They Do, by Lynn E. Ponton M.D. In The Romance of Risk, Dr. Ponton refutes the traditional idea that risktaking is primarily an angry power struggle with parents—so-called teenage rebellion—and re-defines it as a potentially positive testing process whereby challenge and risk are the primary tools adolescents use to find out who they are and determine who they will become. For adolescents, the powerful allure of the adult world is equaled only by the fear of failing to find a place in it. Parents can ease that transition into adulthood, however, by promoting healthy risk-taking so that dangerous options will be avoided.

Hardwiring Happiness, by Rick Hanson Ph.D. Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, and an Advisory Board Member of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

Greater Good Science Center http://greatergood.berkeley.edu The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. This website is full of educational and parenting resources, free webinars, links to many bay area events and excellent resources for teens.

Stanford School of Medicine Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) http://ccare.stanford.edu CCARE investigates methods for cultivating compassion and promoting altruism within individuals and society through rigorous research, scientific collaborations, and academic conferences. In addition, CCARE provides a compassion cultivation program and teacher training as well as educational public events and programs.