Megan Byrne is a Facilitator in Training with The Soar Foundation which is a collective movement which believes that there is greatness within all young people. They act on this by creating and delivering early intervention-preventative, wellness workshops for young people aged 12 to 18 years from all backgrounds all throughout Ireland. Here Megan explains in more detail the essence behind their recently launched ‘It’s Just A Phase’ campaign…
Being a teenager is an important phase in everyone’s life. It’s when we become our own person and taste the first bite of independence. The Soar Foundation ‘It’s just a phase’ campaign (you can watch the video below) grasps the stages of teenage years, the extremely important moments that are perceived as “just a phase”, like falling in love for the first time, experimenting in all kinds of ways, facing anger and anxiety for the first time.
We are a generation mostly raised by adults who grew up in a society where talking about your struggles was unheard of. Now we are beginning to become more in touch with our emotions and feelings yet so many adults are unfamiliar with how to confront these emotions. It’s easier to put it down to being just a phase.
Soar offers a platform for students to get in touch with these emotions through the workshops they run all throughout Ireland, and open up dialogue with students to talk about what influences these emotions to occur. Throughout the many phases within the teenage years young people are left in their heads feeling as if they’ve been put in the middle of a storm, blind-folded with these unfamiliar feelings trying to figure out why one minute they are laughing and the next they are feeling enough rage to want to put their fist through a wall.
Yes, it’s just a phase but it certainly isn’t an easy phase to go through. It’s hard and confusing and can feel so lonely and yet everyone goes through it. Soar is here for young people to have a space to explore the whys to the questions about the automatic behaviors they’re taking part in and experiencing.
Being in a constant competition with your peers be it academically or on the streets…
Knowing that “What they think of you is everything”…
Having to be constantly aware of your appearance, your actions, your words…
It’s tiring and hard and is not something that should be overlooked. In Soar we create the safe space for people to talk in front of their peers to give them an insight what is really going on in their life and to hopefully lead them to being there as a unit together making this phase more bearable rather than being at war with each other or with themselves.
I’m 18 now, almost 19 and I now know that being a teenager is one of the hardest, most challenging and yet powerful times in our lives. You experience all these feelings for the first time and of course they occur again throughout life but at that point you’re familiar with the feelings, which makes it a little less painful.
I struggled so much and for so long I felt so up in the air. Soar came into my school and did a workshop and grounded me. Three years later after training with Soar and being around the team more and witnessing firsthand the impact they have on so many other people’s, it just fills me with so much love and so much awareness. What The Soar Foundation offers is so incredibly important right now in Ireland.
The Soar team aren’t you average ordinary adults who sometimes cover things up. They create spaces for real conversations. They embrace the teenage phase and lead young people towards realising their potential. Sometimes when you’re going through all these emotions all you need is someone to listen to you. Sometimes when you’re feeling lost all you need is for someone to help you start thinking about your dreams. This is what Soar is here for.
Being a teenager is when we find who we are, when we step into the world as an individual and being known for you, not just your parents’ kids. You become a true version of yourself. Sometimes we have to grow up fast in our teenage years, sometimes we make really bad decisions or really great ones, we try to peer pressure friends, we give into peer pressure, we get in trouble, feel lonely, feel anxious but just because we go through these things does not mean they define us.
So often as a younger teen we do stupid silly things and then as we grow up we are changing and renewing constantly but become known for the silly things that took place in different stages of this phase. Soar lets people talk about these moments and also shows them that they are not who they are based on a certain moment in time and in fact, they are whatever they want to be and choose to be.
Soar has helped me realise everything I’ve gone through in this phase of my life no matter how embarrassing, challenging, hard, fun or life changing, has made me who I am today. Although at the time I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and thought I would break, I wouldn’t change a thing about it because I now know it’s so normal to feel all these different emotions and owning it all is a magical feeling.
I know if I hadn’t crossed life paths with Soar I wouldn’t be the person I am today. The work of Soar is here to remind us that beyond the actions that take place in different stages and phases of teenage life, beyond the feelings, we all have potential within us. We can do whatever we really dream of.
Soar don’t underestimate how challenging being a young person is and that’s what makes them so unique and so important in young people’s lives.
The Soar Foundation is a collective movement which believes that there is greatness within all young people. They act on this by creating and delivering early intervention-preventative, wellness workshops for young people aged 12 to 18 years from all backgrounds. Soar workshops empower young people to thrive, believe in themselves and fulfil their true potential. Within a safe and supportive environment, young people are given the opportunity to be themselves and explore any challenges that hold them back from doing so. Soar have worked with over 25,000 young people since 2012.
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