β¨ What Really Goes On Inside a Teenager’s Mind?
If you ask a high school junior what they are thinking about, you might expect answers about friends, weekends, or their favorite video games. But if you give them a safe space to be truly honest, the reality is often much heavier. Today’s 18-year-olds are carrying a massive invisible backpack filled with exam stress, performance anxiety, and the relentless distraction of smartphones.
At Santa Clara Meditation, we know that telling a teenager to “just focus” or “stop worrying” rarely works. They need a practical method to empty their overwhelmed minds.
Recently, the 11th-grade students at Ulsan Wooshin High School experienced exactly this. Let’s take a look at their deeply relatable journey of looking inward and discovering true relief through “Happy Mind Subtraction Meditation”! πΏ
π “The Current Me” vs. “The Me I Wish to Be”
During the character education program conducted for all ten 11th-grade classes, the students were first asked to reflect on their minds. They honestly wrote down who they are right now, compared to who they desperately want to be.
Their reflections perfectly capture the raw struggles of today’s teens:
Student A’s Reflection:
- The Current Me: Can’t concentrate, feels chubby, phone addict, doesn’t study.
- The Me I Wish to Be: Focused, sharp, off the phone, and studying hard.
Student B’s Reflection:
- The Current Me: Someone who can’t approach friends well, keeps putting off things I don’t want to do. Someone who can’t answer loudly in class, doesn’t speak well, and lacks confidence.
- The Me I Wish to Be: Someone who approaches friends well, with high concentration. Someone who answers loudly in class, is more confident, and is an active version of me.
They wrote openly about the version of themselves that fails to control game addiction despite knowing better, the version swayed by deep anxiety, and their insecurities about their appearance and social skills.
ποΈ Discarding the Heavy Luggage
To bridge the gap between their current reality and their ideal selves, the students identified exactly what they needed to throw away:
- Fear, nervousness, and deep anxiety.
- The mind that procrastinates and just wants to play.
- Worrying obsessively about the little things.
- Crushing exam stress.
- The overwhelming urge to look at their phones or play games.
- The heavy mind that just wants to give up.
After reflecting, they took time to actually discard these burdens using the Ma-eum Su-ryun (Mind Subtraction) method. Since final exams were approaching, the instructors specifically guided them to throw away their exam-related stress and nervousness.
π¬ “It feels like someone emptied the trash in my head.”
Even though the teens were full of mischief at first, they quickly showed deep sincerity. After just a one-hour meditation class, the shifts in their mental state were incredible.
Here is how the students described their minds after meditating:
“It was a short time, but I felt relieved, and it was good because the pressure about the exams seemed to decrease.”
“I felt refreshed inside. It feels like someone emptied the trash of random thoughts in my head.”
“I felt my mind become lighter for a moment. It felt like some space was created in my mind.”
“It feels like I was holding heavy reference books and then tossed them all in the trash can.”
“I recalled and discarded the anxious mind about how things are right now. I, who was consumed by anxiety and pressure about myself, could feel a little more at ease… I also gained regrets and realizations like, ‘I was like this when I first enrolled, but now I am like this.'”
π A Brighter Future Through Meditation
This beautiful program was organized by the Ma-eum Su-ryun Teachers Association, a dedicated group of educators researching true character education. To date, they have conducted over 300 meditation-based character programs in schools nationwide, proving that when youths learn to manage their minds, their entire school experience transforms.
If you want to help the teenagers in your lifeβor even yourselfβthrow away the heavy “reference books” weighing down your mind, we invite you to learn the method of Mind Subtraction at Santa Clara Meditation. A lighter, more confident you is waiting! β¨
