Involution Labs

Tag: mental-health

  • We’re All Part of the Broken Family

    I read your words, and I felt something shift—not in the way I imagine you intended. You said what you needed to say, and I suppose this is me doing the same. Skriva av mig.

    You write with the tone of someone who’s already moved on, who’s emotionally detached and looking back at the wreckage from a safe, elevated distance. But I didn’t feel wisdom in your letter. I didn’t feel love. I felt something performative. Something self-satisfied. You used to be someone I admired for your depth—for your ability to hold contradictions, for your courage to look at the mess and not turn away. This felt like the opposite. This felt like someone writing to win a crowd, not seek the truth.

    You compared America to a mentally ill family member. That’s not philosophy, that’s pathologizing a people. That’s taking the worst of one nation and building a metaphor that makes everyone else the sane, stable, rational grownups. Europe becomes the wise wife. Canada, the pretty girl next door. Russia, the neighbourhood monster. And you? You’re the knowing observer, shaking your head in sorrow from your morally secure porch.

    You’ve written off an entire nation as if it’s a single consciousness—chaotic, erratic, no longer trustworthy. That’s not just lazy, it’s dangerous. It flattens the millions of people in that country who are fighting the good fight. Who are pushing back. Who are trying to hold something together while the ground shifts beneath them. You saw the storm, and instead of offering a rope, you stepped back to watch.

    And meanwhile, Europe—your golden child in this metaphor—gets a free pass. No mention of its own ongoing nationalism. No mention of how it’s leaned on the US for security, convenience, and political cover for decades. No mention of its own violent history or its complicity in the very global order you now denounce. It’s easier, I guess, to pretend Europe is rising like a phoenix while America flails.

    But this isn’t healing. This isn’t insight. It’s resignation dressed up as moral clarity.

    You say you haven’t given up on America, that your door is open. But everything in your letter says otherwise. You’ve already packed the bags, changed the locks, and started dating someone new. What remains is the guilt talking, not the love.

    I don’t say this as a flag-waver or an apologist. I see the mess. I feel the grief. But I also see the reductionism, the projection, the convenient forgetting. And that—coming from someone who claims to be a philosopher—is what stings the most.

    If you want to walk away, fine. But don’t pretend it’s out of compassion. And don’t pretend you’re not part of the same broken family.

    We all are.

  • Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    We need to understand children to understand ourselves. We carry the child within and they carry the adult within. Adults are not superior. We are just further along the life course than they are.

    The Family as the Crucible of Socialisation

    Family is our first socialisation process and the one that will have the most impact and last the longest. Socialisation is extremely important not just to become a human but to find one’s place within society and throughout different stages of the life course. Family is the nucleus of society, it’s the smallest part of society and if the family doesn’t work, society doesn’t work.

    Childhood is when we become humans, and parents do the most important part of socialisation. When the first five years are gone, parents might doubt whether they have done a good job, but don’t worry, your job is not done and it’s never too late to become a better parent, as well as a better teacher and a better friend. Socialisation is a lifelong process.

    The socialisation process is an interactive process that most of us do without thinking, but we should because it’s how we become who we are. In our diverse culture, it’s important to make space to understand differences but also question them. We all come from different cultures, but we live in the same country. We must talk about what happens when we parent without purpose and when we continue to do what was done to us without questioning it. This is not about judging different cultural practices but reaching conclusions as to how we can bring our children through childhood into adulthood in the best possible way.

    We tell children to not grow up so fast, to enjoy childhood, but when children start school, a place where only a few thrive, most cope and survive, some children want to escape childhood. School is like a soft prison. Children start school as early as age 4, and in most countries won’t be released until they are 16. Leaving at this age won’t guarantee a job or a fulfilling future, so many continue until their mid-twenties and some don’t start working until their early thirties.

    The Schooling Dilemma

    Fear of school can be a healthy expression of an unhealthy environment. Not fitting in doesn’t have to lead to school shootings or a terrorist mindset. A pressure cooker mindset can come from maladaptive socialisation and a refusal to listen to a child who doesn’t fit in. The child knows. We need to listen to children.

    We know children need love, play and imagination, but school kills what sustains us on the life course. In school, children learn to compete for grades and rewards. They learn that failure is their fault and they also learn gender roles which can be too strict because while we’re all either male or female, we also contain both female and male energy. If you are a tomboy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine. If you are a feminine boy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine.

    Teachers are doing a difficult job too; they are stuck in a system that refuses to change. We live in a different era from when school began.

    We all have to breathe to listen to understand our children. Instead of talking down, let’s sit down and listen to how our children experience life. We can design a new blueprint for life by listening to the experts on how they wish they could be treated. Culture is the software and society is the hardware. If we don’t scrutinise what we teach, we could end up with a society no one wants to live in.

    Children and young people need boundaries. Absolute freedom isn’t liberating, it’s paralyzing. We all have to learn to follow rules and the law, but also when to question it, and when to protest it. Children don’t need authoritarian parents or teachers. We can lead with authority without being dictators. We must admit that socialisation is an interactive process, we learn from those we teach too.

    Listening to the Voices of Children

    We must listen to our children because we don’t always know best. No one knows a child better than the child. We can be authoritative adults while still listening. We need a listening society.

    We all want what’s best for our children, but many of us disagree on how to achieve that. Teachers have training on how to teach and how to control large groups of children and teens, but parents do it by how it was done to them. How would society change if we parented with purpose? If we went to parenting classes on how to be the best parents we can be? Family is for life and so will some friendships, but while it’s important to have close friendships as children grow and move towards independence, parents continue to matter, so hold on to your children because many will go through an identity crisis in their early adulthood and your support will be as important if not more important than their peers.

    Of course, peers are important in the socialisation process and even more so friends, some who might become lifelong friends. Peers provide emotional support. Peers teach us who we are by reinforcing or punishing behaviours and social interactions. Peers show each other who they are, don’t want to be or aspire to be. Peers teach how to conform and adjust in a group setting. Peers help in the confusing search for an identity, but belonging to a group also creates tension. Peer pressure happens when a person searches for an identity outside of the accepted norms and values of the in-group.

    Challenging Cultural Norms and Redefining Parenthood

    There is intended and unintended socialisation and unintended socialisation is more powerful. If you want your child to grow up honest, you can’t lie, not even a little bit, you have to practice radical honesty or your child will eventually find out and dismiss your teachings. You have to walk the talk.

    Childhood is too short for parents and too long for children. We say don’t grow up too fast, but children don’t want to be trapped in childhood for as long as we want them to be, there is nothing magic about pretending after five or six years of age. Some parent insists on making up magic and discarding the magic of reality, but children must live in reality and the more we tell the truth in an appropriate to development way, we help them to thrive in life.

    The Authentic Child

  • The Unexpected Calling: Life Taught Me How to Coach

    I never set out to be a trainer, facilitator or coach. In fact, I left school early, unsure of what I was meant to do in life. But years later — after raising children, working across care, tech, and the arts, and returning to education myself — I discovered something surprising: I love helping people learn and grow. Not just the material, but about themselves.

    Over the past decade, I’ve taken courses in communication, mental health, and life coaching to deepen the insight I’ve gained from choosing a different path in life. I’ve been told often, “You should be a teacher,” but I think what people really meant is: “You make others feel understood.”

    That, to me, is the foundation of real learning — being seen, heard, and accepted. Whether someone is 14 or 80, I’ve found that the desire is the same: we want to be understood.

    The traditional school system didn’t make space for that when I was young. I didn’t like school, but I remember the rare teachers who took the time to understand me. Inspired by books like Tuesdays with Morrie, I’ve since reached out to thank them. Because they didn’t just teach me Swedish and English — they made me feel I mattered.

    That’s what I aim to offer others now. Whether I’m coaching, facilitating, or designing a training, my approach is rooted in one belief: understanding people is just as important as knowing the material. When someone feels seen, they’re far more likely to feel safe, ask questions, and learn something new — not just in their minds, but in their lives.

    Too many adults carry a quiet belief that they’re “not smart enough.” That’s rarely true. More often, they were simply misunderstood — taught in a way that didn’t match how they learn. If I can help someone reconnect with their curiosity, or feel good about learning and growing again, that’s enough.