And I listened because I hadn’t found my own voice yet
So all I could hear was the noise that
People make when they don’t know shit
But I didn’t know that yetI grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill
Shoes that were not made for running up that hill
And I need to run up that hill
I need to run up that hill, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will- Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters
This text is a journal-like reflection aiming to outline a personal goal: to grow into a professional of humanity. Humans need environments and communities for inner growth.
For context: I have studied social work, youth work, and educational science, and have earned a teaching qualification, as well as a trainer in emotional skills and body awareness. I also have a background in master’s studies in human-centered technology, which could be summarized with terms like cognitive psychology and service design.
In parallel, I have worked on my own inner world—first in therapy, then within the framework of the Diamond Approach, which provides tools for accessing one’s personal resources of presence.
Background: Challenges in the Social and Educational Systems
Social work professionals can only support clients to the extent that they have cultivated their own capacity for growth and to the degree that the institutions they work in support. My aim is to start building a contextual foundation for larger discussions on how to nurture inner growth in individuals and communities. What kind of growth environments and communities do we want to build for the future?
Resources, the contact with which I see being weak throughout the system, are i.e.
- inner support,
- compassion,
- curiosity and creativity,
- inner strength,
- faith and trust,
- and mental clarity.
Against this background, it is clear to me that the educational system and social sector are still in their infancy. I am seeking answers on how to bring these critically important tools for human growth into these fields.
Without expanding our connection to humanity’s real capacities, I don’t believe we can progress as individuals or as societies, despite the obvious crises of humanity and our systems. Almaas’s book Spacecruiser Inquiry illustrates these qualities or resources in practical ways.
This reflection doesn’t draw from any single source but instead seeks to create an initial framework for bigger conversations. It also hints at which cultural currents deserve amplification within the mainstream social work narrative. The target group for this text is intentionally broad and at this point I don’t provide any ready made answers. I hope this text challenges you, the reader, to ask questions—and, if you feel moved, to send those questions to me.
On a more practical level, this is an interim report. After a year of studying youth work, I’m beginning to understand the types of challenges present in the social and educational fields. I’ll also share preliminary thoughts on the kind of reform needed in social systems to help students in these institutions awaken into life and enable schools to truly fulfill their purpose.
Sensitivity in the Workplace: Lessons from Burnout
Sensitivity has been part of my identity for as long as I can remember. About ten years ago, I encountered the term “highly sensitive,” which helped me connect with this trait. Yet, only recently has its meaning begun to fully integrate into my consciousness.
A workplace from several years ago was a turning point for me. There, I learned how unfamiliar sensitivity can be for many. I was labeled “too sensitive,” even though the real issue lay in the organization’s structure and leadership culture. Burnout was a heavy experience, but it forced me to examine my sensitivity more deeply. I realized that sensitivity is sharp perception, not weakness.
This experience also taught me the importance of creating safe spaces for others who are sensitive. These individuals often bear the brunt of society’s harshness. Sensitivity is the capacity to see deeply and clearly, not merely react.
Because I lacked a concrete understanding of young people’s lives, I turned to youth work after my teacher training and workplace experiences. I wanted to learn directly how young people experience life.
I’m proud to have done something authentic. It has been incredible to be part of an adult group in youth work studies, where participants show up honestly from their own starting points and are willing to be challenged to be vulnerable. I feel I’ve made progress in my personal growth.
What I’ve Learned from Tuva Activities
In youth work studies, I’ve learned that sensitivity and strength can complement each other. I’ve practiced leading groups, planning camps, and creating spaces where people feel safe and can see themselves honestly.
Key to preparatory education (Tuva-toiminta, comparable to a 10th grade or preparatory class for 16 to 18-year-olds) is understanding the individual needs of students—how to motivate, encourage, and challenge them appropriately.
This includes setting clear and safe boundaries while showing compassion when students, for instance, don’t want to come to school. Sometimes reflecting back their emotions—saying, “You seem frustrated”—helps students recognize their feelings. I’ve received encouraging feedback for using these approaches.
I’ve also learned how to better engage passive students. Some thrive when given space, working independently, while others need consistent nudging forward. Encouraging students to take initiative, such as independently seeking internships, has been a key part of my learning.
About ways in which sensitivity and precision in me want to challenge the system
“You’re a sensitive guy - you don’t notice that conflict is harsh liquor.” — Zen Café, translated freely from Finnish
I sometimes get feedback that I am demanding of myself. I suspect there’s a connection between being “demanding” and being sensitive. Seeing things that others don’t—or that they have closed their eyes to—gives you a different sense of urgency about the need for change.
In my social work placements, my sensitivity has shown itself in how I feel compassion for both the workers and the students in the system. Both seem powerless against the structures. What remains to change is oneself.
This text is a space where I allow myself to fully ruminate and also project problems outside myself. Challenges need to be named so they can be addressed. To set a direction, one must allow for even seemingly idealistic critique.
It seems to me that teachers in the educational system often become performers lost in their heads, and system operators. Supporting actual learning and growth as a person takes a backseat. The system molds people into the roles it needs, and this dynamic becomes so normalized that it isn’t even questioned. I don’t blame the teachers—it’s the system that creates this.
The understanding of how to be present as a teacher, both physically and holistically as a human being, has been forgotten on the level of the entire culture. Young people are partially disengaged on a mental level because the teacher’s pedagogical expertise does not guarantee that the teacher is truly alive and present as a person. Amongst my class of youth worker students I’ve seen that sometimes there’s confucion on if it’s actually seen as benefit to hide oneself.
So it seems teachers themselves seem to have become a bit institutionalized. I suspect there is a direct link between the blind replication of systems created by the baby boomer generation and the mental health crisis in Finland. Professionals seem to be in some sort of a fairy-tale-like slumber.
Balancing Sensitivity and Strength
Although the term “sensitivity” initially helped me identify something essential about myself, I’ve only recently started to see sensitivity as a strength, not a weakness.
Youth work studies have been a significant step in my life. They’ve challenged me to examine my sensitivity and my ability to embody clarity and strength.
While studying pedagogy at university, I experienced what could be described as a spiritual insight—meaning that, based on my personal experience, what was being taught resonated deeply as authentic. What I mean is that, based on my personal experience, what was being taught felt profoundly honest, not just intellectually evaluated.
Educational science or Finnish teachers do not subscribe to hollow behaviorism, the so-called Pavlovian approach. It led to the thought that perhaps academia, in addition to critical scientific evaluation, also harbors a profound love for human growth. Social constructivism and phenomenon-based learning, in my view, quite accurately describe how learning can occur in a healthy way.
In practice, however, professionals often lack the skills, capacity, or conditions to realize these ideals.
The education system lacks in a quite obvious way an understanding of humanity’s deeper dimensions—emotions, embodiment, strength, and creativity, inner support, trust, and so on. Academic thinking doesn’t address these skills; they’re relegated to the domain of spirituality. As a result, the mental-level goals of academic pedagogy often remain unrealized. This choice of the educational system’s culture seems ideological, as at the end of the day the capacities are neutral and profoundly human.
The Power of Sensitivity
My journey has set a high standard for the precision with which I want to work with people.
There is plenty of balancing to do for me in learning to see what is sufficient in everyday life given the limitations of my own resources, and when it is time to truly challenge the structures.
Overlooking sensitivity and pushing past my internal guidance has been a significant wound for me. This is why I find it critically important to be a safe figure for other sensitive and introverted individuals.
At the same time, I have the skills to challenge people to embrace their strength, understand their boundaries, and view their experiences honestly. Sensitivity doesn’t mean drama or victimhood—it’s precise observation.
Furthermore, victimhood can be an important defense mechanism for many. Handling it gently but honestly is work that requires sharp perception. At the end of the day it would be crucial to meet the entirety of the humanity of both the student and the teacher in an accepting way, so that life could begin to move.
In Youth Work: A Connection to Humanity
I feel that professionals in the social and educational fields possess a great deal of intuition and wisdom, gained through experience, for meeting young people where they are mentally, although this is inevitably influenced by their individual personalities and values. The culture in preparatory education is fundamentally very accepting and gentle, though boundaries are available for those who challenge them.
The biggest challenge, as I see it, is that young people are not necessarily engaged on the rich, multi-dimensional levels of their being, and I suspect that despite the gentleness, there is a great deal of unspoken loneliness and confusion in their experience.
In the outside world, culture is undergoing a transformation, and I see no indication that the older generations—who inevitably make up the staff—even fully grasp the magnitude of this change from the perspective of young people.
I am not entirely convinced that the education system helps students confront the real world or if it mainly prepares them for a construct of the world that the system itself wants to believe in. This tension, as I understand it, is reflected in the undeniable intergenerational inheritance of education, which remains deeply entrenched despite society’s efforts to change it.
During my training, I’ve met young people and helped them recognize their emotions and potential. I feel this work has shown me how much untapped strength exists when people are given the space to be present and use their potential.
The skills of those who focus on more artistic self-expression, or their social richness and vitality, often go unnoticed in a system that prioritizes academic achievements. The connection that true outcomes emerge only when a person has embraced the richness of their entire being is rarely recognized amidst the daily bustle.
I feel that structural problems in systems often block real growth. Apparent efficiency and rigid rules institutionalize students, leaving no time for processes that would genuinely support their well-being. The processes that would genuinely support their growth as human beings receive far too little attention.
Much would be possible, but the system continues to replicate the old patterns of the culture. The system claims to be science-based but often perpetuates old cultural patterns.
Bringing out potential would require actively dismantling the conditioning built by the system itself. I am not immune to this either—as someone who has spent a long time within the education system, I notice how unconscious patterns and assumptions about what is acceptable and what is not can quickly take hold. The school system has created its own distorting reward system, and it is also the system’s responsibility to dismantle it if the goal is to raise fully developed adults.
How could we find a connection to humanity in youth work?
In my youth work studies, I’ve found that the lack of genuine presence in schools and the social sector hinders growth.
During my training in a Tuva group, I observed a great deal of untapped potential and, I believe, frustration stemming from the fact that no one truly sees or reflects back what is possible within humanity.
Much could be achieved, but the system continues to replicate the old patterns of culture. The system claims to be based on science, but in practice, it seems to perpetuate an oral tradition of Finnishness, with all its harshness and brilliance.
In my own experience, I have learned from sensitivity and boundaries that there is a reason why I lack a stronger willingness to push people or challenge them in the way that might often be deemed useful within the system’s narrative.
In my personal relationships, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern of bypassing my sensitivity. Teachers and others in the system have often guided me toward institutionalization. They have claimed to “know better,” without truly understanding. Because these people failed to see me — my precision and sensitivity — they ended up pushing me toward dissociation, a blind compliance.
As I’ve matured and approached middle age, I’ve realized that this pushing tendency is more of a cultural bias than a universally justified choice. It’s understandable that extroverted traits are valued in a world where they often lead to success.
However, this often comes at the cost of labeling normal personality traits as abnormal, with the expectation that one must push through them. A professional’s discernment and, most importantly, awareness of their own conditioning and emotional reactions are critically important here.
On deeper encounter
It seems to me that a certain level of emotional absence on the part of teachers is often considered normal in the social sector. I feel that people are being trained to become institutionalized cogs in the system, accepting the conditions in which they operate as a given, with little energy in their daily work to question the true meaningfulness of their actions.
The working world actually needs individuals who can act independently and enjoy their work enough to have the strength to continue. Institutionalization is an emergent property and a result of teachers’ lack of awareness, not a deliberate or intentional goal. As it stands, young people are not given the resources they need to move forward as human beings—beyond the surface level, at least.
In my experience, students are left alone as humans with their actual experience, and begin to hide themselves. It feels like the entire process is a game where teachers sometimes project weakness onto the students, and the students, in turn, go along with the pretense.
Best moments in my practice period have come when I’ve seen teachers fully immerse themselves in genuine interaction. These moments have reminded me of how much authenticity and courage can open doors and empower students to move forward.
Finding a New Direction
My core message to the system seems to be this: Presence for the group, alive acknowledgment of the group’s atmosphere, and genuine, honest, living interaction are possible! It is possible to create a space where people do not overtly retreat behind the roles of “professionalism” but instead show up authentically and openly as human beings - while simultaneously maintaining adulthood and healthy boundaries. Not only is this possible, but it is also the only thing that genuinely creates the kind of movement within people that embodies the true spirit of social work.
This, however, requires deliberate work in the direction of teachers taking on a much more determined role as adults. By “adult,” I mean a fully embodied, emotional, real human being—not just a hollow story passed down through generations about what it means to be a professional in the education system, endlessly repeating empty patterns. Building the capacity for this kind of presence demands personal, inner work on the part of the teachers. Unfortunately, the system offers little to no support for this.
This is why the work must draw from outside the system. The situation cannot be changed with the same tools that created it.
I have studied within the framework of the Diamond Approach, but it is not the only framework that provides guidance on presence and honest connection with oneself. In my experience, other approaches that aim to connect people with their deeper resources include
- Circling (Authentic Relating/Surrendered Leadership),
- Internal Family Systems,
- Focusing,
- Humanistic Psychology,
and many others.
It speaks volumes about society that excluding only Circling, these approaches are still easiest for modern individuals to view as “therapeutic methods,” rather than as self-evident and essential aspects of everyday life from the perspective of full humanity.
The Path Forward
In the future, I want to combine my sensitivity and strength to create spaces where people can grow. The union of sensitivity and strength can, at its best, produce something that serves society on a profound level.
The challenge I decided to take on through youth work studies a little over a year ago has proven worthwhile. I have gained confidence that sensitivity and strength are complementary elements. At their best, they can together lead to remarkable experiences and capacities in humanity, which can be of great help on a larger scale.
My studies in youth work, practicing group facilitation, and planning camps have given me critical skills to lead initiatives where people come together in a way that truly begins with presence and moves toward genuine well-being and responsibility.
One of the challenges within the framework of social work seems to be a rigid system-centeredness. Interaction is constrained by tight timeframes that do not allow for a genuine interest in real, inner movement within individuals. These movements usually occur more slowly and require humane, unhurried presence.
For any new direction to emerge, the focus must shift toward authentic engagement. This demands not only systemic change but also a deep commitment to fostering genuine connection and presence among all involved.