🌿 Early Adulthood, 19–25 Years
The Blossoming of Empathy – Inner Awareness expanding into Connection
There is a moment in the journey of each one of us parents, when our house feels both too quiet and too full of echoes. The laughter that once bounced off the walls has been replaced by the hum of independence — your young adult is stepping out into the world. Once locked in our hug, now exploring winds of life trying the independency like the new pair of shoes they bought online. They liked it, they wanted and they ordered it without trying….
This stage, the bridge between adolescence and full adulthood, is not just a time of exploration of new life depts for them — it’s a time of deep emotional awakening. Empathy, which began as a simple reflection of your emotions when they were babies, and was shaped through connection, guidance, and boundaries during childhood and teenage years, now begins to bloom into something much more personal. Unaware, it’s becoming a part of the Identity. Did we guide them towards our own ideals and image we wanted for them to create, or did we provide them the safe space filled with tools to step in Life as a conscious beings aware of their thoughts and emotion. Did we do our honest best, so we can now observe them and enjoy their path of freedom with hearts filled with happiness and love, and perhaps the most important - Happy and Proud of who they are.
They are no longer learning empathy from you — they are bringing fruit of every seed we planted, every emotional breakdown we ‘‘handled’’, every hug inhaled with full lungs.
🌱 The Awakening of Self-Awareness
In early adulthood, life suddenly feels real. Bills appear. Choices matter. Relationships carry weight. Many young adults begin to feel the gentle tug of self-questioning — Who am I? Why I do, the way I do, what I do? How do I want to live?
This self-awareness, while sometimes uncomfortable, is the soil where empathy truly takes root. Because before one can feel deeply for others, one must first understand one’s own inner world.
Think about a young woman named Maria. At 21, she moved out of her parents’ home to study in another city. The freedom felt exhilarating — no curfews, no lectures. But soon, loneliness creeps in. One evening, after a long day at work and university, she noticed her roommate gazing through window in the darkness of the living room. Without overthinking, Maria sits beside her and offers a silent company, simple silent presence which is screaming ‘‘You are not alone, I feel you’’
That simple act — no advice, no fixing — was empathy in bloom. Maria had begun to recognize pain not as something to avoid, but as something shared.
🌸 The Inner Shift: From “Me” to “We”
In childhood, empathy is often reactive: “He’s crying, I feel sad too.”
In adolescence, it becomes relational: “I understand how my friend feels.”
But in early adulthood, it becomes existential: “We’re all connected, and how I treat others reflects who I am.”
This is a powerful spiritual realization — a moment where empathy matures into compassion.
Many young adults experience this transformation through relationships, volunteering, travel, heartbreak. The first time they comfort a friend through grief, or realize their words have hurt someone, something shifts inside.
The life itself becomes the teacher. And they are aware of it. Once a magic happening on a playground, now with opened sails filled with life moving forward.
🌿 Everyday Lessons in Empathy
Empathy doesn’t always arrive in grand spiritual awakenings. Most often, it sneaks in quietly in everyday life:
At work, when your young adult notices a colleague struggling and steps in without being asked.
In relationships, when they begin to understand that love isn’t just romance, but a beautiful dance on an invisible silk thread that with each common step we weave another and another. Until eventually we make it big enough to embrace another soul, and give it space and safety just as we gave them.
In friendship, when they choose to listen instead of defend.
In self-reflection, when they learn to forgive themselves for mistakes. When they decide they are not going to make same mistake again. When they question their thoughts, feeling, actions.
Each of these moments is a small seed of awareness, watered by life experience. Kissed and Blessed by the light in each one of us.
And for parents, it’s a profound shift too — you are now witnessing the tree that once was a seed in your arms, growing tall and reaching toward the light. Providing everything for the surrounding. Fruit, shade, protection, comfort. Connection with All there is.🌳
🌕 The Role of Parents: Letting Go with Grace
It can be hard — painfully hard — to let go of the role you embraced with all of your being for nearly two decades. You were the fixer, the protector, the emotional compass. Now, your young adult no longer comes to you for every storm. They navigate their own tides.
But this doesn’t mean your role is over. It means it’s transforming.
And even if everything is showing you that your active role is over, you still have the blessing of seeing the results of your investment from the side.
Instead of directing, you now mirror their growth.
Instead of teaching, you now witness.
Instead of holding their hand, you now hold space.
Let’s take an example: A mother, Anna, found herself frustrated that her 22-year-old son, Nikos, rarely called. One day, when he finally visited, she asked him why. He hesitated, then admitted he often felt guilty — like every call had to be “worth something.”
Anna took a deep breath and said softly, “You never have to earn my time.”
That moment — simple, raw, loving — changed their relationship. She didn’t lecture or guilt him. She just consciously created space, once more, for him to be his true self. That’s what empathy looks like in the parent-young adult connection.
🌸 Emotional Maturity and Boundaries
Empathy in early adulthood also means learning boundaries and keeping strict Bill for own actions — because true compassion includes oneself.
For many young adults, this is a challenging balance, especially if they are used to being presented with solutions, and not creating their own. They want to be kind, but they also want to protect their energy. They want to help others, but not lose themselves.
As parents, we can model this beautifully. When we say:
“I love you deeply and I trust you to find your own way.”
we teach them that love and freedom can coexist.
When they see us caring for our own needs — resting, saying no, expressing emotions healthily — they learn that empathy isn’t self-sacrifice. It’s sacred balance. If we did our parenting thing the way we intended, now they know that we are always present to guide them to their own solution, to support them.
🌱 Empathy and the World
The twenties are a time when young adults begin to see the wider world — and often, they are overwhelmed by its pain. Climate change, inequality, war, social pressures — it’s a lot to take in.
Some react by closing off emotionally, saying “It’s too much.” And becoming the thing that the World is flooded with - Self centered being unable to feel others, something that is lived by life, and not living the life.
Others feel deep compassion and seek to help.
What determines the difference? The foundation built in childhood — emotional safety, trust, and the belief that emotions are manageable.
If a young adult grew up learning that sadness and frustration are part of life — and not signs of weakness — they are far more capable of holding empathy for the world without collapsing under its weight.
Encourage them to engage, but also to rest. To care deeply, but not drown. To contribute with presence, not guilt.
🌷 Spiritual Growth: Empathy as Conscious Awareness
In the spiritual sense, early adulthood is the stage of aware awakening. Many young adults begin exploring meditation, mindfulness, or philosophical questions. They seek meaning beyond material success.
Empathy naturally deepens during this period because spiritual awareness and compassion are intertwined. As one becomes more conscious of their own emotions, they begin to sense the interconnectedness of all beings.
As parents, this is a sacred invitation to reconnect with your own empathy. A chance where you can speak you path of awakening, problems surfaced while meeting your awareness,
Share your stories — your failures, your lessons, your heart. Not as instruction, but as connection.
🌿 Everyday Practices to Nurture Empathy in Young Adults
Here are gentle ways to continue supporting their growth:
Listen without fixing. When they share struggles, avoid rushing to advice. Just be there.
Ask questions that makes them think deeper. “How did that make you feel?” “What do you think you’ll do next?”
Respect their pace. Growth isn’t linear. Sometimes they need to make mistakes to truly learn.
Share from your own vulnerability. It makes empathy a shared human experience.
Model gratitude and kindness. They may roll their eyes, but they’re still watching.
Encourage self-care and rest. Burnout kills empathy; balance keeps it alive.
🌸 The Parent’s Inner Journey
Empathy doesn’t stop developing when your child becomes an adult — once we planted this seed, we can keep growing it endlessly. It is a process that we can keep nurturing as long as we want.
Early adulthood can mirror back our own unresolved emotions:
Fear of being needed less.
Regret for past mistakes.
Anxiety about their future.
It’s okay to feel all of it.
The practice is not to resist these emotions, but to meet them with compassion — just as you once met your child’s tears.
Each time you soften instead of tighten, you model emotional resilience.
Each time you listen instead of control, you model trust.
Each time you let go with love, you model spiritual maturity.
🌕 The Blossoming: From Roots to Wings
By the mid-twenties, empathy has begun to intertwine with purpose. Many young adults start choosing careers or paths that reflect their values — teaching, art, healing, social justice, sustainability. Even those who follow more conventional paths begin to infuse their lives with meaning and care.
This is empathy turned outward. The roots you nurtured are now wings.
Imagine a tree that has grown through storms and seasons. It stands tall, shading others, yet its roots remain deeply connected to the soil it came from — your love, your guidance, your understanding.
That’s what you’ve raised. Seeing it, fills your being with divine light you share with it all this time. The emotional, ethical, cognitive reimbursement is infinite. Knowing your child is a human being capable of spreading emotional awareness is priceless. 🌳
🌷 In Closing
Early adulthood is not the end of the parenting journey — it’s just a next step, nothing more than that. A natural evolution of the process.
You’ve spent years teaching empathy through hugs, stories, and countless moments of patience and giving & holding space.
Now, it’s their turn to live it — in their choices, in their relationships, in the world.
Your role now is simple, yet even more profound:
To love without holding,
To guide without directing,
To trust without fear.
Because true empathy — the kind that changes the world — begins in the quiet courage of the parent who learns to let go, with an open heart. 💛
Be well, stay centered
Marko
