To be or not to be … emotionally mature

I must’ve been around 13 or 14 when one of my friends at the time told me that I was superficial. I was hurt but I must say that I didn’t really understand what he meant. Looking back at that moment now, and at many other moments that felt alike, I think he had the wrong word but the right kind of feedback. I have never been superficial. The word he should have used is emotionally immature.

For years I have reprimanded myself for being “too emotional” or for not being able to keep my emotions in check. I understand now that it is not about locking your emotions somewhere in a dungeon where they cannot be ever brought to the surface or even heard. It is not about never displaying emotion or completely ignoring it either. Like Susan David says so well, emotions and feelings are signposts, and they inform us internally about the things that are important to us. We do need to listen.

The thing that makes the difference however and a wish that I have had for myself for many years now, is that at some point in this lifetime I will be able to put a pause (aka take a breath) between action and reaction. Between stimulus and response, as Viktor Frankl, so wisely outlined the place where true freedom and happiness live.

I ended 2023 with an amazing book around emotional maturity. Lindsay C. Gibson talks about emotionally mature or immature parents in her best selling book which could be one of the best parenting books ever written. I know, it’s a tall order given the amount of parenting books out there. What I got out of that book, which I read on the wings of James Clear’ advice to behave in ways that best resemble the identity that you want to embody, is a recipe for the way an emotionally mature person behaves in the situations life throws their way. Now I am not saying that having read this book, I am instantly transformed. Anybody who ever humaned knows that such a thing is impossible. What I was left with from Gibson’s book is a checklist against which I can judge whether I am closer or further from emotional maturity. And that is enough for me to get back on track. Or get on track.

There are a few things that Gibson points out emotionally mature people do. They are willing to ask for help whenever they need to. They remind themselves that people are mostly happy to help and they will use clear communication to ask for what they want, explaining the reasons and their feelings. Most importantly, emotionally mature people trust that people will listen and ask for what they want. In other words presuming positive intentions is always an emotionally mature thing to do.

Emotionally mature people are themselves whether people around them accept that or not. They state their thoughts clearly and politely, without being mean, and they don’t try to control the way people take it. At the same time, emotionally mature people don’t give more energy than they really have. Instead, they give the other ones a true indication of how they feel. To me this was a reminded of Dr. Brené Brown’s great piece of advice when she says that in human interaction clear is kind and unclear is unkind. When someone says something offensive, the emotionally mature thing to do is to understand that it is OK to offer your alternative viewpoint and not to try to change the other person‘s. And that it is also not OK to let the statement go unremarked upon.

A person who is emotionally mature works to sustain and appreciate their emotional connections. In this world, where we believe we socialize more than ever because we like or heart someone’s post on Facebook, we need to identify that as the immense trap that it is, separating us from one another, more than bringing us together. Emotionally mature people make it a point to keep in touch with the special people in their lives through calls and maybe messages or even letters. The way that emotionally mature people behave in relationships is one which is both appreciating others and themselves, that is fair to others as well as to themselves. They think of themselves as strong people, who deserve to give and receive help from their friends. They understand that sometimes people don’t say the right thing, but they look beyond what is being said to understand the effort, and, again, presume positive intentions. Emotionally mature people cool off and then discuss with someone who hurt their feelings. Now, here’s an interesting, new, idea for me!

A hard thing for me to swallow was that emotionally mature people have reasonable expectations of themselves. I have a lot of work to do here, but I read the words and understood their meaning, all the while recognising that for the past 46 years I’ve done very little in this area. Emotionally mature people keep in mind that being perfect isn’t always necessary (or even possible, I might add), that getting two steps in right is better than attempting to get five in and never getting anything done. To be emotionally mature means to understand that you are human and when you make a mistake to not beat yourself up about it. To realize that sometimes outcomes are different than we expect and that everyone is responsible for their own feelings, and for expressing their needs clearly. One quote to stayed with me from the book is the following: “Beyond common courtesy, it isn’t up to me to guess what others want.” Enlightening!

Last but not least emotionally mature people communicate clearly and actively about the outcome that they want to see. They don’t expect people to be mind readers. They don’t equal caring for them with automatically knowing what they’re feeling. More so, to be emotionally mature means that when people upset them, they use their pain to identify their underlying need and based on that, clearly communicate to help the other understand how their actions made them feel and how things could be improved.

To be emotionally mature means that, when our feelings are hurt, we try to understand the reaction we are having first. It means we pause enough to realize whether the reaction we are having is a result of the thing that just happened to us or has triggered something from our past. This led me to remember the same Dr. Brené Brown cautioning about chandeliering, that behavior where we continue to push feelings down inside and not express any frustration, only to explode at the littlest action that tips the scale and create a response that is proportionally inappropriate with that one little action but reflective of everything we have kept bottled up.

Letting go is something emotionally mature people do. They check in with themselves about their feelings, they truthfully and kindly express their needs and ask for help. And then, they let things go. Probably the hardest thing for me to do. Somehow it’s always felt to me like I needed to resolve everything in the moment, without delay. I have always experienced a fear of missing out if I did not bring things to a conclusion, whatever that was, and maybe this was a trait of my obsessive compulsive tendencies, not efficiency, really. As I am embarking on building a new identity for myself as an emotionally mature adult, letting go is the frontier that seems the furthest away from me and it helps to know that all I need to do today is to be aware and to take one step in the right direction.

Photo: Marcus Pablo Prado on Unsplash