Emotional Maturity

written by: Kosjenka Muk

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Compare your behaviour with the behaviour of an emotionally healthy child (although with the average upbringing most children lose their emotional health very soon): how much of that curiosity is still left in you…of that playfulness…mobility…openness…energy…trust…joy of life…? Can you imagine bringing all of those qualities back into your life? These are our true qualities and they can not be destroyed; we cut them off or suppress them as a result of unpleasant experiences and limiting beliefs, but every human being possesses the ability to start living them again.

Emotions are “the voice of our soul“, parts of us that are closest to our inner core, to that primordial, spontaneous and intuitive being. Whenever there is a conflict between rational thinking and emotions – if the emotions are healthy – my experience leads me to believe that almost always the emotions will be right.

Emotions bring information of how our deepest, truest parts are experiencing what is going on around us. Emotions are messengers that come from that huge reservoir of the unconscious rather than from the limiting rational knowledge. Whenever somebody is violating our personal boundaries and integrity in a subtle way, our emotions will warn us much faster than our ratio. They can give us warnings about the danger of manipulation, exploitation or any other kind of hurt. Unfortunately we are used to censor them much more than we are even aware of. Often we will notice this in others, but rarely in ourselves.

Subliminal, emotional part of us will register much more of other people’s personality and intentions than the conscious mind can notice. It will register every little detail in others' nonverbal signals and as a result give us the inner knowledge that we call intuition.

Facing our emotions

Since emotions are parts of our core being, we cannot destroy or simply reject them. In my opinion, too many spiritual, religious and New Age approaches are trying to reject, ignore, conquer or „rise above“ emotions, resulting in a deep inner conflict that leads to even more suppression, control and fear of self-awareness, less tolerance and consideration for other people’s point of view.

Even for people who are truly committed to personal growth, it'is sometimes quite difficult to face unpleasant emotions. The reason for this is that most unhealthy emotions are deeply connected to a toxic self-image. Becoming aware of it can be very unpleasant – but much less unpleasant than we are usually afraid it would be.

When we block unpleasant emotions, the pleasant ones are also blocked, since they are not independent of the whole. To small children who are completely dependent on others, being faced with immaturity and lack of love in people around them is so frightening that they try to moderate this experience by accepting negative beliefs and suppressing true feelings. The reason why it is so hard to resolve those feelings and become aware of them is that the infantile parts of us, once dissociated and suppressed from consciousness, never had the chance to grow up. They stay on a childish level of perception even when we grow up. Even now, they are still just as much afraid of awareness and heavy emotions as at the time they were originally created.

Healthy and unhealthy emotions

How can we distinguish healthy from unhealthy emotions? Here are some guidelines:

Heathy (adult) emotions:

- the intensity of emotions is appropriate to the situation (in everyday situations, it's usually mild discomfort, like a warning)
- healthy emotions motivate us, give us energy for appropriate action, for example defending our boundaries and integrity.
- we usually have no problem expressing them, as those parts of us were able to mature because they were allowed to be recognized and expressed. (We might feel problems and tension, though, if those adult emotions are mixed with unhealthy emotions and guilt, which can often happen since many people learn in an early age to feel guilty if they sincerely express their feelings)
- there are no tensions and uneasiness left once the situation is over,
- there is no black/white attitude, we perceive both sides of the story
- we don't feel humiliated or bad about ourselves, and we don't feel a need to humiliate and hurt others.

Unhealthy (childish) emotions:

- are either too intense or suppressed
- they are followed by an inner conflict, usually between guilt (maybe it's my fault) and shame (I acted stupidly) on one side, and anger (they have no right to treat me like that, I should tell them what they deserve!) on the other, accompanied by an unpleasant body sensation. This conflict can give us a hard time long after the unpleasant situation is over. Even if you are objectively right, this kind of emotions can show you that there is a part of you that is either frightened or feels guilty.
- this conflict saps your energy and, if prolonged, leaves you tense and tired
- you feel that you are (mostly) right, and the other person (mostly) wrong (sometimes the other way around, but that's more common in children or extremely abused people)
- in the same time, you feel uncomfortable and doubtful about yourself, which usually motivates you to criticise the other people even more, and try to find even more of their faults

It happens to all of us that some details in other people's behaviour trigger very strong emotions, so strong that we are easily convinced that they are justified, even if everyone, including our common sense, tells us that our reaction is too intense. This can often happen in love relationships, since they arouse our deepest emotions. In those moments it's difficult to stop thinking about the other person’s behaviour, move focus to ourselves and take responsibility for our emotions – but exactly at those moments this is most important and brings most benefits.

Physical discomfort is the most common signal that something is suppressed – a sensation of pressure, a soft cramp, pain or burning sensation in the body. For example, if we feel hurt or threatened, usually some immature part of us will come to surface, a part that believes that we somehow deserved the hurt, even if a big part of our conscience is fully aware of reality. To suppress those uneasy feelings and defend themselves, most people use counter-attack or start blaming others. The more intense fear and guilt are, the bigger is the need to criticise not only the behaviour, but also the personality of others.

As we can experience it everyday, this process happens almost unconsciously and passes unnoticed. During that time, the physical discomfort continues and intensifies, sending the warning that we are missing something here. But due to the fear to confront those unpleasant emotions, it seems much easier to move on with the same behaviour although it doesn't bring any results, rather than to turn inwards and face our pain.

Accepting responsibility

If I would define emotional maturity, I would define it as accepting responsibility for our feelings and experiences, our behaviour and the circumstances in our lives.

One of the easiest ways to avoid unpleasant emotions, and one that is hardest to unlearn, is passing the responsibility over to others by pointing out mistakes in their behaviour. Even if you are right, when you notice that you keep thinking about the actions or faults of others, imagining what you would like to say to that person, while at the same time feeling uncomfortable sensations in your body, you can be sure that you are avoiding some kind of fear, guilt or a feeling of inadequacy. It is very easy to be caught up in this process, especially if you realise that the other person is passing the responsibility over to you too. Then both of you can be caught in direct or indirect “ping pong” game – the game called „Who started it first“, both of the players feeling more and more attacked and therefore attacking back.

In the long term, in this way you just create more and more similar feelings, until the point when you finally decide to take full responsibility to resolve them. You can be sure that you have resolved the true cause of a certain problem when those situations no longer trigger an unhealthy emotional reaction. For example, healthy anger will come up if there is the necessity to react, but in healthy anger there is no need to hurt others or put them down, just an urge to set boundaries. Afterwards, if your reaction was constructive and appropriate, there is no lingering feeling of negative emotional charge and discomfort.

In my opinion the true foundation of successful self-development work is the continuous awareness of everything we feel. In this way we can recognise issues that we have to confront, build true intimacy with ourselves, honesty to ourselves, and finally much more self-esteem.

Sometimes unpleasant situations can be so frightening that we feel we would rather do anything else in the world than to confront them. Yet this very fear of confrontation is the main cause of discomfort. If we are able to overcome it and allow ourselves to truly accept those feelings, we will usually experience that they are much less unpleasant and frightening than we thought they would be.

When we are afraid or embarrassed to express our emotions, we give ourselves the message that our feelings are not important. On the other hand, it's mature not to send others the same message by acting as if only our feelings matter. Be aware that there are many ways to express the same emotion, and words that come to your mind first might not be the most mature of all.

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© Kosjenka Muk. All rights reserved.