Have you ever met someone you would describe as an “old soul” or seemingly older than their years?
You might be describing someone with high emotional maturity.
Investing time and energy into growing your own emotional maturity is well worth it. When you learn how to master your emotions you have a deep understanding of yourself, you are able to flex your empathy muscle in a healthy way, and you are more competent and calm in stressful situations.
Watch the video below to learn more about your current emotional maturity level and what you can do to increase it because doing so will create more opportunities for growth and more harmony in your life!
The American Psychological Association defines emotional maturity as “a high and appropriate level of emotional control and expression”. Emotional immaturity is defined as having “a tendency to express emotions without restraint or disproportionately to the situation”.¹
What does emotional immaturity look like in reality? It looks like a tendency to explode or withdraw completely. Someone might consistently feel victimized by others or life’s circumstances. Those with low emotional maturity lack emotional self-regulation and self-control. It can look like a BIG reaction that is blown out of proportion to what is happening at the moment. It can look like impulsive behaviors and/or black-and-white (rigid) thinking.
If you are curious about where you (or the people in your life) are at when it comes to emotional maturity, go through the following questions to get some more clarity:
Emotional Maturity Inventory
How do you handle stress?
When you are under pressure, how do you react? How do you treat yourself and others when you are stressed?
Do you find yourself snapping at your coworker or taking it out on your partner or your family when you get home? Do you slam a door or get overly nitpicky about something that has nothing to do with the situation at hand?
Or do you check in with yourself and decide to take a break, make yourself a cup of tea and take some deep breaths until you calm down enough to make a plan?
Emotional maturity means having the ability to acknowledge and meet our needs at any moment, even stressful ones. It is making a mindful decision to go within, ask ourselves what we need, and self-soothe.
How do you handle change?
A sign of emotional maturity is understanding that life changes and things happen that are out of your control. Being averse to change and trying to control everything so things stay the same is a sign of inflexibility and emotional immaturity because everything changes.
How do you react when things around you change? Let’s say your best friend got an amazing new job, but she is moving across the country. How do you feel and how do you express it?
Emotional maturity looks like you are able to hold different emotions simultaneously, so in this example, you’re able to feel and honor your sadness around missing your friend, but also you’re able to be thrilled and express your joy for your friend’s opportunity as well. You can effectively deal with both emotions.
What is your frustration level like?
Do you often find yourself irritated by others? Are you often judgemental and find yourself focusing on all the things someone else is doing wrong?
Another indication of emotional immaturity is being at a level 10 of frustration all the time. It is letting the small things that don’t go our way derail an entire experience or even an entire day.
Again, emotional maturity is having the capacity to feel more than one thing at a time.
We can feel frustrated when we’re sitting in traffic, but if we are emotionally mature, we are able to step back and look at life’s bumps in the road as opportunities. Maybe you listen to an audiobook or call your mother to pass the time. Those who are emotionally mature regularly understand this too shall pass, no matter the frustration.
What’s your blame game?
Do you immediately look to blame other people when something goes wrong? Or do you immediately blame yourself and beat yourself up mentally?
If you often find yourself in a place of blame, whether you or others are the target, this is an indication of emotional immaturity.
An emotionally mature individual is resourceful and self-compassionate. Even if you make a mistake, emotional maturity looks like feeling regret, taking responsibility, making amends, and then learning something from the experience.
As I like to say, you can find a gem of wisdom from the crap stew of almost any rough situation and use it as a moment of reflection to achieve deeper self-understanding. But of course, that requires you to be willing to look for the gem.
Your internal experience is directly connected to your emotional maturity. It truly is a noble pursuit because your experience of the world and all of your relationships will improve when you begin to take steps to flex your emotional maturity muscle!
The first step is to begin to understand the nuances of your emotions. I would find with my therapy clients that so much of the time, the feeling on the surface is the one that is the “easiest”. Emotional maturity means getting to the truth of your feelings. For example, anger might be a secondary emotion because it is easier to feel angry or annoyed than it is to feel the vulnerability of being hurt, humiliated, or embarrassed.
It takes some practice, but raising your awareness of what you’re feeling is absolutely worth your effort. Inside this week’s guide, I’m giving you an action plan to help you keep track of what is happening for you over the next week so you can begin to become more fluent in your authentic feelings and strengthen your emotional maturity.
Here’s where you can grab the guide. I would love to know what find out about yourself, so please, drop me a comment here or connect with me @terricole on Instagram. If this helped you, please share it with the people in your world.
I hope you have an amazing week self-reflecting and as always, take care of you.
¹https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-a-emotional-immaturity