What is the secret to being good at relationships?

Do you know emotionally mature people find building and maintaining healthy relationships easy?

”Emotional maturity is the ability to handle situations without unnecessarily escalating them.

Instead of seeking to blame someone else for their problems or behavior, emotionally mature people seek to fix the problem or behavior.

They accept accountability for their actions.” Monique Judge

What are the personality traits of someone who is emotionally mature?

They are responsible, honest, and stable. They empathise with others, stay calm under stressful conditions, are humble, have integrity, are well aware of their strengths and weaknesses, have healthy self-esteem, and are prepared to do what it takes to fix a problem. 

What is emotional immaturity, and how does it affect us?

An emotionally immature person may present with some of the following symptoms:

• They get angry quickly at the slightest provocation.
• They have unrealistically high expectations of others, which means they are frequently disappointed.
• They usually suffer from low self-esteem.
• They struggle to develop meaningful relationships with other people by being too needy or overbearing, frightening people.
• They find it hard to deal with everyday life challenges.
• They tend to live in the past or the future – instead of in the now.
• They tend to take it out on other people when confronted with uncomfortable emotions.
• They can suffer from severe mood swings and find it hard to control their behaviour.
• They usually have a pessimistic outlook on life and mostly negative talk.
• They have learned to feel helpless in life, feeling they have no control to make positive changes.
• They deal with stress with difficulty.

If you are tuned out of your own emotions, you will be poor at reading them in other people. Daniel Coleman

What causes people to be emotionally immature?

Greg S. Baker from Divine Ingredient says there are 2 primary causes for emotional immaturity:

• Emotional trauma as a child or young person.
• Never having had to accept responsibility for one’s actions.

Why does childhood trauma cause emotional immaturity?

A child does not possess the skills and understanding to cope with trauma. When a child is exposed to trauma, for example, sexual molestation or bullying, they cannot process the hurt. The only way they can cope with the trauma is to pretend it never happened. Although they physically grow and become mature, their emotional growth is halted when the trauma happens.

In cases where a person never learned to take responsibility for his/her actions, the parents are at fault. Parents who fail to hold children accountable for their behaviour rear a child who knows he/she can get away with anything. They become destructive adults who mess up relationships because they never learned empathy and get into debt. After all, they never learned to manage money, lie, and avoid taking responsibility for anything. It is always someone else’s fault.

Can I improve my emotional maturity?

The good news is that you can improve your emotional maturity even as an adult. Here are some things you can implement in your life every day:

• Stop blaming others and accept responsibility for your life.
• Live in the present – not in the past or future. The only impact you can have is in the now.
• Be pro-active. Seek solutions for problems.
• Accept that you have choices – life doesn’t just happen. Write down what you value and what your vision for your life is. What do you dream about? Start making good choices. Take your time to make decisions – especially long-term ones.
• Become aware of your emotions. Learn to be friends with all your emotions – you have feelings for a reason. You don’t have to react to every emotion. Most of them you can allow floating by like a leaf on a lazy river.
• Always be honest. Live with integrity. Do what you promise. Be trustworthy.
• Develop empathy for others and be sensitive to their feelings. They also get hurt.
• Learn to pause – don’t react in anger. Breathe, listen, and wait before you respond.

How do I help my child to become emotionally mature?

A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life.

And as he adapts his mind to that regulating factor,

he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts;

ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress,

and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.

”As a man thinketh”  by James Allen