Can you increase your Emotional Maturity (EM)?

[Vibration]

I would like to increase my emotional maturity. How do I do that?
Suggestions please??

[The Unconquered]

1. Live longer. Emotional maturity can only occur you mature, i.e., get more life experience.
2. Live more. But you can't mature unless you actually live instead of just exist. Anyone who lives longer grows older, but that doesn't mean they grow wiser.

[Mike75]

Emotional maturity comes with our lives experience. It doesn't have a lot to do with our age. I have seen some 10 year olds which are more emotionally mature than many 25 year olds.

So, just live life to the fullest and let life make you more mature.

[erulisse]

Seek out challenges in life. Get involved. Talk to people. Open your mouth and actually have an opinion. Interact, especially face to face.

I can share from personal experience that getting involved in a community of reasonably like-minded people who you care about and who care about you can really take you to places you'd never expect if you allow yourself to be open to the opportunities that come your way.

[OlderWiser]

Originally Posted by The Unconquered

Anyone who lives longer grows older, but that doesn't mean they grow wiser.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

It's true, though. I think you only start to grow in emotional maturity when you really start to own your own "stuff". All your actions, decisions, reactions, thoughts, opinions, emotions, ideas, etc., and by "own" I don't mean "defend just because you claim them as your own", I mean "accept full responsibility". Good, bad, and indifferent, you have to take responsibility for it, and learn from it. You really do reap what you sow, and if you've sown bad seeds, you need to accept the harvest and learn how to plant better seeds.

(FWIW, my nick is actually a joke on myself. I am wiser now that I'm older, but it's mostly because when I was younger, I was a complete f#&kwit. )

[Mynder]

I'd say understanding others, and seeing where they come from, helps a lot in being more mature in dealing with people in general.

So, attempting to not immediately judge and instead asking yourself why that person might be acting in this way and not accepting a first "he's just a jerk" as the answer may help you develop more depth and understanding, and as an end result, more emotional maturity.

It's not about age at all. It is about understanding and caring (without letting it overwhelm you in the process).

[Alison Jenkins]

Emotional maturity comes with practice. Look at yourself with rigorous honesty and ask yourself when or where do you behave like a child. Do you sulk, stomp off when you don't get your way, keep quiet instead of voicing your opinion when asked, defy authority figures or institutions etc etc. Look at the situations and then work on responding in an adult way. We all have an inner child, it just depends how big it is. People who suffer with addictions are almost always very emotionally immature.

Alison

[st33med]

Be responsible for your emotions.
Your Feelings are Self-Made | Magical Chest

[Vibration]

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I believe I saw something in everyone's response that can help me. I've also been doing some investigating on my own.

One thing that I found that seemed to speak to my problem is:

http://www.morler.com/emotional_maturity.pdf

I just feel like I need to finish growing up, emotionally.

Thanks for the help

[Mynder]

Don't. Don't even think about growing up completely. Keep that inner child alive! Be immature! Be playful!

[blossom]

Originally Posted by Mynder

Don't. Don't even think about growing up completely. Keep that inner child alive! Be immature! Be playful!

I agree. Peter Pan had it right all along. Never '"Grow up", but never stop growing either...there's a difference between the two.

[Vibration]

Originally Posted by Mynder

Don't. Don't even think about growing up completely. Keep that inner child alive! Be immature! Be playful!

Originally Posted by blossom

I agree. Peter Pan had it right all along. Never '"Grow up", but never stop growing either...there's a difference between the two.

I wish I could do that, but it seems impossible because there are sad things to deal with, things that are anything but childlike fun.

Loss of job, difficulty in getting a new one, possibly loss of home soon, displaced family, etc.

One of the things I've learned about emotional maturity is that life invloves change and loss, and emotional maturity has to do with how one deals with these, whether you see yourself as a victim or take a more responsible and enabling stance, and move on.

My past emotional immaturity has hurt me; I'm now reaping the cost. I see that I should have been more capable in my job, more responsible. Now all I can do is to do better next time, and hope there will be a next time.

I'm starting now, with dealing with my problems in a responsible way, not as a victim. I am responsible, and I will pay without complaining, will simply suffer the loss and move on. It is very sobering and heavy.

[Mynder]

Keeping that inner child alive doesn't mean you should go through life behaving like a three-year-old.

It means remembering how you saw that ray of sunlight glinting off the snow-covered field. It means jumping up and down just for the fun of it...sometimes, not all the time.

It means remembering what dreams you had, and keeping that spark alive, that outlook into the future where you dreamed about doing great things.

Sure, maybe you think that your dreams are not too realistic. That's okay. But you are also not your job. You are not your house. And even though this may hurt a lot...you are not your family.

In the end, what it all boils down to is...there is one person that you can never run away from, that you will have to keep facing until the moment you die....and that is yourself.

I like how you take responsibility for the choices you made, and for the choices you make now, and for what is and is not in your life. I suggest you try not to see it as "making up for past wrong decisions", though. Right and wrong are meaningless without something to measure them against. You made choices in your life, and they have led you to where you are now. This in itself is neither "right" nor "wrong". It also isn't "good", or "bad" in itself. Those are interpretations and judgements you attach to these life circumstances because that is how you choose to see them right now.

Let's play a mean ugly mind game. What if the worst happened? What if you lost your house, didn't find new employment, and your family never wanted to hear from you again at all...EVER?

Would that kill you? Would you eventually manage to come to terms with it? What would you do? Would you find a way to somehow handle even this situation?

Your post, especially the work part, sounds as though you have to give up yourself in order to perform adequately and keep your employment. Is that what you want your life to be? No? Then what can you do to change it to something you WANT it to be?

[ProjectX]

OP I think you are talking about Emotional Quotient? (EQ)

[Vibration]

Originally Posted by ProjectX

OP I think you are talking about Emotional Quotient? (EQ)

I'm not sure; you likely know more than I about this.

Is EQ a measure of emotional maturity?

[Vibration]

Originally Posted by Mynder

But you are also not your job. You are not your house. And even though this may hurt a lot...you are not your family.

Let's play a mean ugly mind game. What if the worst happened? What if you lost your house, didn't find new employment, and your family never wanted to hear from you again at all...EVER?

Would that kill you? Would you eventually manage to come to terms with it? What would you do? Would you find a way to somehow handle even this situation?

I'm seeing what you're seeing, and I think you're correct.

Maybe it takes experiences like these to help one grow wiser, to help me understand my true independence, when being made to stand alone, and realize I'm not anything less because of it, than what I always was.

I have the interesting feeling of experiencing loss and at the same time being beyond it, being emotionally beyond the reach of loss.

I have reciently started to feel that this part of me is impervious to loss as long as I choose to be.

[Mynder]

A thought, since you're talking about loss: Can you really "lose" anything that is not recreatable?

[Vibration]

Originally Posted by Mynder

A thought, since you're talking about loss: Can you really "lose" anything that is not recreatable?

Yes, if there isn't enough time to recreate it. For instance, as you get older, the worse it is to lose your home, life savings, etc. only because one's lifetime is not limitless, nor is one's prime earning years.

You also can't recreate the loss of a loved one, but this doesn't apply to my situation right now. But even then, one could create more love ones through forming other loving relationships.

I think it might be going too far to say that any loss can be recreated, but I see your point and agree that most probably can be.

[Mynder]

Well, I could take this thought further, but if you don't share my point of view that we can't really be hurt by anything happening to us in this physical "virtuality", then that would be pointless, and I didn't want to take this discussion on the esoteric/religious/spiritual tangent.

Also, the loss of a loved one (for whatever reasons) might just open the door for an even better fit for who you are now, as opposed to who you were when you met your previous love.

As for the house...do you believe that working a job is the only way to attract the necessary wealth? How about old people writing down their life experiences in books that really help people and could possibly sell very well?

How about teaching/coaching/speaking in the area of your expertise?

We have so much disgust and disrespect for our old...we forget that they are the ones who have so much knowledge and wisdom to impart. And what is the creed of the internet age?

Information, information, information...

Do you suddenly run out of knowledge that you might capitalize on? (well, discounting things like Alzheimer...)

[Vibration]

Originally Posted by Mynder

Well, I could take this thought further, but if you don't share my point of view that we can't really be hurt by anything happening to us in this physical "virtuality", then that would be pointless, and I didn't want to take this discussion on the esoteric/religious/spiritual tangent.

Also, the loss of a loved one (for whatever reasons) might just open the door for an even better fit for who you are now, as opposed to who you were when you met your previous love.

As for the house...do you believe that working a job is the only way to attract the necessary wealth? How about old people writing down their life experiences in books that really help people and could possibly sell very well?

How about teaching/coaching/speaking in the area of your expertise?

We have so much disgust and disrespect for our old...we forget that they are the ones who have so much knowledge and wisdom to impart. And what is the creed of the internet age?

Information, information, information...

Do you suddenly run out of knowledge that you might capitalize on? (well, discounting things like Alzheimer...)

Feel free to share your POV, I won't be offended. I am open-minded and like to understand others' expectations of life and how they make sense of their experiences.

I was answering your questions in a general sense; not all of the situations I described apply directly to me. I am middle-aged, in good health and will likely find future opportunities to contribute my skills as a software engineer again, and add value to the world somewhere, sometime. Maybe not in time to continue living in the home I now have, but that's okay. Like you said, it's just a house, a place to hang my hat.

Actually, if you believe you have a perspective on life that enables you to remain hopeful through challenges, I'd like to hear it, and maybe benefit as well.

[Mynder]

Yes, I kind of exaggerated the age point, because you pointed out there might not always be enough time left to achieve what we want.

And while that is true to a degree (if you're lying on your death bed, you probably won't have time to learn to play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix), as I was trying to point out, even old people have lots of value to provide to society.

Anyway, what I believe in is that whatever happens to us in this reality (or what we think is real) can't actually hurt us. I'm not a full subscriber to the "Subjective Reality" paradigm, but I do follow a certain "holographic universe" line of thinking. So basically, what we experience here, is like a movie to us, or like a play in a theatre. We play certain roles that we act out (our human lifetime), then we "die", or "wake up". I liken this to waking up from a dream. In our dreams, we can be a multitude of different characters, and when we wake, these characters stay with us (if we happen to remember our dreams), they are us, but we are more than just them.

Similarly, I believe that after we die, we awaken to a bigger "us", and incorporate our life experiences into what we are, similarly to (although in a more detailed and more sophisticated way) how we incorporate lessons or interesting experiences from our dreams into who we are.

So, basically, while I don't want this to be seen as a perfect excuse to procrastinate, if we don't manage to "get" or achieve something in a particular lifetime, we can come back down here and finish what we started.

The trouble is....we need to go through another full lifetime again for that, so usually it's best not to run away from what we came here to do.

BUT...if things happen to turn out for the worst...all we lose is time...and time doesn't really exist outside our "physical virtuality" in the same way it does here.

If you want to discuss this particular aspect (holographic universe, infinite realities, etc) in more depth, let's take it to PM, or Email, or just another thread.