Everyone experiences different emotions in their daily life on different levels, however not many of us are aware of the feelings we face daily and their reasons – the origins. We guess we are just moody or having a bad day when we feel bad out of the blue, instead of focusing on our emotions and really being in tune with them like an emotionally mature person would do.
We mature as we age as humans, however emotional maturity sometimes has very little to do with a person’s age. Their upbringing, care givers, path of life can shape a person greatly and may or may not help them to reach maturity. According to Professor Eri Nakagami “Emotionally mature people are self-aware, attuned to their emotions, and know how to manage them. These individuals continually work on various emotional and cognitive skills to help them cope with stressful or adverse situations and reach successful resolutions to life’s challenges.” Being able to adapt to different situations and conditions is an important part of reaching emotional maturity, knowing how to manage yourself and the emotions that come within you is actually a skill that a person can learn. Of course, characteristics of a person may help them in this journey, for some people it can be easier to adapt and to tune with themselves.
Being emotionally mature means that you are able to focus on the emotional realities of others when it is needed by taking the focus off of your own needs and viewpoints at times. The basis of being able to manage your feelings in a healthy way is to recognize your feelings, and also have an understanding of what is motivating them to feel the way you do. According to Dr. Nakagami “How a person feels can help them understand why they are reacting the way they are instead of taking out their feelings inappropriately or suppressing them”.
An important trait of an emotionally mature person is that they are not concrete in their thinking. Life can be challenging, an emotionally mature person will respond to life’s challenges with an open, creative mind. “A person who has developed a strong emotional maturity is flexible and open-minded by being adaptable to change,” Dr. Lawless says. They are able to consider ideas that are different from their own, which enhances their ability to compromise with others.
Another important sign of emotional maturity is the ability to maintain healthy and secure relationships with others. This is often more easily obtained in people who have developed a secure attachment style. Secure attachment refers to a deep sense of trust, safety, and connection that individuals develop during their early years through consistent and responsive caregiving, however this attachment style can be worked on and obtained when someone gets older as well.
Those with a high amount of emotional maturity are able to easily apologise, take responsibility and be accountable for their actions by understanding and accepting consequences. They consider how their actions will affect others and will take responsibility if their actions end up causing any type of harm. In addition, they change harmful behaviour as they see mistakes as an opportunity to grow and learn.
Being able to set and maintain healthy boundaries is one of the core parts of being emotionally mature. That means that you are able to declare what your emotional boundaries are to yourself and others, and that you are able to hold onto those boundaries when faced with conflict. You can think of setting boundaries as a form of self-care, self-love, and self-respect. “This doesn’t mean that setting healthy boundaries will come easily for you, but you will be able to recognize their importance,” Dr. Nakagami says.
Emotionally mature people will seek to resolve conflicts, rather than prolong their existence, or thrive off of their chaos. In life conflicts are going to arise at all times, however how you handle them is the matter. Another thing about life is that you are going to face stress. A person that is emotionally mature will not try to push the stress away or to avoid feeling it. At the same time, they won’t go into despair everytime they are inevitably faced with it. Instead, they will learn how to manage stress.
Change is the core reason that we can adapt and grow as individuals, especially when the challenges we face are too much to handle for our current self. Simply having the intention to change is an important first step. You might feel that becoming more emotionally mature may not be something you are meant to do on your own. If You feel like this, a great way to work on your emotions is therapy. It is helpful with understanding your emotions, what is triggering them, and learning methods for handling them easily. Therapy can also help you approach relationships with more emotional maturity.
Journaling is also helpful while working on your emotions since it gives you the ability to think and see more objectively about yourself. And we should not forget that wherever we are in our emotional maturity journey, and whatever roadblocks we may have faced, there’s always hope for change and growth.
Cansu Cömert
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”
- Viktor Frankl
Sources:
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