94: How to Develop Emotional Maturity as an Adult

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Mar 20

This episode is about how to develop emotional maturity as an adult. Have you begun developing self-awareness but realized there are some immature patterns you’d like to change? Or have you noticed that in certain relationships you can be emotionally immature? Or do you struggle to handle or process your emotions?

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In this episode, I answer a listener question from someone who read the book Adult Children on Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C Gibson and not only saw their parents’ behaviors in the book, but through self-reflection they realized they too possess some of these immature behaviors. In this episode, I outline 4 steps on how to develop emotional maturity.

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Timestamps ⏱️

Introduction: 00:14
Listener Question: 02:07
Outro: 23:26

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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Castmagic. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:01]:
Welcome to New View Advice. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher, and I invite you to join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever problem or trauma is holding you back from living life to the fullest. Let's get started. Hi, beautiful soul. My name is Amanda Deroscher, and welcome to New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. It's not my intention to give you all the answers. I believe you have all the answers you seek.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:26]:
You just may need a new view and a little help along the way. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Today, I will be discussing how to develop emotional maturity. So I find that when many people start the healing journey, they begin to become very self aware. For the first time in their life, they begin to develop self awareness. So they begin to see their patterns. They begin to see how they react to things. And many times when this happens, people can have a stark realization that they're not as mature as they thought they were.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:55]:
And so maybe you have started developing this self awareness and you realized you have some immature patterns you'd like to change, or maybe in certain relationships, it brings out the most immature version of you, or maybe you have found that you don't know how to handle or process your emotions. If so, this is the episode for you. In this episode, I answer a listener question from someone who read the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay c Gibson. And not only saw their parents' behaviors in the book, but through self reflection, they realized that they too possess some of the immature behaviors described in this book. And so in this episode, I outlined 4 steps on how to develop emotional maturity. My intention for this episode is to help you to learn how to build emotional maturity, embrace your humanity, practice self compassion, and lean into feeling your feelings. And before we jump in today's episode, I just wanted to mention, as always, that if you haven't checked out my website yet, you can check it out at New Viewadvice.com for more free resources, including journal prompts, meditations, blog posts, podcast episodes, and more about the healing journey. And for today's episode show notes, you can check those out at newviewadvice.com/94.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:59]:
So with that, let's jump on into talking about emotional maturity.
Listener Question
Hi, Amanda. I came across your podcast recently when a now former partner shared your episode on the father wound. In that episode and others I've listened to since, you recommended the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. It had been on my radar for a while and hearing it mentioned again was the push I needed to buy it and then read it after getting dumped a couple weeks later. Upon reading it, I realized that many of the negative traits associated with emotionally immature parents are things I do in romantic relationships, hence the breakup. It was a jarring but ultimately enlightening and cathartic read. My question is, now that I have this awareness about my shortcomings, how do I build or develop my emotional maturity? Are there any books you can recommend? I have already found a therapist to work on some issues around anxiety that are surely connected.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:50]:
I'd like to also continue my journey and read more material about emotional maturity and what I can do for myself in that area. Thank you so much for this question. I think this is a fantastic question, and I think it's so important for us to talk about emotional maturity. And I just wanna note that you are not the 1st person to comment on reading adult children of emotionally immature parents and being like, wait. I see myself in this. Now what do I do? I actually saw that's one of the biggest criticisms of the book, and I think that so many people can relate to this experience you had. So I just wanna thank you so much for asking this question. And I just wanna say that you're already developing emotional maturity.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:23]:
So as I outline these 4 steps, just remember that you are developing emotional maturity. And how do I know this is that you are listening to this podcast. You are reading self help books. You're reading about emotional maturity. So I wanna upfront just say that developing emotional maturity takes time. Many people think that when they turn 18, they're emotionally mature, or what I find very often is that younger people look at older people and just assume they're mature. That is not true. And the older you get, the more you can see how much immaturity there is in the world and the more you develop emotional maturity, the more you can see immaturity in yourself and also in others.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:57]:
I think this is such an important question for us to discuss because, unfortunately, I see a lot of immaturity in the world we currently live in. I see a lot of unresolved pain and wounding and a lot of immature behavior. And Instagrams, social media, whatever it is. I talk to people all the time who are terrified to put themselves out there in a way such as I do, so talking publicly, because they're so afraid of being attacked. And I just wanted to note this upfront because I think it's so important for us all to practice developing emotional maturity. I am so sad sometimes by the state of the world and seeing how immature people are. It breaks my heart because I see clearly how wounded so many people are. But at the same time, if you're listening to this podcast, I hope you are an adult because this is adult content.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:54]:
But we are adults and we should act as such. I don't know when we decided it was okay for us all to treat each other like children, And I don't wanna get on my high horse and go on a rant, but I do just wanna note that I think emotional maturity is so important in our own lives and with one another. Because when we learn to become emotionally mature, our lives change. And when we change our lives, we change the lives of those around us. So the more mature I've become, the more my relationships have blossomed. The more I create safety for others, the deeper the love I have for myself and others becomes through maturity. But with maturity comes responsibility. And I think that's a reason so many people run from maturity because they don't wanna take responsibility and because they have a lot of inner pain and wounding, which we'll talk about through these steps today.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:42]:
But I wanted to mention this upfront because I think that so many of us witness immature behavior regularly. And for some people, that will justify immature behavior. Like, this person's immature, so I can be immature. But when we are developing maturity, it's important for us to recognize we are adults and we should act as such. And so with that, I'm going to jump into how do we develop emotional maturity? As you mentioned, you realize you have some immature habits. I think we've all been there. I know I've been there. I know I can still have immature habits.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:09]:
So how do we begin developing emotional maturity? So I have outlined 4 steps for developing emotional maturity. They are 1, self awareness. 2, get in a good relationship with your emotions. 3, practicing self care. And 4, understanding you are human. So now I'm gonna break these down step by step. Step 1, self awareness. Self awareness is so often the first step to healing, and it sounds like this is where you are right now.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:34]:
I just wanna acknowledge you are already developing emotional maturity. As I said at the beginning of this episode, it takes time. And so just recognizing that you are on the path, I think, will help you to relax into the process rather than trying to force the process. So it sounds like for you, you're becoming aware of your patterns in relationships, how your immature behaviors have impacted your relationships, and how your parents' immaturity has impacted feeling. This may sound obvious, but so many people are disconnected from how they're feeling or only notice their feelings when they're at a breaking point. But many times before we scream at someone or before we have an emotional outburst, there were signs and signals about how we were feeling. Many times when we're feeling angry, for example, the anger begins to build and then becomes an outburst. The anger didn't just overcome us in that moment very often.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:33]:
Part of emotional maturity is beginning to become aware of your emotions and how you're feeling right now. I mentioned this example a lot, but when I was in my early twenties, I took an acting class where for homework, we had to check-in with our emotions multiple times a day. A list of 3 emotions we were feeling when we did the check-in. And this seemed kind of stupid to me. I'm gonna be honest. But over time, I realized this wasn't stupid. I began sussing out how I was actually feeling. So instead of just saying I was anxious, I had to go deeper.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:03]:
So for example, when I was driving around LA, I may have felt anxious, but I also was maybe feeling angry and overwhelmed. But when I was heading to an audition, I also felt anxious, but maybe I was anxious, scared, and impatient. Or when I was heading into a new social situation, I may have felt anxious again. But as I dove deeper, it was anxious, panicked, sad, scared, nervous. So the more we begin to identify our emotions, the more we'll develop this emotional maturity because part of the maturity is recognizing our emotions. Rather than having our emotions rule us, we become in control of our emotions, and how we do that is by giving them space, acknowledging them, processing them. If we're not aware of how we're feeling, then we're not going to be able to do that because that's when our emotions take over because they have been bottled up for so long, they just have to get out. So emotional maturity is really beginning to get in communion with yourself.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:59]:
It's connecting with yourself and seeing your emotions. So with self awareness, I invite you to become aware of your emotions and spend time reflecting on how you feel. I invite you to do this multiple times a day, or maybe you wanna do a nightly or a morning check-in, but practice this for 30 days. I mean, ask yourself how you're feeling. It doesn't take very long to really just check-in with yourself and see how you're feeling. And over time, you'll begin to see where certain emotions live in your body because that's another step of self awareness is connecting with the emotion and your body. So for me, anxiety lives, like, in my solar plexus and my sacral chakra. That's where I feel anxiety.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:35]:
And so when I start feeling that area, I'm like, oh, there's the anxiety. Or for me, fear lives in my chest. My chest starts to collapse. And through self awareness, I begin to notice where these emotions live in my body. So it's a much quicker process for me to see how I'm feeling because I'm connected to my body and the emotion. I hope that makes sense. So becoming aware of your emotions is like the foundation of developing emotional maturity. You can't be emotionally mature if you don't know how you're feeling.
Amanda Durocher [00:10:04]:
So other things to become aware of when developing emotional maturity is recognizing your relationship patterns. As you mentioned, you have begun to notice these in your own life. I also invite you to become aware of when you react to life immaturely or when you have an unhealthy emotional response. Many times when we become aware of these examples, such as yelling at a partner or a coworker, crying when somebody gives us healthy feedback, or berating ourselves and calling ourselves a failure, or even acting out violently, these are moments to begin bringing that awareness. Instead of judging yourself, begin to become curious about why you acted this way. Many times, our own self judgment keeps us from awareness because we judge ourselves, so then we're unable to go deeper. But by bringing that curious energy to your patterns, to your relationships, to your emotions, you're able to begin to go deeper and see why you reacted so strongly in a certain situation. Was it that situation itself, or was this situation reminding you of a core wound or of a similar experience you had in the past? So through self awareness, you will begin to connect deeper to yourself.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:10]:
When developing self awareness, I wanted to mention here that unprocessed trauma can also lead to emotional immaturity. And as a survivor of child sexual assault and rape in my teen years, I can say that much of my emotional immaturity stemmed from unresolved trauma. So these were massive traumas in my own life, and they left devastating effects because they were unresolved for decades. I actually disassociated from these, so I wasn't even conscious for a very long time about the amount of trauma I survived. And because of this, I played out a lot of immature patterns. And so in order for me to become emotionally mature, I had to look at these and process these traumas. And I wanna mention, as always, that this is not easy work. It's not for the faint of heart.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:54]:
I think it's actually really courageous to look at trauma. Many people never look at it, and I don't judge that choice. But I do wanna say here that you are strong. You're strong if you're here. This is, again, not for the faint of heart. I'm not a light podcast. I have been told I'm pretty intense, and I own that. I'm cool with being intense.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:13]:
This is how I got to where I am, and I like where I am. And I didn't always like where I was. So I just mentioned this because if you're somebody who survived a lot of trauma and you find you're emotionally immature, there could be a connection here with unresolved trauma, and that's okay. It's not something to judge ourselves for. You're beautiful, and you deserve to be free of this pain from the past. And so if you're dealing with trauma, it may require more help than these 4 steps. So I'm so grateful to hear you're in therapy. I think therapy is a really great step.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:41]:
I think working with a coach or a guide. I offer 1 on 1 sessions. But finding somebody to support you through this process, I did an episode about EMDR last week, and I found EMDR to be really helpful. It wasn't a one size fits all. You know, it didn't fix all my problems, but it definitely helped me to process some of these really tough emotions. And so you may or may not be ready to dive into your traumas. If you're listening to this podcast, my guess is you are ready, and maybe you're already in the midst of it. But it is a difficult path, but it's worth it.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:09]:
You know, on the other side of healing so much trauma, I have found a sense of peace I never thought I'd find. I am more loving, more caring, more gentle, more kind, more patient, and all those are mature characteristics. And I also here with self awareness wanted to mention some books. So you mentioned that you're interested in reading more books. I find reading really falls under that self awareness category. Right? As we're reading, we build that self awareness, and I find one of the first steps of the healing journey is really gathering a lot of information, listening to podcasts, reading books, going to therapy, talking to people, watching YouTube videos, gathering all that information, seeing that there was never anything wrong with you, seeing there's a reason for the way you act. That's all part of the self awareness phase. And so some other books I recommend are Brene Brown books.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:53]:
I think that they are such a great place to start. Daring Greatly is one of my favorite books, and I think everybody can benefit from Daring Greatly. Brene Brown does such a good job of using story and statistics to really help us all to learn the importance of vulnerability and why shame is such a culprit of immature behavior in so many of our lives. I also recommend Nicola Paris' book, so she has how to do the work and how to be the love you seek. She did also outlines how to do the inner work. And another book I thought of was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And this book, if you follow those 4 steps, that will help you develop emotional maturity. This is a very simple book with what I think is jam packed wisdom in about a 100 pages, and it's a very simple guide to living an authentic and heart centered life.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:41]:
And another book I always talk about, Getting the Love You Want, will help you to see some of those childhood patterns and the patterns you're playing out in your relationship and how they could be connected to childhood wounds or to your parents. My partner and I did that book a long time ago. The exercise is in it. We did the workbook with it and found it to be really helpful for our relationship. But I know many people who have done it on their own and have found it helpful as well. You don't have to be in a relationship to go through the book. So those are some books I recommend and I think will help with emotional maturity. And so this leads me into step 2.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:12]:
So once we've got all this information in our head, once we see the patterns, once we begin to see our feelings, the question becomes, what do we do next? And this is when we want to practice being in a good relationship with our emotions. So developing emotional maturity involves unpacking repressed emotions, learning how to process your emotions, no longer ignoring your emotions, and regulating your emotional body. What happens on the healing journey many times is that people start with self awareness. They gather all this information, and then the next step is learning how to practice this information. Many people practice it a little while they're developing self awareness, but there's oftentimes this step where we stop consuming information and we begin to just practice it. Because we can read about it, we can understand it, we can learn it, But so much of the learning is going to be within practicing it. Because each of us is going to have our own process for diving into emotion. So how I handle my anger may be different than you handle your anger.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:09]:
Doesn't make one right or wrong, but it's through practice that you find the practices that work for you. So I always recommend journaling. I think journaling is an amazing way to process our feelings. Meditation's an amazing way to process our feelings. But you're going to wanna lean into different ways and trying different ways to process your feelings. So some episodes I recommend listening to where I talk about processing our emotions are if you feel like you struggle with anger, I have episode 52, why feeling anger and rage is important and how to release your anger and rage in a good way. If you find yourself feeling sad, I recommend episode 39, advice for healing and feeling sad about getting older and feeling sad about being single. If you're struggling with anxiety, I recommend episode 58, workplace anxiety, how to heal impostor syndrome and deal with a difficult boss.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:53]:
And if you're feeling depressed, I have episode 44, advice for depression, how to move through seasons of depression with self care, self awareness, and self compassion. And so you may be like, well, I don't have workplace anxiety. I have social anxiety. Or maybe you're like, I'm not sad about being single. I'm sad about being something else. I still recommend listening to these episodes. I think many of these episodes can be applied to many different situations, and I offer a lot of different practices in these episodes even if these episodes don't specifically apply to you, I think that there's learnings within all these episodes. So if you find one of these emotions is something you really struggle with, I invite you to listen to that.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:24]:
But as I mentioned, you have to learn how to be in a good relationship with your feelings. To be emotionally mature, we have to take responsibility for our feelings. Your feelings are valid. Your suffering is real. The pain you have experienced was real. But in order to be emotionally mature, we have to accept that we have many times experienced things that were unacceptable or that we have experienced injustices, and we have to learn to accept that. And how we learn to accept it is by feeling the whole experience, is by allowing ourselves the space to have all our feelings about it, and this takes time. I talked about healing from sexual trauma throughout my life.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:06]:
It took me years to feel all those feelings. I'm still feeling some of those feelings. I feel 10 times better than I did a year ago because I felt the feelings, because I've allowed them up, because I gave them the space. And how do we give it the space? This leads me into step 3, which is self care. Where when we are developing emotional maturity and when we are developing maturity in general, we learn the importance of self care. Self care is not just bubble baths. Even though I love a good bubble bath as much as the next person, self care is learning to take care of yourself. Because many times, our emotional immaturity can stem from not taking care of ourselves.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:46]:
So emotional outburst or emotional shutdowns come from the fact that we are overloaded, overwhelmed, stressed out beyond belief, and have not processed our feelings or are on overload of other people's feelings and have not taken care of ourselves. So self care is not froofy. Self care is essential. And so self care could be putting up boundaries, practicing boundaries within your work, your relationships, and with family. Self care also is resting. In a world that moves at a 100 miles a minute, rest is so important. I don't know who said this quote first, but we are not human doings, we are human beings. And so when we are healing and we are learning to process our feelings and when we are learning to create space for our feelings and we are learning to take care of ourselves, something we all need to learn is the importance of rest.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:36]:
It is okay to do nothing. It is okay to spend a day watching TV if you had a really bad day yesterday. It is okay to spend time in nature. It is okay to take a nap. It is okay not to get everything done on your to do list. It is important for you to take care of yourself. I can't believe the amount of times I have to remind myself this, the importance of taking care of myself. There's so much I wanna create all the time, and I'm simultaneously healing as I create, as I have a business, as I have a podcast, as I'm trying to do all these things.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:10]:
And healing humbles me time and time again because it teaches me that rest and taking care of myself are important. And for me to be able to create good content for people to listen to, it requires I rest. It requires I do nothing some days. And the more I relax into the nothingness, the more rejuvenated I become. And so self care, rest, and boundaries are so important when developing emotional maturity. Another reason for this is that self care helps us to develop safety within ourselves, and it's a way we learn to trust ourselves. You wouldn't trust somebody who was screaming at you to go go go all the time. You'd be like, ugh, I don't wanna be around that person.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:49]:
So don't do that to yourself. Be kind to yourself. Mature people are kind to themselves, which leads me into step 4, which is understanding you are human. What does this mean? Life isn't about being perfect. It's important when developing emotional maturity to understand it's okay to make mistakes. Many emotionally immature people have core beliefs around being failures, not feeling like they're enough, and feeling really, really insecure. Part of building emotional maturity is understanding that you will make mistakes, you are not perfect, you are human. It's okay if life is messy.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:20]:
The more grace and understanding you give yourself, the more you will begin to offer this to others as well. I am only able to be authentically kind and loving with others because I am kind and loving with myself. And the days that I'm not kind and loving to myself are the days I'm often caught saying something I regret to my partner or someone else. I'm not perfect either, but it's understanding in those moments, oh, what's going on here? And bringing that self awareness back, allowing myself to process those feelings, practicing self care. It's repeating these steps over and over again, and part of that is understanding you're human. As I mentioned, I think this conversation of maturity is so important because the world right now is filled with a lot of immature people, and we're only going to create lasting change and a better world for all if we begin embodying maturity, responsibility, and compassion for one another. And that starts with taking responsibility for your life, your choices, your decisions, loving yourself and being kind to yourself, and understanding there are times you will not get it right and that's okay. When we start practicing boundaries, it's really messy.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:21]:
When we start feeling our feelings, it's really messy. When we start getting in relationship with our anger, it can be really messy and that's okay. Understand you are human. Understand you are not alone in that. Do not judge yourself. Embrace it. We are here to be human. We are not here to work ourselves to death.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:38]:
We are not here to live in fear. We are here to live. Life is sacred, and part of that is understanding you're human. And before I wrap this episode up, I just wanna mention to people out there who have struggled, I see you and I feel you so deeply. Again, you did not deserve the mistreatment you have experienced. You do not deserve the systems that have failed you. You do not deserve to struggle and to feel unseen and unheard in your suffering. You never deserve the trauma or the cruelty.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:06]:
Your pain is valid, but emotional maturity is learning how to validate it within and to accept that unacceptable things have happened. That all your feelings are valid, but you do not need to take those feelings out on the world. Instead, if you learn to process and feel those feelings, those feelings become a compass to where your heart is leading you. And in this crazy world, I believe your heart is the only compass you can always trust. Thank you so much for this question. Thank you for joining me for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I'm so grateful to be able to have these conversations with you each week. If you have a question you'd like to hear answered on a future episode, you can reach out to contact at newviewadvice.com or you can visit my website at newviewadvice.com/question.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:51]:
Thanks again for joining me for another episode of Nuvia Advice. As always, I hope I was able to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. Sending you all my love. See you next time.