Emotional maturity – what does that mean? Our world is full of both goodness and social unrest. My observations of current world issues lead me to believe there is value in conscious emotional awareness – emotional maturity.

Consider events such as politics, corporate well-being, crimes against others, grief, anger, school shootings, and so on. Conscious or unconscious emotional responses have everything to do with the maturity of our leaders, children, families, and individuals.

Emotional maturity means understanding how we experience and respond to feelings. For a simple example, imagine someone speaking harshly toward you. What is the first emotion you feel? Shock, anger, misunderstood, defensive, or something similar. When you feel the emotion, is it conscious or unconscious? For a unique example, remember someone who speaks lovingly to you. How is your immediate emotional feeling different from the first example? Caring, open, understanding, and warm. Again, when you feel the emotion, is it conscious or unconscious?

As humans, we are capable of responding or reacting to feelings consciously or unconsciously. Can you sense the difference between the two? Understanding how we are reacting and responding has everything to do with our emotional maturity.

When someone speaks harshly, it is perfectly normal to feel shocked, angry, and so on. However, when we identify the feeling, we are acknowledging it. Then, we have a conscious choice about our response. That is emotional maturity. On the other side of the coin, if we respond unconsciously, without consideration or thinking, we create a platform for unwanted results. This is emotional immaturity.

Increasing our emotional vocabulary and observing our responses gives us conscious life tools to navigate personal and global events. These tools affect how we respond and live. I intend this suite of blogs to both increase our emotional vocabulary and increase our understanding of how different emotions function for us. This conscious exercise is the root of growing our emotional maturity.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch