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What Hinders and What Supports Emotional Maturity?

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  • May 6, 2016 at 8:47 am #103753
    Gary R. Smith
    Participant

    The post ‘When does fear serve us?’ [1] ends with:

    “Since emotional mastery and the capacity to skillfully and wisely choose our emotions already exists and they only appear far removed because the mind fabricates that story, all that is needed is to let go of what hinders and merge with the creative spark which has designed us. What hinders is the subject of another post.”

    This is the other post, and looks at both what hinders and what supports emotional maturity.

    A person in the Emotional Mastery forum asked, “Could you please comment on why emotional mastery is desirable?”

    The term ‘maturity’ fits more with my view than ‘mastery’ and I use them as different nuances of the same thing.

    To answer the forum participant with questions:

    “Why stay a seedling, when the design of Nature is that it grows into a tree?” and “Is it desirable to thwart the design of Nature that humans actualize themselves as conscious beings?”

    What exactly is self-actualization?

    Abraham Maslow described self-actualization as a high-level need in the following way: “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” (Maslow, 1954, Motivation and Personality, p. 93) [2]

    I am in complete agreement with Maslow to this place and with his outlook in general — and branch away when it comes to what a human being can be. Visionaries have seen into the future of technology. Their visions, thought strange and crazy in their day, became the everyday reality of more ‘advanced’ technology. Who has envisioned an ‘advanced’ human?

    Yes, there is the philosophical concept of the Renaissance Man, that ‘a man can do all things if he will,’ which considered man the “centre of the universe, limitless in his capacities for development, and led to the notion that men should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own capacities as fully as possible.” [3]

    I see the whole human [4] not as being advanced, the centre of the universe or able to do all things. It is not about trying, knowledge, or developing, but simply about growing into emotional maturity, an original design of Nature that has never been realized. My ‘vision’ is not envisioning in the sense of fantasizing some grandiose idea. It is gained by listening deeply to what Life is saying and perceiving what already is. Engineers cannot design the emerging human, as Nature has already written the blueprint.

    What prevents the realization of a mature, whole human? The primary hindrances to maturity are rigid beliefs, stuck patterns of behavior and fear in all its variations. Fear is its own frequency, the carrier wave of fragmentation in humans. It generates and supports the illusion of separation from the one being of universal consciousness. The fruits of fear are smallness, suffering and slavery. Most people choose fear because of its familiarity, which gives comfort to the immature. The immature remain a seedling. When a person chooses to grow into maturity, they are steadfast to go through the discomfort and — in the fullness of unfolding — experience themselves as the mature tree of their original design.

    Staying un-realized and emotionally immature is what keeps humankind in a cycle of suffering, and controllable by those in power. Consciously evolving to fulfill my highest potential is my greatest joy.

    If a person doesn’t have the longing to mature, then there is no spark to unfold and the seedling remains a seedling. But a person who dies in old age an emotional child is not a tragedy. In Nature’s efficiency, unconscious human biomass is recycled so new biomass has a choice to become conscious.

    “I don’t display emotions. I have every feeling that everyone else has, but I’ve developed ways to suppress them. Anger is one of my most comfortable feelings.” – Curtis Jackson

    Staying steadfast through our discomforts, neither suppressing nor avoiding nor wallowing in them, is the way to grow.

    Though I have no attraction to feeling emotions for the sensation, I understand some people do. And I understand that until now earth and its inhabitants are emotional. Even plants have emotions. These energies in motion have served a purpose. For those who choose to grow — feeling the emotion as it passes through, accepting and observing it neutrally and not acting upon it, can certainly be supportive of the unfolding into emotional maturity.

    As mentioned before, I feel that with the earth changes and shifts in consciousness occurring now, we have a window of opportunity for those who choose to not only mature but transform.

    Stages of unfolding cannot be compared between people because unfolding is not linear. A coastal Redwood unfolds and matures differently than an apple tree or an oak. There are no ‘shoulds’ and shouldn’ts. Emotional maturity has a certain look and feel to it, to me. It is a personal perspective. We are not in competition to compare who is ahead of the other. That is what hinders.

    My lists of what hinders and supports emotional maturity is of course from my perspective. It is not meant as a rule book or even to apply to anyone else. This is to share the general idea of recognizing what hinders and what supports, not to be too specific and definitely not legalistic. Letting go of what hinders reveals what supports. What hinders is part of the fragmentation of humans, what supports is part of the original design of the whole human.

    The emotions which hinder maturity are unstable and stormy energies in motion, automatic reactions triggered by stimuli, and fast changeable. A person may experience awe in one moment and disgust in the next, expectation is followed by disappointment, exultation by despondency. Emotions which hinder maturing seek gratification from the outside and are greatly influenced by swings of circumstances. There is deep stillness in emotional maturity. External stimuli which clamors for attention and is able to draw a person into it hinders. The immature seek entertainment and comfort and are drawn to the clamoring. The mature abide in stillness while acting in the flow.

    Some people stay in hindering emotions or behaviors for the experience, and if a conscious choice it can still be a part of their unfolding. Even when a habit in the ‘unsupportive’ list is unconscious or stubborn, at some point a lesson can be learned and it would support emotional maturity. It just is a slower process and may end in being recycled before growing out of the seedling stage.

    I am not a ‘list person’ usually and the words by themselves may be unclear without explanation. This is just a start. Your input will help me understand how others view it and perhaps begin writing how I see the energy behind the word being either a hindrance or a support to emotional maturity. In the end, lists are not needed. When a person can sense it for themselves without naming, when they are self-aware enough to feel their inner landscape, all that is needed is to let go in the moment of whatever hinders. Your questions and comments will be read with an open mind. Many thanks.

    Hindrances of emotional maturity/mastery
    (and characteristics of emotional immaturity)

    Addiction
    Aggressiveness
    Analyzing
    Anger
    Angst
    Anguish
    Annoyance
    Anxiety
    Apathy
    Arousal
    Arrogance
    Assumptions
    Attachment – to what hinders
    Awe – when drawn out of oneself into stimuli
    Beliefs
    Blaming
    Boredom
    Comparing
    Competing – Measuring
    Confusion
    Contempt
    Contentment – in circumstances
    Control of others/circumstances
    Cowardice
    Curiosity
    Cynicism
    Depression
    Desire
    Despair
    Disappointment
    Disconnection
    Disgust
    Disrespect
    Distraction
    Distrust
    Dread
    Easily influenced/influencing others
    Effort
    Embarrassment
    Envy
    Excitement – as stimuli
    Expectation – which turns to disappointment
    Fear of emotions
    Fear of the Unknown
    Fear
    Frustration
    Greed
    Grief
    Guilt
    Gullibility
    Hatred
    Helplessness
    Hidden motive
    Horror
    Hostility
    Hysteria
    Identifying – with status, image, role, hindrances and so on
    Imbalance
    Indifference
    Intellectualizing
    Internal Chaos
    Internal clutter
    Irony
    Irresponsibility
    Jealousy
    Judgments
    Labeling
    Laziness
    Linear thinking
    Loathing
    Loneliness
    Loss
    Lust
    Manipulation
    Numbness
    Obsessiveness
    Opinions
    Outrage
    Over-thinking
    Panic
    Partial view
    Pity
    Pleasure
    Polarity
    Possessing
    Poverty / Victim Consciousness
    Preference
    Prejudices
    Pride
    Projections
    Pushing
    Rage
    Regret
    Remorse
    Resistance
    Sadness
    Sarcasm
    Seeking – outside oneself for what already is
    Sentimentality
    Shame
    Shock
    Shyness
    Social Behavior
    Sorrow
    Speculations
    Stagnation
    Stubbornness
    Suffering
    Surprise
    Taking – Getting
    Tension
    Trying
    Unawareness
    Unconscious Habits
    Withdrawing within
    Wanting
    Worry
    Supportive of emotional maturity/mastery
    (and characteristic of same)

    Abundance
    Acceptance
    Accepting
    Actualizing
    Allowing
    Appreciation
    Authenticity
    Autonomy
    Awareness
    Awe – when it reflects from the stillness
    Balance
    Beauty – recognized within
    Being
    Caring
    Celebration
    Centeredness
    Clarity
    Co-creating
    Communion (with Nature, the one being and oneself)
    Compassion
    Confidence
    Constancy
    Courage
    Creativity
    Detachment from what hinders
    Effortlessness
    Empathy
    Equanimity
    Essence
    Expanding energetically
    Feeling
    Flowing
    Freshness
    Generating
    Giving
    Grace
    Gratitude
    Grounded-ness
    Harmony
    Honesty with self
    Humility
    Humor
    Inspiring
    Integration
    Integrity
    Internal order
    Intuition
    Joy
    Kindness
    Knowing
    Letting go
    Love
    Naturalness
    Neutrality
    Nurturing
    Opening (heart)
    Owning
    Pausing
    Peace
    Play
    Playing
    Presence
    Purity
    Quality of attention
    Respecting
    Responsibility
    Sensing
    Serving
    Spaciousness
    Strength
    Surrender
    Trusting
    Whole view
    Wholeness
    Will
    Wisdom

    After letting go of what hinders and embracing what support emotional maturity, what next?

    [1] ‘When does fear serve us?’

    When Does Fear Serve Us?

    [2] What exactly is self-actualization?
    http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/abraham-maslow/

    [3] Renaissance man: Philosophical concept
    http://www.britannica.com/topic/Renaissance-man

    [4] Being a Whole Human
    http://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/

    • This topic was modified 8 years, 11 months ago by Gary R. Smith.
    May 6, 2016 at 2:43 pm #103792
    Joe
    Participant

    Gary

    I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your e-mail sooner – it’s been a hectic past few days, I was up in Manchester yesterday…

    This has been really interesting to read. I am familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (we had to look into this when I was taking my adult education night-class last year.)

    But with regards to the question at hand – what hinders emotional maturity – I would like to suggest that being surrounded by toxic people could be a cause to this – projecting many of the negative emotions that you have mentioned in the list. Criticism. Abuse. Expectations. Maybe some people are unaware that they are poisoning a relationship – These people have their own dramas, their own dilemmas…Being around these people who deliberately or unintentionally do or say something which creates distress and disrupts the state of emotional equilibrium that the person was in.

    Unfortunately many people I have come to know can’t handle criticism, yet it’s somehow okay for them to criticise others. There’s this unwritten expectation that people are expected to just grin and bear it and I just have to put up with whatever crap comes their way – they bottle it up and the seething resentment starts to build up. You think you know someone but suddenly and unexpectedly, things can turn really ugly.

    But what do I know? I’m no psychologist!

    I just can’t conceive the possibility of ever reaching a point where I would be able to not feel negative emotions. Maybe that’s just me being a cynical pessimist. I think people are condemned to constantly play this tennis match between feeling good things and feeling bad things towards other people, I just can’t imagine being in a state of perpetual equilibrium between the two…The best I can hope for is to learn to accept the fact that I am stubborn and some people just rub me the wrong way. Personalities clash, there will always be people I don’t like or people who put me on edge, and who will irritate me to the point where my inner calm is disrupted or threatened.

    What are your thoughts on this?

    Joe

    May 7, 2016 at 8:04 am #103863
    Gary R. Smith
    Participant

    {{This has been really interesting to read. I am familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (we had to look into this when I was taking my adult education night-class last year.)}}

    Hi Joe,

    I value our digital relationship and allow myself to feel it goes deeper than that as we get a sense of each other, some true, some projection of what we’d like to be. I am interested to know you are you are and not just as my projection of who you are. That is my lead-in to respond, as I have realized that my social skills are not the most refined. I am good with writing a post which I can edit and re-edit, but when it comes to personal replies, I feel a bit out of my element unless it happens to be in the Flow.

    You may wonder where I am headed with this. To get to the point, if we were talking face-to-face I would feel more at ease because we could correct ourselves in the moment, make what was said more clear, and bring our body language into the conversation. I feel unsure as to how directly I can respond without offending.

    {{But with regards to the question at hand – what hinders emotional maturity – I would like to suggest that being surrounded by toxic people could be a cause to this – projecting many of the negative emotions that you have mentioned in the list. Criticism. Abuse. Expectations. Maybe some people are unaware that they are poisoning a relationship – These people have their own dramas, their own dilemmas…Being around these people who deliberately or unintentionally do or say something which creates distress and disrupts the state of emotional equilibrium that the person was in.}}

    My perspective on this is that it is only when I let go of pointing to ‘others’ as the cause of my distress and disruption of equilibrium, and take on full responsibility for my reactions to their criticism, abuse and expectations that I can grow into emotional maturity. I am in a challenging situation also, and even recently ‘blew up’ in reaction to my perception of disrespectful, lazy, unaware behaviors. And after that, I took on more self-responsibility and recognized that behaviors in ‘others’ just reflect the seedling state of unfolding in these adults and I can still find ways to be with them without judging their judgment or being intolerant of their intolerance. I actually have become grateful for them in their seedling state, as it presents a challenge for me to ‘work on.’ Working on myself is the only way to grow.

    {{Unfortunately many people I have come to know can’t handle criticism, yet it’s somehow okay for them to criticise others. There’s this unwritten expectation that people are expected to just grin and bear it and I just have to put up with whatever crap comes their way – they bottle it up and the seething resentment starts to build up. You think you know someone but suddenly and unexpectedly, things can turn really ugly.}}

    That is also what happened to me last week. It is with a family member, a grown adult I have known for 16 years and shared many adventures and experiences with. Deep down, we have mutual familial respect and love. But we depart from each other in our values and ways of looking at life and approaching everyday situations. I know I cannot change him, or even make suggestions, as he does not ask to change. So I can either leave or do the hard work of rising above. Leaving at some point may be the wisest, when we are complete here and I am called to move on. When it is in the flow. Until then, I work on myself and observe progress. I have seen definite progress in me, in specific examples.

    {{But what do I know? I’m no psychologist!}}

    You are an intelligent, thoughtful, well-grounded person. You have all you need to meet the challenge.

    {{I just can’t conceive the possibility of ever reaching a point where I would be able to not feel negative emotions. Maybe that’s just me being a cynical pessimist. I think people are condemned to constantly play this tennis match between feeling good things and feeling bad things towards other people, I just can’t imagine being in a state of perpetual equilibrium between the two…The best I can hope for is to learn to accept the fact that I am stubborn and some people just rub me the wrong way. Personalities clash, there will always be people I don’t like or people who put me on edge, and who will irritate me to the point where my inner calm is disrupted or threatened.}}

    That is one way. Another is to accept the challenge of growing into the fullness of your potential where your response to the immature behaviors of others is a smile that comes from within. Being happy for no reason.

    Gary

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