Hello friends,
how are you doing today?
I hope you’re enjoying these articles. I mean let’s face it, even if Coronavirus is around that doesn’t stop us from working on ourselves and becoming better friends, brothers, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, cousins, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, colleagues, etc. You know how I’ve come to this article on emotional maturity? One day I was listening to Sadhguru’s talk with someone, possibly in India. The topic of relationships came up and Sadhguru’s wise words were, “If you cut people out, you will have more enemies to manage.” It was something along these lines. I kept pondering on that sentence as I wanted to write an article. I wasn’t sure how I could put that sentence into a nutshell and so I kept searching for one or two words to describe that sentence. Emotional maturity nailed it, that’s it I said, it was exactly what I wanted to write about.
Alright, it’s a while since we had a cuppa together. What say you we go and make one? I am feeling like a really thick hot chocolate. Imagine that thick chocolate and milk, I mean really making a hot chocolate from scratch, like actually brewing it… Wow, that thought just there reminded me of Switzerland, a time when I worked at a ski resort. We used to brew the hot chocolate on the stove to serve the customers at the snow bar. So, how bout we make one? Okay, I still haven’t convinced you, let’s see… Imagine real cacao, the real deal, now imagine I pull out a bar of milk chocolate as well. We let the milk heat up, then add in the cacao as well as some of the milk chocolate. I open the spice cupboard and take out the jar with the cloves and cinnamon. I take out the jar with some nuts too. I take a few from each jar and add it to the milk as we stir the cacao and the thick chocolate already melting in the milk. Now, do you fancy some hot chocolate? Yes, I knew you’ll be up for that. Alright, now we need to wait a little bit more because I am waiting for the nuts to heat to a certain degree so that it can flavour the milk just enough.
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In the meanwhile, let me take out our cups, hey, you must try these biscuits, I know you have never had them before or perhaps you have tasted them once in your life. See these biscuits are the type of biscuits that the Muslim community around here usually make. I can tell you that I have never tasted biscuits like these, nowhere in the world, except for here in South Africa. These are the type of biscuits that melt into your mouth, it doesn’t crumble, it literally melts in your mouth within ten seconds. The truth is no one waits ten seconds these days because when you dunk them into the hot chocolate, slowly taking it into your mouth… that is it, my friend. You have literally reached chocolate and biscuit heaven.
I believe I’ve convinced you twice now. ?
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Alright, ready to fill your cup? Now let’s sit down and talk about what you’ve been wanting to talk about, emotional maturity.
The truth be told that before one can be emotionally mature you would need to be responsible first, meaning take full responsibility of your own life. Taking full responsibility of your own life now and for one day, one month or one year doesn’t bring you to the whole understanding of emotional maturity. Understanding that life is made of tosses and turns, meaning life is difficult and accepting that as you show up in the world and the way you show up can determine your successes and failures. This is the first and most basic understanding of emotional maturity. Emotional maturity consists of Emotional Intelligence too. In this article 9 Practices of achieving emotional maturity Sherrie Campbell who is a phycologist, author and speaker at point number five which is delay gratification she states the following:
“Mature people have found a way to ground themselves in self-control. They know that those things worthy of their time will require their patience, persistence and effort. Mature people are able to delay gratification. They enhance their experiences of pleasure by first dealing with and experiencing their pain and getting it over with. In other words, they place their responsibilities before leisure as the only successful way to live.
The mature are willing to tolerate feelings of discomfort long enough to find solutions to their problems. An immediate solution may represent gratification to many, but mature people know that the best solutions come with delaying the need to get rid of the problem quickly. The most lucrative solutions are found in the process of thinking through the problem.”
You can take a look at the following nine practices of achieving emotional maturity in detail on the link above.
- Seekers of self-mastery
- Emotionally intelligent
- Positive attitude
- Independent
- Delay gratification
- Truthful
- Responsible
- Accessible
- Gracious and giving
If you look at the young generation today they have access to so much on the internet that they have gained the information but nothing akin to the experience, so as mature as they may seem they don’t possess the know-how of achieving emotional maturity. This article The marks of maturity Tim Elmore describes artificial maturity and goes into these points in detail.
- Pruning the brain
- A mature person is able to keep long-term commitments.
- A mature person is unshaken by flattery or criticism.
- A mature person possesses a spirit of humility.
- A mature person’s decisions are based on character, not feelings.
- A mature person expresses gratitude consistently.
- A mature person knows how to prioritize others before themselves.
- A mature person seeks wisdom before acting.
On this article 15 Signs of emotional maturity, each point goes into detail. Here are the points overall.
- Recognize and admit when you’re wrong.
- Recognize and admit you’re biased.
- Recognize and accept your own feelings and needs.
- BUT Recognize that your feelings and needs don’t run the show
- Set healthy boundaries
- Pause between feeling and reacting
- Love defined as compassion
- Composure, grit, and ability to endure setbacks
- Positivity and optimism
- Honesty and integrity
- Self-control and delayed gratification
- Express gratitude
- Listen in order to understand
- Don’t take it all so personally
- Don’t make it personal
Lastly, I will leave these two articles in case you are further interested in this subject.
Why emotional maturity and emotional intelligence are important for healthy relationships
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
