As we practice living and functioning in our Healthy Adult, it becomes easier to notice all the emotional immaturity within and surrounding us. Why is it that so many adults (including ourselves sometimes) struggle with emotional regulation? Even when we try to be healthy, emotionally self-aware adults, why is it so easy to backslide/regress into emotional immaturity?

Emotional immaturity is an inability to understand, express, and manage emotions in an age-appropriate, responsible, and effective way. In The Adult Chair framework, emotional immaturity is often living from your Adolescent Chair – the part of you that is reactive, scared, stuck in survival mode, and dependent on others for emotional security and validation. Underneath it all, believe it or not, the ultimate need is to maintain safety and belonging.

Emotional maturity is living from the Healthy Adult, meaning, you’re grounded, curious, emotionally self-aware, and compassionate toward yourself and others. You respond to situations as an emotionally well-developed individual, and this is shown in the way you handle feedback, express empathy, and take responsibility.

In my session work, my clients and I discuss how important relational health is to personal wellbeing. So, let’s do a short relational health exercise in our heads together right now.

Take a quick inventory of the top five or so people you care about most in your life. Think of the people you love most in the world – the relationships you prioritize over everything else – and answer the following questions:

·        Who do you gift your time, energy, and compassion to?

·        How do you express your love to these individuals?

·        In what ways do you prioritize them?

·        Last question… Did you include yourself on that list?

If you forgot to put yourself on the list, you’re not alone. Many people struggle with prioritizing self-love. But why? Let’s explore what self-love really is, what self-love is not, why it matters, how to practice self-love, and why loving ourselves feels so… selfish?

#DeepBreathIn #Exhale

Let’s dive in…

Well… New Year’s is here again. Time to change our hair, up the ante, make lofty, ‘life-changing’ goals, and then exhaust ourselves trying to accomplish those resolutions… Yay.

To be fair, sometimes this works. Depending on your personality, season of life, and other nuanced variables, the whole New Year, New Me thing could be fun and may even be feasible. But if the mere thought of New Year’s resolutions provokes a tired sigh from the depths of your being, then please know you are definitely not alone.

Pressure from elaborate New Year’s resolutions often leads to burnout, stress, or worse – inaccurate and unwarranted feelings of inadequacy. The truth is that sometimes those New Year’s goals simply aren’t achievable. There. I said it. And I don’t say that to disempower you or suggest your potential is limited. It’s not.

All I’m saying is, what if the goal you really need to set for yourself this year is to embrace who and where you are? Because there is a time and place for ambitious resolutions, but for many of us, setting realistic intentions instead of goals may be the far more mindful option.