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Are you entangled in difficult
relationships or painful emotions? Do you suffer from old trauma?
Do you suffer from your parents' drama, your partner's demands,
or your boss's moods?
Do you want to untangle your life?
Are you Mature?
Your emotional intelligence, together with your
intellectual intelligence and relationship intelligence, comprise
essential parts of your life. How would you assess
your emotional maturity?
Your every relationship is a hologram of your life.
You can mask but not hide your self-awareness, your maturity, your self-control,
your commitment and your integrity. In every relationship you show
how well you listen, communicate, initiate change, follow through and solve problems.
In every moment in every relationship you proclaim your maturity.
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Emotional Age |
Some people seem mature at work and
socially inept at home, or vice versa. We use emotional age to
describe social abilities. We compare this with the chronological age
of an average normal person to indicate emotional maturity in
relationship behavior.
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Relationships expose Maturity
In every relationship action, you expose your life
values and maturity. In every relationship decision, you express
your communication skills, your commitment and your integrity. You
cannot hide your maturity - or lack of it - for long. Emotional
immaturity indicates past abuse or
trauma.
Your maturity reflects your ability to monitor and
manage your emotions, to assess the emotional state of others and to
influence their opinions and behavior. Your emotional intelligence
and emotional maturity seem to be profoundly influenced by your
relationship history and your
trauma history.
What are Emotions?
Psychology has given rise to many misconceptions about
emotions, the most popular perhaps is that some emotions are negative.
Also, many psychological definitions of emotions seem
devoid of the humanity of those people who value their
emotions.
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Plutchik |
An emotion is a
patterned bodily reaction of either protection, destruction,
reproduction, deprivation, incorporation, rejection, exploration
or orientation, or some combination of these, which is brought
about by a stimulus. (Feelings & Emotions 1970) |
Other definitions focus on the experience
of being human.
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Carruthers |
Emotions are sensory experiences that
communicate across relationship systems. They can be distorted or
dissociated according to values and beliefs. Emotions provide motivation and
inspiration to withdraw ... or to excel (Systemic Coach manual) |
Some people dissociate or rigidly control their
emotions. They may be perfectionist, conscientious and compulsively preoccupied
with details. These are characteristics of people in professions which require
individual performance rather than teamwork, such as economics, law, medicine
and science. Their emotional and relationship habits may only allow long-term
partnership to people like themselves.
Are you Emotionally Mature?
If you avoid or rigidly control your emotions, you may act reserved, dissociated
or robot-like. If you feel but avoid expressing your emotions, you may falsify
your relationships, undermine your health and delay your development. Adult maturity
is often compromised by child abuse
or emotional incest.
Why not check your emotional intelligence:
- Can you cope with change?
- Can you talk about emotions?
- Do you call some emotions negative?
- Do you express your feelings appropriately?
- Do you recognize your feelings as they occur?
- Do you manage strong emotions and impulses?
- Do you act intelligently when you are under
stress?
- Do you take responsibility for your actions and
behavior?
A "No" may indicate part of your life
where you may be emotionally immature. If stress becomes high enough
to cause you to age-regress (whatever the cause), you may feel and act
childishly for a time, before recovering balance and
sobriety. During this time, your behavior is more likely to be immature.
If you are still responding to stress, unassimilated trauma
or relationship disappointments from your childhood,
you may occasionally act out your trauma - usually triggered by some reminder or
transference. We help people manage strong or chronic emotions (without drugs).
Emotional Intelligence & Relationships
You display your emotional maturity
in every relationship. Do you:
- build and maintain friendships?
- teamwork toward shared goals?
- cooperate with your community?
- clarify mistakes and wrong assumptions?
- inspire your family and lead other people?
- share responsibility for children and projects?
- provide balance or justice when things go wrong?
- communicate appropriately? (for the relationship type)
We help people develop their emotional maturity by
clarifying difficult relationships and resolving the cause of
emotional problems.
Youth Fades ... Immaturity Lingers
Children, teenagers and some adults
need protection from childish emotions, immature behavior and impulsive
decisions. We help motivated people change:
1. Self-Centered
You are egocentric and selfish. You have little regard for
others and you are preoccupied with your own ideas, feelings and symptoms.
You deeply believe that you are somehow special. You demand constant
attention, respect and sympathy (see emotional
incest)
2. Uncontrolled
You express yourself in temper tantrums, prolonged pouts and rapidly
changing moods. You are frustrated easily, and you over-react to
perceived criticism (see relationship abuse)
3. Gratification
You want everything now. Your behavior may be superficial, thoughtless
and impulsive. Your loyalty lasts only as long as a relationship
seems useful. You have chaotic finances (see trauma)
4. Dependent
You are indecisive, easily influenced and you avoid responsibility
for your actions. You stay in unpleasant relationships to avoid change (see
passive aggressive)
Do you want to change immature
behavior? Or do you prefer to continue as you are? |
Emotional Intelligence & Communication
Does your emotional intelligence change dramatically when
you feel strong emotions? Do you, for example, find yourself behaving like
a young child if you feel abandoned, or like a teenager if you feel betrayed? Left unresolved, the
consequences of suppressing or dissociating emotions may include unpleasant
medical symptoms such as hypertension,
colitis, ulcers and chronic fatigue.
How old do you feel and act when you feel strong anger,
sadness or fear? How far do you age-regress? What do you do after you
express strong emotions? Do you:
- Express emotions without conscious
control (like a young child)?
- Suppress or hide your emotionally driven
behavior (like a pre-teen)?
- Repress or dissociate your emotional
experience (like a teenager)?
- Accept, acknowledge and express your
emotions (like a mature adult)?
We help people feel, manage and express their
emotions appropriately.
Emotional Intelligence & Trust
Rapport is often used to describe
compliance, in which an abuser tries to influence your decisions,
with sales pitches, confusing rhetoric or hypnotic language. They may
claim, "It's all for your own good".
Can people trust you with sensitive personal information?
They may have trusted others and later felt betrayed or abused. Trust
helps people get on with their lives, and seems essential for innovation
and creativity. Trust can take years to build and seconds to
destroy. Abused trust can cause lasting damage to a
friendship, family, organization or government.
Trustworthiness is an essential part of maturity. If people
do not trust you, you may find yourself justifying every detail of every
decision you make. And remember that not everybody is as mature as you.
Be cautious about who you trust with important, confidential or personal
information.
Emotional Intelligence & Leadership
Leadership is more than a desire to delegate tasks.
Knowing what to do is one thing - getting other people to do those things is
another. If your confidence helps orient people, and if your decisions are
beneficial, and if you communicate your confidence and decisions well -
people will respect you. We can coach you to be a true leader as you
develop your leadership skills. Do you want to:
- set a clear example?
- communicate clear visions?
- transfer responsibility to workers?
- challenge people to continually learn?
- develop individual capability and competence?
- clearly communicate your goals of quality
performance?
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Viktor Frankl
from
Man's Search for Meaning |
... man should not ask
for the meaning of his life, but recognize that
it is he who is asked. Each man is questioned by life; and he
can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life
he can only respond by being responsible. |
Online Coaching to improve Emotional
Intelligence
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2002-2012 All rights reserved. |
