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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, 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 will show
how well you listen, communicate, initiate change, follow through and solve problems.
In every moment in every relationship you proclaim your emotional age and
emotional intelligence.
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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 predicts 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 most profoundly influenced by your
relationship history and your
trauma history.
What are Emotions?
Many psychological definitions of emotions seem
devoid of the humanity of those people who value their
emotions. Such definitions are often lists of abstractions ...
|
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.
|
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) |
Are you Emotionally Mature?
If you avoid 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. Many
adults maturity seems to have compromised by child abuse
or emotional incest.
You can easily check your emotional intelligence:
- Do you listen to other people's ideas?
- Do you cope with unexpected change?
- 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?
Any "No" may indicate part of your life
where you may be emotionally immature, although many people will answer
"Not really" to question 6. If your stress is high enough
to cause you to age-regress (whatever the cause), you may feel and act
childishly or even infantile for a time, before recovering balance and
sobriety. During this time, immature behavior is more likely.
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 motivated adults develop their emotional maturity by
clarifying difficult relationships and resolving the cause of emotional
outbursts.
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 it all 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 betrayed? Left unresolved, the
consequences of emotional suppression or dissociation may
include unpleasant medical symptoms such as high blood pressure, colitis, ulcers and
chronic fatigue.
How old do you feel and act when you express 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 motivated adults feel 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. The consequences of 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.
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:
- 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?
|
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. |
Click HERE to improve your
emotional intelligence!
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2002-2010 All rights reserved.
emotinal, emoshunal, souwlork, coching, couching, inteligence, intelligents |