Characteristics of Emotional Maturity

An admired acquaintance recently experienced a complicated and painful cycling accident.  He is an avid and accomplished cyclist in his 50s.  The effect of such injuries requires that he (we) call upon our experiences and capacity for managing (sloppily, we all admit) stress, `dead' time, handling boredom, too much self-reflection, overthinking every damned thing. 

So here is something I have read and re-read to remind me (and hopefully others) of what it means to be a grown-up.

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Maturity: noun. 1. a being full-grown or ripe, 2. a being fully developed, complete, or ready, 3. a becoming due (Webster's New World Dictionary).

1. The ability to experience and understand our own deepest feelings and needs, and to be able to act on and express these feelings and needs in appropriate and constructive ways. This is opposite from "acting-out" our needs in unconscious, destructive patterns of behavior. This aspect of maturity includes the ability to experience and tolerate especially intense feelings - which inevitably occur in life - and to be able to appropriately express these feelings, or contain them until an appropriate and responsible means for expressing them is available.

2. The ability to act on and react to life circumstances with intelligence, sound judgment and wisdom. This aspect of maturity is opposite the tendency to act impulsively, without taking the opportunity to think through our actions or consider their consequences. (Wisdom: having the quality of good judgment, learning and erudition, soundness.)

3. The ability to recognize, empathize with, and respect the feelings and needs of others. This is opposite from a selfish and chronic preoccupation with our own needs, with no awareness of, or sensitivity to, the needs of others.

4. The ability to delay the immediate satisfaction of our own needs, so that we may attend to other more pressing needs or actions. This is opposite from a condition in which our immediate needs always take precedence over all other needs.

5. The ability to love - to allow another's needs, feelings, security, and survival to be absolutely paramount - just as if these were our own.

6. The ability to adapt flexibly and creatively to life's changing circumstances and conditions. This is distinct from the tendency to respond to life's challenges in rigid, outmoded behavior patterns that are no longer particularly effective or appropriate.

7. The ability to channel our energy, both positive and negative, into constructive contributions to ourselves, to others, and to our communities.

8. The willingness and ability to be responsible and accountable for our own circumstances and actions in life, and the ability to differentiate our responsibilities from those of others. This is distinct from blaming others and seeing ourselves primarily as the victim of other's behavior, or from maintaining a sense that we are somehow responsible for the happiness and well-being of all those around us. Responsibility arises from a stance of strength and competence; it does not include pronouncements of blame, shame, guilt, or moral inferiority/superiority, as all these are judgments added to the basic condition of responsibility.

9. The ability to relate comfortably and freely with others, to like and be liked by others, and to maintain healthy and mutually satisfying relationships.

10. The ability to choose and develop relationships that are healthy and nurturing, and to end or limit relationships that are destructive or unhealthy.

©Maryland Institute, 1998