Childhood Survival Skills That Sabotage Your Adult Relationships - Part 2: The Path to Emotional Maturity - The Climb Out

Welcome to the virtual couch Lease. Stick a seat. Four pillars, emotional maturity. Bear your self worth run so deep. You are not broken. You are a human. So check that out. You the know No what you don't know. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Virtual Couch. I am your host, Tony Obba. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified mindful habit coach. And welcome to part two of my podcast about emotional immaturity. And thank you for your feedback from part one.

I think that's the most feedback that I have received. So much of it was, okay, great. Now we've identified, established that that emotional maturity I'm saying is it's an epidemic, but now what do we do with it? So I did leave that part out. First, we have to be aware of it if we're gonna do anything about it, and we'll talk about that more as this episode goes along. Reach out to me, tony obba.com. Sign up for the newsletter. We've got an updated round of the magnetic marriage courses coming.

You can find me on Patreon at patreon.com/virtual couch on Instagram at virtual dot couch at TikTok at virtual couch. Let's get to today's episode, and if you haven't heard it, please pause. Go back and listen to part one because this concept around emotional immaturity is it's a game changer. You can't unsee it once you see it.

Let me tell you a story about a guy that I will call Tyler, and that is not his real name. If you are someone that is working with me and you think that this is about you, I think the great Carly Simon said it herself. You're so vain if you think this, this song is about you, and if you don't know that reference. That probably sounded like I was pretty rude. So give that one to Google.

But I think that we will all see parts of us in Tyler, or maybe even parts of people that you know, maybe people that you are in a relationship with. Tyler had a lot going on in a good way. When he was growing up, he was popular, he was smart, he was athletic, and he always knew how to read a room. He could make people laugh, he would say the right thing. He ended up being a class officer and then eventually his student body president, he was captain of his soccer team.

He was the guy that teachers would say would go far and at home. That was kind of different emotions were not really welcome, but I don't know if they were welcome in many people's homes, especially in the time that Tyler grew up. His dad did not say, I love you, unless it was followed by, but you know, you really need to do better. His mom was continually worried. She was distracted. So Tyler learned that attention and praise and admiration were essentially the currency. Of connection.

If you did these things well enough, then you may get acknowledgement or connection, and that worked in his life until things came crashing down and it didn't. Fast forward 20 years or so, Tyler was sitting on my couch, frustrated, feeling pretty alone in his relationship. And at first he honestly felt like the world's biggest victim. He said that he had absolutely no idea why he was there talking with me, but his wife told him that he was definitely the problem.

She had been saying that for a long time, and she was at her wit's end. He said that he felt like nobody appreciated him. He was a walking paycheck, and the harder he tried to be seen, he said the worst that things got. His wife began calling him arrogant and even eventually started calling him a narcissist. His coworkers. Had a bit of an intervention with him. He said that today felt like he was always one-upping them.

You know, I wanna make a joke right now and say, and he said, oh yeah, well I'm doing it better than you are. But that isn't true. But he started to feel like the very things that had made him likable were now keeping people at a distance. And he was confused what got Tyler to my office wasn't necessarily a, a crisis, but it was a very slow drip, a slow frustration.

'cause he was beginning to shut down. And what I honestly thought that he wanted from me was for me to tell him that he was right. I. Everybody else was wrong. Now let's, he and I pick up some pitchforks and let's go find all these people that don't understand him and let's get 'em. Slight tangent. I've made no, no secret that my favorite band is called a JR, and they have a couple of very solid mental health related songs. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend Look Up a JR and Karma.

That's one of my favorites that is talking about therapy. But at this time, a song of theirs had blown up on TikTok. People were doing a particular dance to it. The song is called The World's Smallest Violin. And this is kind of funny. Tyler said that his wife actually sent him. That song and told them to listen to the lyrics and listen very carefully. To which he said he was very honest with me about this.

He said his very first thought was that he would actually find a song that explained his thoughts better than the world's smallest violin than that one. And for some reason, that actually was what helped him realize maybe he was a bit of a one-up. But then he did listen to the song. I was familiar with it, and it became a pretty recurring theme in therapy. Here are the lyrics that hit him a little bit different. So in the song they sing somewhere in the universe. Somewhere.

Someone's got it worse. I wish that made it easier. I wish I didn't feel the hurt. The world's smallest violin really needs an audience. So if I do not find somebody soon, I'll blow up into smithereens and spew my tiny symphony I'll up and down a city street while trying to put my mind at ease, like finishing this melody. This feels like a necessity. So this could be the death of me or maybe just a better me. And then it says, so let me play my violin for you.

But that part where it got to the point where he said, okay, I think that this could be the death of me. Then he had to acknowledge, okay, maybe this could be a better me, because he realized he was trying to find people to listen to him and tell him how brave he is and tell him how amazing he is, and that his stories were better, that he could even take a one up position when he was being a victim.

But he said that he often felt like people dismissed his thoughts or his emotions, but he realized that those thoughts and emotions, the ones that people would dismiss typically came after he was told something that he did that bothered somebody else, or that he had potentially done incorrectly. Or when he hadn't followed through on something that he had promised somebody. But that person didn't understand that something else came up. What was he supposed to do?

But then he got to that point, and I love this as a therapist, where there was a essentially this vibe of like, hold on, are these excuses. Then he realized, okay, maybe I did one up. And then there, there was that beginning of his discovery of his very own aha moment. What we eventually explored in great detail was, so he gets to feel better after he explains that others actually are wrong about him. He gets to feel better after he explains that somebody else.

Well, they did exactly what they're accusing him of too. He gets to feel better when somebody tells him a story and then actually he can come back with an even better story because maybe that they will think that, boy, he really has lived an amazing life. He gets to feel better when he does more, when he goes bigger and when he proves he's right. And what about the other person? Now, all of a sudden, they aren't praising him. They aren't telling him that that's a crazy story.

They aren't in awe of how brave he was to suddenly find himself in the middle of fixing someone else's problem instead of following through on what he committed to earlier. So then I asked him. When you were a kid, what was your relationship like with your parents? And he said that it was, it was great. How come? And I asked him, were they curious about your experiences or did you get asked a lot of questions as a kid?

And the more he thought about it, he said, well, yeah, like, why didn't you get a better grade? Or Didn't you remember that you were supposed to stop by the neighbors and take out their trash or feed their dog? So actually, no, those weren't curious questions. They were questions, but they were questions that meant that he was in trouble or questions pointing out that he had done something wrong. So I asked him, did you like that feeling? What was that like for you?

And he said, no, I didn't like that feeling. I constantly felt like I was in trouble. So then I asked him, well, what would you do to get out of it? And he said that he would tell a larger story, that he would make up an excuse that he would put it back on the person who was asking him the question. We never said that. I thought that you said this little gaslighting. It is a childhood defense mechanism, and you could see it so clearly in the story with Tyler.

I said, it sounds like you got out of a lot of jams and then you could actually go play with your friends. So thank you little Tyler, inner Tyler, inner child Tyler, because he used that tool to survive, but now it is leaving him feeling alone and feeling isolated and like he is again in trouble. What used to work, what worked for him in childhood, no longer works. He was still using the only emotional tool that he had of seeking external validation.

He needed somebody else to help him feel better, even if it was to their own detriment or to the cost of the relationship. Because to him, everything was temporary. And what did he need to do to get outta that moment, get outta that discomfort. But now it was backfiring. Every attempt that he made to impress every joke, to cover up an insecurity every larger than life story to try and get the person to openly praise him, only made him feel less and less seen.

So this is where I got to introduce to him my very favorite acceptance and commitment therapy metaphor, the man in the whole. So picture this, you are in a vast field and you're blindfolded and you're running and you've got a tool bag. Then without any warning, you fall into a very deep hole. And this hole, as we will discuss in detail later, represents a stage of not knowing what you don't know. It just is happening to you.

Or those areas of our self-awareness that remain unseen are blind spots. Now you feel stuck. You're, you're trapped, and you're desperate for a way outta this hole. So naturally, you're gonna turn to the only tool that you have in your bag, and it happens to be a shovel, and you start digging furiously digging. Because you believe that this is the solution, but here's the deeper layer to your situation.

The very act of digging the very tools and strategies that you've been employing up to this point in your life now aren't helping. Now, they might have worked in other situations, but in this hole, they're only making things worse.

It's like you go to therapy or you're seeking help, or you're reading self-help books or podcasts, and you're hoping that somebody is going to give you this gold-plated steam shovel, because our brain naturally goes to this place of thinking that a bigger or a fancier tool, that's probably the answer because I know this is a good tool, but the problem isn't the tool itself, it's the context. It's the situation that you're using it in.

So then you might wonder, well, how on earth do I get outta this hole? But that's where a paradigm shift becomes essential because it's not necessarily about figuring out how to escape. At least not now, not immediately. That would just be a way to, to just get outta this discomfort. It's more about accepting, okay, I am in a hole. In the first place. Imagine being handed a ladder while you're still hanging onto the shovel. Somebody lowers it down into the hole.

What you probably do is you would take that ladder and you would try to dig with the ladder, but ladders make really crummy shovels. So the real challenge is to let go of the shovel, let go of the digging that you would do with that shovel. And I need to be open to a new approach. I need to be open to a new tool. We're gonna tie this back to your journey of self discovery.

We have to acknowledge, take in self, confront, recognize and admit where there might be some blind spots, a flaw, a limitation. And doing so can be scary. It can be really daunting. 'cause we go back to that inner child in us that thinks, oh no, I'm in trouble. I'm doing it wrong. You're just going through life for the very first time as you, but you are carrying around a shovel with you, most likely holding onto our usual methods even when they aren't serving us.

That's a natural human instinct. It's the familiar, it's what we know because it feels too scary and risky to abandon the only tools that we've ever known. I might have to actually ask somebody for help. I might have to say, I didn't know. Those are some powerful words that can be so liberating, but for some reason they're so difficult for some people to say, to acknowledge that they didn't know, or that this is what they thought would work.

But your pain, your discomfort, and then the realization that nothing maybe has worked for a little while, those might be your most significant allies because those are the things that can motivate you to let go. To make space for new tools, new perspectives, and new strategies to be able to say, this ladder looks familiar. I know you can't walk underneath them. Especially if a black cat's falling you around, that's bad luck. And if you're carrying a mirror at the time, forget it.

I need somebody to really help me understand. I might think I know what to do, but I could also not know what I'm doing. So are you ready? Are you ready to give up on the old ways that are now most likely keeping you stuck? I think it helps from part one of this podcast to recognize that those were adaptive strategies that kept us alive in childhood. Now a lot of 'em are maladaptive now. They are what is keeping us stuck.

It's time to, to embrace a new direction, and it won't be easy, but it's a pivotal step in this journey toward genuine. Self-awareness, self-love understanding. So here's where this act metaphor comes into your journey, because the first step to getting out of the hole again is recognizing and accepting where you are. It's not about frantically digging, taking whatever tool that you have and just doing the same thing with it over and over again.

It's more about learning how to take a pause, acknowledge the situation, and look for different perspectives or a different approach. Acknowledge the fact that I may not actually know what I'm doing now, and that's okay. Because your quest for genuine understanding and self-awareness, it is like seeking new tools are strategies to climb out of this hole. Part of the exciting thing is that once you embrace that, okay, there are so many things that I don't know.

That I don't know that once I start learning new things, you get pretty excited about, okay, this is, this feels awesome. I'm making more sense of my own existence. The things that I'm now learning about myself are gonna equip me to be the best version of myself for me and in my relationships. And I promise you, at some point it will click that. Okay, so what else don't I know? Because now I'm open, I'm gonna still operate from this place of, I'm okay. I'm gonna figure this out.

Because at times it will feel overwhelming, but you know that you are going to figure things out. And it's not by just digging furiously in this hole with a shovel. This journey from not knowing what you didn't know to getting to now this place of self-awareness, not about digging deeper, not about working harder with the old tools. It's about realizing that sometimes we need to stop. We're gonna reassess and we're gonna find new ways to navigate our challenges.

And with time and reflection, and it feels natural to say faith and trust and pixie dust and seek guidance, you'll find ways to understand yourself more deeply and climb outta this metaphorical hole. I feel like there needs to be something powerful next toward the light of understanding.

Let me just do a very brief recap of a couple of the concepts that I covered in the first episode. I talked about why we actually do need to tell us about your mom or your dad, in essence, your childhood, and why it matters. Because when we're talking about emotional immaturity, we're really talking about where emotional growth got paused.

Not in a funny sitcom from the two thousands way, but in a real developmental sense because these pauses usually trace back to childhood, those early chapters where we picked up coping strategies to get through all kinds of tough environments. We mirrored what we saw in our caregivers. We built these fundamental beliefs about who we were and how the world works.

And unless we're willing to go back and explore those origin stories, we will just keep addressing surface level issues without touching on the real source. And we will have some moments where we feel connection, but is it a real deep connection? Or we might feel a deeper connection on some issues. The ones that we just happen to be in absolute alignment with people on. But we're gonna slowly but surely not know what to do with the uncomfortable feelings.

And we avoid discomfort like the plague, and we really, really crave certainty. Things that become certain are the easy things because they're also not uncomfortable. So we need to learn how to get to the source. It's kinda like putting lotion on a rash without ever finding out what you're allergic to. I see this often with my clients. And the first episode of In part one, I talked about a dad that disciplined his kids by making 'em stand in a corner, and it was not because he knew it worked.

He absolutely couldn't stand doing it as a kid, but that was what was modeled for him and it was his time to break that pattern. But it was familiar. Another person that I worked with repeated a punishment that he received growing up using hot sauce. Not outta malice when, but it was when he said a bad word, and it was because that script was embedded in his system. It was familiar. He didn't question it because nobody ever really told him that there was another way.

It's fascinating because the thing is these aren't clear, logical memories that our brain keeps stored on a shelf. They live in us as emotional blueprints. That younger version of you isn't replaying a punishment scene to guide your parenting. It's holding onto it because it's unresolved. It's waiting for you, the adult to say, no, this thing wasn't okay, and you didn't have a voice as a kid. So can we. Clear that up. Now can we take care of that and not do that with your kid?

But our body often is just thinking, okay, I remember this. This is familiar. We need the adult then to say That wasn't okay, you, you actually deserve better. And it's the moments that we start to examine these scripts that become these moments that we start to take the wheel in our own lives. So instead of blindly repeating what was done to us, we get to choose a different path, but we can't rewrite the story until we're willing to go in and read the early chapters of the book.

This is why I have really grown to appreciate the power of the old therapy cliche. Tell me about your childhood. Not as a way to blame, which so many people often think that that is what it is and it's not as a way to stay stuck in childhood, but it's a tool to uncover these invisible blueprints that we've been using to build and shape our adult lives. 'cause the real parenting breakthrough that happens when we start parenting ourselves. The concept of re-parenting.

We're finally giving that younger version of us the care, the validation, and the healthy responses that we didn't get. That's when we start to become free to offer something new and healthier to the next generation, to our kids, to change the course for our grandkids as well.

This is where the idea of reparenting comes into the picture. It's stepping in to give yourself the kindness, the guidance, the validation that you didn't receive when you needed it most. But I want, I wanna pause here because there's something that I notice so often in in the therapy office, that when we start talking about childhood experiences, it does feel like we're doing something wrong.

Often if we're talking about how we could have been parented better, it's as if we just feel like we shouldn't be criticizing our parents. There's this subtle, but this persistent fear that if we say, my parents didn't really get this part right, that it means we're throwing 'em under the bus. It's an all or nothing black or white statement that, that we're being ungrateful, that we're blaming.

And I want to gently challenge that because first, I do say that in my office, if you start with a bless their heart, then you do have my permission to have your own feelings and your own opinions and your own thoughts about your parents. And that's okay. It's actually very helpful and liberating because here's what I believe with my whole heart. Our parents did do the best that they could with tools, with the awareness, the information that they had at the time.

I don't think that they were waking up thinking, how can I mess up my kid today? But you're learning things now that they didn't know. Then you are waking up to patterns in your own behavior and in the family dynamic, you're questioning how you show up as a partner, as a parent, as a person, and you're likely starting to realize that your reactions, your fears or struggles aren't about being broken.

You're not broken, but they're about being shaped and how you were shaped, what became the familiar. We are, I think, in so many ways the first generation with constant access to real time evolving information. That's one of the truly beautiful things about the internet at its best, puts knowledge at your fingertips the moment that you're ready to receive it. Of course, it also has its dark sides. It puts knowledge at your fingertips.

The very moment you're ready to receive it, you can find confirmation for anything you wanna believe, but the principle still holds seek and you shall find if you are looking to grow, to heal, to break cycles, then you can find those tools that'll help you do exactly that. But if you're also looking for reasons to make your partner into a horrible human, you could probably find those as well.

And I'm talking about the versions of those where that spouse does not deserve that label of horrible human. Our parents did not have access to information constantly. They had to go to libraries, they had to use encyclopedias. They used things called micro fish. Which have nothing to do with seafood. And if you were a kid of the seventies, the eighties, or even early nineties, you know that a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica is, it wasn't just information, it was a darn near a status symbol.

Family spent thousands of dollars. What would now be the equivalent of four to 12 grand on a single set of encyclopedia? That thing was sacred. It got passed on through generations. Now think about that. You didn't toss it out when new science came along. You kept it, maybe you dusted it. Uh, that would be a thing. So just imagine you're staying at your grandparents' house for a week while your parents are outta town. Uh, you've got a book report due. So you, you had nowhere to go.

There was no internet. So you pull out their pristine set of encyclopedia and you flip to the letter P and you write a stellar report on Pluto, the ninth planet, except by the time you're presenting it in class, Pluto is not a planet anymore. My bad, but you were doing the best with the outdated information that you had. So that's what our parents were working with. Static Knowledge, no updates unless you bought the annual yearbook at a extra cost that a lot of families didn't spring for.

So a lot of what they passed down they did. So with confidence, this is what I know, even though some of it no longer applies, but yet so many of us are still using those old emotional encyclopedias in our relationships with our spouses, with our kids. We're still parenting the way that we were parented. We still believe the things about ourselves that were, we'll say air quote, true only in the context of a five-year-old trying to make sense out of your world. So when we talk about.

Reparenting ourselves. We're not blaming anybody. We're just recognizing that some of the tools that we were handed are outdated. It's like we were just handed a whole bunch of shovels and we're all in a bunch of holes. But that's, it's okay. It's necessary to then update the system. Reparenting means that you have to notice the moments when your internal system wants to scold. Shut down people please overachieve or numb out, and then ask, is this the voice that I want guiding me right now?

It's my inner child. It's choosing to respond to yourself with warmth and structure and compassion that you wish that somebody had offered you that is gonna help. Now, unfortunately, that adult in you is also gonna wanna say, eat vegetables, save your money. So there's some things like that that won't be as fun as when the inner child is running the show. Maybe you can let him drive sometimes on the weekends, but the more you are re-parenting yourself as your grownup adult version.

Your inner child is gonna just thank you. It, it's no longer waiting for somebody to show up for you because now you are showing up for you that five-year-old version of you who was scared or misunderstood or just trying to be good. So nobody would get mad. They don't need to run the show anymore. They did an amazing job, but they do need to be heard. Re-parenting is listening to that voice and saying, I see you let the big kid take over. Now I've got you.

I want to share some examples I think illustrate what the re-parenting yourself can look like in these everyday situations and, and they're each gonna be rooted in an aspect of what I discussed in pretty good detail in episode one. In part one, all the names. Have been changed. The situations are very much based off of real stories. A person, we will call her Jenna, messes up an important work presentation now. Her old pattern, her inner voice says, you, I screw things up.

Why can't you just get it right? When you start to reparent yourself, there's a shift. Now she's gonna pause. She's gonna take a breath and say to herself, well, that was hard, but hey, you're doing your best. You don't know what you don't know. It's okay to be a human. So let's look at what we can learn from this. This is the beginning of self-compassion in action, offering herself the kind of support that a kind parent might have given.

Let's talk about giving yourself permission to feel instead of suppress your emotions. A picture, a guy named Marcus. Marcus feels, uh, unexpectedly sad after he has a really difficult conversation with his brother. Now, the old pattern, he pushes the feeling down. He distracts himself with work, and he just thinks, you know, there's no reason to feel this way. I just need to stop thinking this. I just need to toughen up again. Good luck with that.

Stop thinking about the green polar bear right now on a unicycle reparenting shift. He instead says, okay, wow. Check that out. That stirred up something in me. Lemme just sit with this for a little bit. Let me let my emotions, let him breathe. Maybe there's something that younger me is reacting to. He might even journal what came up, and he realizes that the conversation really echoed these childhood feelings of being left out.

He's used to being left out by his brother and he didn't know how to speak up for himself. So in this scenario, he's giving emotional space to that younger version of himself who wasn't allowed to feel or express emotions safely. Let's talk about good old boundaries, creating safety through boundaries. Amy's mom calls, starts criticizing her parenting again, old pattern. Amy stays on the phone. She's fawning, she's explaining herself.

I. She's feeling small and she's frustrated afterward, and she even beats herself up, introduces some good old shame. What's, I'm so bad at this reparenting shift, Amy gently says, mom, I love you, but I, I need to hang up now. If you are gonna speak to me like this, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump off the call. I need to fill my life with respectful conversations, there's the adult Amy stepping in to protect younger Amy who never felt safe enough to say no or to stand up for herself.

One that we don't talk about enough in the world of reparenting is making room for joy and playing. Trevor always felt like he had to be the responsible and growing up. Now all he does is work nonstop. He never wanted to be a workaholic old pattern. He says no to downtime. That is selfish. That is lazy. I need to always be on the go, gotta be doing stuff. Re-parenting shift. He intentionally books a weekend, hiking trip with friends.

He reminds himself fun and rest are just as important as productivity. I'm allowed to enjoy my life, raised my emotional baseline. This is Trevor, who is giving his inner child what he missed. It's freedom to play and to explore, and not to always have to be on, not a human doing. He's a human being. Me. Do another one. Repairing emotional neglect. Here's the scenario. Call Vanessa feels overwhelmed, but doesn't want to bother anybody with her feelings.

Doesn't wanna feel like she's too much, doesn't wanna put anybody out. So the old pattern, she'll isolate, she'll numb out, stay on her phone and tell herself, here's too much. Just handle it alone. You'll figure it out. You don't wanna bother anybody. Re-parenting shift. She reaches out to a trusted friend and says, I don't need you to fix anything, but I'm feeling overwhelmed and I just, I just need somebody to listen. I need to vent.

She's starting to learn to let others support her the way a good caregiver would have done so in her childhood and showing herself she's worth being cared for.

So I would say that by far, in part one of the podcast on emotional immaturity that I received the most feedback on was the section where I gave examples of what emotional immaturity looks like in childhood, and then how those same behaviors show up in our adult relationships. And I created a, a cheat sheet that I've been sharing with my clients for that. I would like to tell you that by the time you listen to this, you can go find it on my website and that actually might be the case.

But in the interim, if you would like this cheat sheet, email me at through my [email protected]. That would probably be the easiest way. And just say, I would like the emotional immaturity cheat sheet. And then also I would, if you're taking that time to do that, I would love any thoughts, questions, feedback, examples that came to you as you were listening to this as well.

But in this cheat sheet, I go through a lot of the different examples because I think hearing these concrete examples, I know it helped myself and it's helped a lot of people connect the dots between their past and patterns that they're seeing in their present. So I wanna go back and revisit each one of these emotionally immature traits. I'll try to do it quickly 'cause then we've got more content to get to. But I'll define each one of them again briefly.

I'll add a couple of more real life examples that I've seen in therapy, in, in the room, or through listener feedback. Of course, it has been keeping people's anonymity in play, but I think it will help flesh these things out even more. Let's start with good old black and white thinking, because this is a tendency to see people or situations as all good or all bad. There's no nuance.

There's no gray area, no middle ground, and it's rooted in this binary thinking of childhood when things needed to be simple to feel safe. That person's good, that person's bad. I feel happy. I feel sad. Oh, I think I'm channeling a little Dr. Seuss here. Why that is still so easy to fall into that trap is because it does take less emotional work. You're burning less emotional calories If that person does something all of a sudden, oh, that, that was bad.

Therefore, they are bad because the concept of whole object relations or viewing a person, a situation, organization as an entire object, there are things I can still like about that person, but there are also things that are frustrating and that might be a little more difficult to navigate because I really do like when I interact with this person for these reasons, but they're also a real challenge to me, especially in certain situations. It's a lot easier just to say, you know what, forget it.

I don't even wanna talk to them. Or, okay, I do want to talk to 'em, but I'll just, I have to ignore, shove my feelings down if there are things that I don't like. Again, childhood need simplicity. And then, boy, we want certainty. And in what is a pretty complex world to the adult, trying to now drive the ship, embrace nuance while still trying to maintain clarity or hold on to your sense of self. So the kid version of this is, you either love me or you hate me.

That is good, or it is bad to the adult. I would love to start encouraging you to look at things like, I notice that I'm feeling insecure about where I stand with you or this person. Now I value clarity in a relationship. But also authenticity. So I would love to check in about how you are feeling. Here's how I am feeling, and it is not a judgment.

Now you may feel like you are being judged and I want to have that conversation too because you can see it can get a little bit messy there in the middle or in the gray. Now, when you feel yourself sliding into all or nothing thinking, try this phrase, actually both things can be true. That can be really difficult for people.

And I did an episode a little while ago on the concept around absolute truth and some people want desperately to hang onto this idea that there is a right, a very, very distinct right and a wrong. And while there may be in some situations, I, I would maintain that in most things, it's not that cut and dry. 'cause your partner can both love you deeply and be pretty frustrated with you in this moment. And you can do the same.

A couple of other examples, think of a person who ends a close friendship over a disagreement and they said, you know, I should have known that they were fake from the very start, all or nothing. Despite years of connection, one moment can undo it all because it's as if deep inside of us, we don't want to have to do the mental work to acknowledge why is what they're saying. Now, why is it hard for me to hear and why can't I hang on to the things that I really appreciate about this person?

Or I see it so often when a parent has a bad day with their kid and they immediately think, I have failed them completely. I'm a terrible parent because if we go right to there, there's no room for grace and there's not a lot of room for growth. Because when you go to that place of shame, it's as if you subconsciously or even consciously want someone else to say, it's okay. You're gonna be okay. That might alleviate my discomfort, but am I really gonna grow?

Am I really going to take in what I need to from a self confrontational place? And then do the work that I need to do that. That is what my body's trying to communicate to me. Now, the second one that I talked about is probably my favorite because I've realized how often I do this. It's the old magical thinking.

This is that belief that simply thinking or hoping something will make it happen, or that avoiding a problem means it doesn't actually exist, and it is rooted in the way that children believe their thoughts essentially control the world. And it really does cause us to feel pretty special. So I was listening recently to one of my favorite podcasts. I would love to have this person on my podcast, Derek Thompson from The Ringer Network, and his podcast is called Plain English.

It was in a slightly different context, but he was talking about this very thing and acknowledging that when he was in his twenties, he still had this, what I would call magical thinking, that if he wore a certain sock, then his day was gonna be better or worse. Because I think it, we do this, we're humans, we're adults that still have some of this, this childhood magical thinking we were supposed to. Outgrow this as we had more of a relationship with cause and effect in the world.

As I still struggle at times to open up my mail, I am recognizing that if I do not open it, I will not know what is in mail. There could be bills that need to be paid, car registrations that are expired for several months. There could be several things, hypothetically, and that is magical thinking to just think, ah, it just, it won't, it'll just go away. The childhood need here is a sense of basically personal power.

Again, in a, an overwhelming world as a kid, and now to adults, we can translate that as a balanced agency with these realistic expectations. So to the child, if I don't mention the problem, it will disappear to the very young child. If I cover my eyes, I have disappeared. To the adult, I notice that I'm avoiding the issue. And while I cannot control everything, I can take specific steps today that move me toward a solution. I can actually look at my bank account. I can open my mail.

And what can be really difficult is this happens in relationships. I, if I don't have this conversation, it may get better or, well, we talked about having a conversation today when we were in the heat of the moment last night, but my wife hasn't mentioned anything today, so she probably forgot about it. But in reality, it's my magical thinking. So the mature version of magical thinking is setting intention. And also taking action.

I will tell myself, I'm gonna, I'm gonna budget, I'm gonna open my mail later Sunday evening before the week starts. And that makes me feel better on a Saturday afternoon when I wanna be doing other things. But then when Sunday evening comes along, then do I. It's not a good time. Magic happens not when we wish, but actually when we combine vision with effort.

When I actually do open my mail and deal with my problems, while I can feel frustrated about a late bill that I could have paid had I opened my mail sooner, I can also feel a sense of relief and empowerment because now I'm doing something. Some of the examples that you see in adulthood, somebody doesn't communicate their needs in a relationship, but they believe they really love me.

They would just know if you were convinced that if I just stay positive, then all my problems will go away if I can just choose to be happy. While that sounds amazing, that's a little bit magical thinking that I can just positive my way through difficult situations without dealing with the situation. With just, I believe the phrase at times is toxic positivity.

I would even may maybe put in there when I talk about pathological kindness, where kindness, when it's pathological is to your detriment. I think that I would put into this category. Pathological positivity also has a nice alliterative ring to it. I am noticing now that I want to say this one also is my favorite because these are fascinating when you really look at 'em. The next one is emotional reasoning.

Now, the definition, this is when somebody believes that because they feel something, it must be true. I feel rejected, so you are rejecting me. Even if that's not the case, this can be quite a setup for insanity in a relationship. I may feel that you are rejecting me or let's use a, maybe even a simpler one. I don't think you care about me in the relationship I. I feel that way, therefore it must be true. So therefore you don't care about me.

Now, you now must prove to me that you care about me. And the more I'm bringing up this emotional reasoning in my office, in couples relationships, is the person bringing that it's obvious that he doesn't care about me. Now, I can frame this, okay, that's a bit of a, an emotionally immature response because I feel it. Therefore, it must be true. That worked in childhood. It really did. And it would get us some of the validation, the recognition, acknowledgement to the attention.

But now, as an adult, I can notice that and I can really, I can believe that to me. But as I convey that to my partner, I'm feeling like you don't care Now. In the immature version of this, it's, it is. So now you need to start dancing and show me that you do care. But here's the part that I like to bring up now, in therapy, the person saying, you don't care if I turn to them and say, okay, what do you need right now to feel cared about, to feel more of a connection? Like they care.

And most of the time I won't go all or nothing statements. Most of the time the person then says, I don't know. I just, it's a, I feel like that they don't, I don't think they do care 'cause it just feels that way. So then I can frame that, okay, you feel this. You're not even sure what would make you feel better. And you're now telling him, now he's said, I think I do care.

But now you're saying, I don't think you do make me feel cared for, even though I don't even know what that's gonna look like again. So start dancing now. If for some reason then he can't. Make that happen, which is more, more likely than not because you can see all the ambiguity and the uncertainty here. Then you get to say, see, told you he doesn't care and he's gonna think, I do. I do. I, I sure feel like I care. And then you get to internalize too, that maybe I'm not even lovable.

This comes from this childhood need of the recognition and validation of intense feelings. The feeling can be there. Look at this. I'm noticing that. I feel uncared for now. If we can talk about it in a mature way, then I can bring that up to you. You're using my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation. Alright? I'll assume good intentions. You're not trying to hurt me with that. I'm not gonna tell you that's ridiculous or you're wrong.

Even if I don't agree, which leads to my pillar three. I'm gonna ask questions before I make my own comments. Tell me more about that. Help me understand. Help me see my blind spots. What am I missing? When do you feel this way? How long have you felt that way? Have you tried to bring this up to me in the past? What have I done with that? When you have, because I can imagine that would be really difficult. Pillar four then is I'm, I can't go into a victim mindset and say, you're right.

I'm a just a big old piece of garbage. I guess I don't really care. You're right. Because then if I go give that victim energy, now the person that actually is the one saying, I don't feel like you care now I have to go rescue you. Well, my, I'm sorry I, you do, that's me. I shouldn't even brought it up. Honoring your emotions without being ruled by them.

It's this childhood need to recognize and validate our intense feelings. But we weren't even, we weren't even really modeled a healthy way to handle our own feelings or our emotions as a child. This was really coming from a place of, I feel terrified, so this situation is dangerous. The adult version, I'm noticing, I'm feeling terrified. My feelings are giving me important information. My feelings are telling me this might be something we need to pay attention to.

But as an adult, I will check the evidence before deciding how to respond. Uh, maybe you can try the phrase, I am having the feeling that, or I'm noticing that rather than it is, it seems simple, but this little tiny language shift can start to create space between you and the emotion. It goes back to that concept of instead of, I'm angry, it's okay, check this out. I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry.

'cause then I can take just enough of a step back from it to say, what is it about this situation that is causing me to feel anger, because then I can look at it with more curiosity. A couple of other examples that come to mind. Somebody feels anxious before a family gathering and then they assume that means something bad is gonna happen. Even if they've had good experiences in the past. I am not saying to doubt your intuition or to not trust your gut.

As a matter of fact, I think that is some of the worst advice. The best advice is to take in your experience, notice your intuition, listen to your gut because it is trying to tell you something, and most likely it's been trying to tell you that since childhood, but we've been suppressing that. But having a healthy relationship with your emotions and your feelings and being able to allow them to be and to look at them and thank them and say, what are you trying to tell me?

Because thank you, I have shoved you down for far too long. Think of a person that to sends a text and does not get an immediate response. This is such a common thing now. Somebody then thinks to themselves, okay, they must be mad at me. Then they spiral emotionally without really checking in with themselves or the other person.

So next we have the dependence on external validation. This shows up as needing others to constantly affirm your worth, to tell you that you are okay. If nobody is clapping for you, you may not feel like you matter, and it doesn't have to be that dramatic. It comes from a childhood need of this confirmation that you belong, that you are worthy, that you have value, that you matter, and we get our sense of self. When we're children from external validation. So it is, it is wired into us.

And I often find that people, when they're learning about differentiation or they're learning more about the ways they show up emotionally immature will say things like, I know I need to not need external validation, which I think goes back to, that sounds pretty black or white to me, because it is still something that does feel good at times.

And it is the long game to get to this place where you no longer require it to know that you matter, but that it can be okay, or I, I can appreciate it when it comes in. So to the adult, this is differentiation. This is about trying to maintain or hold onto my autonomy while maintaining a connection with another human. And those are two of our most basic inherent and also difficult needs that we're trying to, to balance, to manage in our relationships.

So the kid version, it's the kid saying, am I okay? Did I do that right? Do you still like me? What can I do better? So that you will like me? I, I will have adults come into my office. Regularly and say, I just want people to tell me what they don't like about me because then I can fix it. But that is a, a need, or we get our whole sense of self as an adult, then still from what others think or others feel. And that's where it was necessary as a kid, a childhood adaptation that kept you alive.

But as an adult, it is where you, you lack a true or solid sense of self. And you can be swayed by how someone is feeling that day. And I think it's interesting if I'm saying, well, I just wanna know what you think about me or what you think I should do in this situation. While it may sound like you are seeking connection, it really is though seeking validation.

And in that scenario, you're asking this person that doesn't know what it feels like to be you, to weigh in on what you should do with your life. If you really just look at it that way, and I want to wanna take you back, I won't out this person, this is someone in my, in my distant family, but they were around me, my wife and a couple of my daughters. And they said, Hey, what do you guys think about me going to Turkey and getting hair transplants?

And at that point, my wife and daughter said, oh no, you, you, you don't want do that. And I stopped and felt like I pulled my therapist card out and I said, Hey, so it sounds like you are, you are ready to go get hair transplants, but you're wanting validation. You want people to say, I think it's a great idea, but in reality Well, and I didn't just jump right to there, I said, how much have you researched about it? And they said, plenty. And I said, do you already know the cost?

Yes. Do you know where you would go to get it done? Yes. Have you watched countless amounts of YouTube videos and tiktoks and Instagram reels about it? Yes. Has it, has it flooded your, your for you pages and your algorithm is presenting with nothing but. Videos about hair transplants and they said yes.

So then I said, it sounds like you're gonna get hair transplants, but you're curious if anyone has heard of it or, but you're, you're basically saying, let me provide you with this thing that you're not even aware of. You definitely don't know what it feels like to be me, but then I wanna know what you think about it and I'm gonna base my, uh, decisions or my inherent worth on your reaction or your response.

And then it was funny because he did say, yeah, I guess, I guess I, I just need to say, Hey, I'm gonna do this like that. That's interesting. Now, side note then my algorithm for you pages on all app apps for a little while was showing me. Hair transplants. Now it is far too late for me to do that, but it was just, that was a, that was an interesting side note.

But it goes from that childhood adaptation of, Hey, if you can tell me what you think I should do or how I can show up better for you, then you will still like me. I will feel like I matter and I exist.

But then as we go about life, having our own experiences and starting to recognize the things that we actually want to do with our lives and relationships and careers, school, whatever that looks like, then it becomes this desire for autonomy for me to figure this out and I can, I can interact with others and ask them their opinion, but I need to recognize that as just their opinion. What would that look like for an adult? Hey, I notice I'm seeking reassurance. Let me check in with myself first.

Let me, let me identify my values versus this choice in line with who I want to be regardless of other people's opinions. I can still ask somebody. They are, they are my muse. If they say, I think it's ridiculous, then I can realize I. Okay. Actually I don't, I could even be curious as to why they think it's ridiculous, which is a fair point because they don't know what it feels like to be me or the research that I've done in this scenario. External validation again, is not bad.

The mature shift is from I need others' approval to feel okay to, I appreciate others' feedback as one data point, but I'm still maintaining my internal compass. Some additional examples of this are somebody who changes how they dress or how they speak or how they act depending on the group that they're with, even if it contradicts their own preferences or their own values. I did a live q and a with my daughter Mackey, and I think there's a clip out on social media now.

We talked about the concept of a pick me girl, pick me, not pick me, which I think are smaller people, but a pick me girl is one that who says, you know, pick me. I'll do whatever it takes for you to pick me. And what that can look like in therapy is somebody that says, Hey, I'm, I'm really good at getting people to like me. I can be whoever they need me to be. But in the course of that, they often lack a solid sense of self.

When somebody does have this in inherent or incessant need for external validation, then they often feel like something is wrong with them or lost or anxious when they get a response to a message that they don't like, or when that person sees them in a way that they don't really think that that's the person that they are.

Okay. Now let's talk about difficulty with taking ownership or, or accountability. The definition would be instead of owning your own mistakes or acknowledging that your inconsistencies you deflect, you blame shift, you become defensive, you gaslight, gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism. These are tools that were used to avoid punishment or blame because especially as children, we would typically devolve into shame and move from guilt. I feel bad to shame. I am bad.

That is still at the core of this. Lack of taking ownership or accountability of things is that if I do, then this person will think I am all bad, or they will now kick me out of the family or the tribe. The childhood need here that was addressed by this behavior was protection from rejection and abandonment, because when you're a kid, we have these deep, deep inherent fears that if I can't get others to like me. Then they will leave me and it becomes a zero sum game.

There is a right and a wrong, a good and a bad. I do not want to be the one that is wrong or bad, so I will do everything I can to deflect that blame or not take ownership or acknowledge to get outta that moment because then I survive now to the adult. It takes a lot of vulnerability to take ownership of things. It's actually a form of self-compassion to recognize I don't have to be perfect, that I am.

I am okay as I am, and that I'm going through life for the first time and I am going to make mistakes. I'm going to be inconsistent, and I'm going to use those opportunities for growth. What the child says, it wasn't my fault, or you made me do it, or you never said that. The adult version. So I did contribute to this situation in ways that I'm, that probably weren't my best, that I wish I hadn't. I can take ownership of that without defining myself by the mistakes that I've made.

As a matter of fact, I can use those as opportunities for growth. And I think it's important here to notice how shame often drives defensiveness. And the antidote to shame is not harsh criticism. It's connection. It's taking gentle ownership. It's love. Hey, I did that. I messed up, and I am still worthy of love and belonging because I'm not perfect. Some examples that have come up recently, somebody forgets an anniversary and says, well, you didn't remind me.

Instead of simply apologizing, I, my bad, I forgot. I need to do a better job of, of writing things down. Or during an argument, I heard this one very recently, maybe even earlier today, where a spouse said to the other, you're just too sensitive. Instead of acknowledging that what they said may have been hurtful and we were able to explore that, is she too sensitive or did you come on too strong and you do now feel bad because you see how that impacted her.

Another one of these emotionally immature concepts is mind reading. This is when somebody assumes that their partner or or somebody else should just know what they're thinking or feeling without expressing it. I hear some modifiers that go into this one often in the couple's communication world of, well, obviously, or everyone knows or, well, you would think that.

And then when those things aren't reciprocated or acknowledged, then they feel hurt or angry because these unspoken expectations aren't met. And then mind reading, this emotionally immature behavior comes in of where now I'm, I'm hurt. You must not care about me because you didn't meet these unspoken expectations. I can kind of hide behind, but that everybody knows, so you should have known as well. And where this comes from in your childhood is an. Desire for predictability and relationships.

It would be great if we all, well, I don't think it would, but I think our mind wants to say, it would be wonderful if we all operated from this, this just solid always on. These are the way that, that, this is the way that everybody shows up in relationships. Everyone knows this. So then if you are not doing this the exact way that I think that we all know, then that means you obviously don't care. And now I can make meaning of that and point that out to you.

To the adult though, this really means we need to be more curious and have a clear communication curiosity. That is a challenge if, if you are still listening and you're here with me now, notice how often you lack curiosity. I'll be that bold. I do see it every day in my office where someone says, well, I think what he feels is, or what I think he's doing, or what I don't think he realizes is, and I will now routinely say, well ask him, do you think that you do this?

Or are you, what do you think about? Or are you aware of this? And, and it is still very difficult, even under the trained eye of the therapist to have people genuinely be curious about their partner's experience. It's much easier to tell somebody how they think or feel and then say, okay, now you need to defend it. Versus this is what I think, but I'm gonna start with my questions before I make my comments. It's kids. It was just, you should know what I want without me saying it.

And then since you didn't do that, then you obviously don't love me and I can try to make sense of that. But to the adult, it would, it would sound like I noticed. I'm expecting you to read my mind. I. Let me, let me use this as an opportunity to practice expressing my needs directly. I would love it if you would, but then I need you to be honest, and if that is something that you aren't able to do or you're curious why I would want that, then let's have a, an adult mature conversation.

So when you catch yourself creating stories about other people's intentions, that is your chance to pivot. I don't actually know what they're thinking and I need to be curious and, and learn more. In my beloved four pillars of a connected conversation, I inserted a pre pillar before you get to assuming good intentions or there's a reason why people do or say the things they do.

And it's taken from the work of Marshall Rosenberg and his book Nonviolent Communication, and that is to separate your observation from your judgment. Someone walks by and they don't say a word to me. That's my observation. My judgment is they, boy, they don't care about me, but I need to separate those. They walked by me and I'm noticing that I am thinking they don't care about me. When I can separate the observation from the judgment, now I can jump into the framework. Okay?

I'm gonna assume that they weren't trying to hurt me with that, or, or if they didn't connect with me, there's a reason why. Could be because they were caught up in thought, or they didn't recognize or didn't notice me, which will then lead to the pillar two of I'm not gonna tell them what they're doing is wrong, or I don't believe whatever they tell me. And I'm even gonna jump into pillar three and be curious. I'm gonna ask questions before I make comments.

Other examples recently, somebody made dinner. They are visibly upset when their partner doesn't say thank you or compliments the meal, but they have never been one that has communicated that they, they are noticing that they are looking forward to, to a compliment or looking forward to an acknowledgement that they made the meal, but they never communicated that. So they harbor this resentment deep inside and their partner doesn't even know it.

This was based off of a conversation recently where when we finally dug into the deep waters of this concept, it was the husband who was not thanking the wife for, for. Cooking dinner on a regular basis, and, and then we dug in deep in his past and his, his mom didn't deal with compliments at all. As a matter of fact, she would turn it back around and say, who, who put you up to that? Why are you saying that? What do you need? What's your angle? What are your expectations?

The guy had learned that, okay, I, I'm afraid to give a compliment because that's what I've seen mapped or modeled. So it was, it was a pretty good moment. Or another example is a person who felt very slighted when they weren't invited to an event with, with some friends from their church. They just assumed, well, those people don't, they don't value me. They don't like me, and they don't care about me. But they did not know the entire context of the event. Another is poor emotional boundaries.

So this involves confusing where you end and where someone else begins emotionally. So you might take responsibility for somebody else's emotions or you might expect them to manage yours.

And this comes from this, this childhood need to, to connect and belong through, through codependency, through enmeshment that I know we're okay if we, if we are enmeshed, if we are just on the exact same page with everything, even to the point where then again, I will, I will sacrifice my own sense of self or wellbeing in the name of the relationship to the adult. We think we are looking for intimacy, but we're still looking for validation.

Instead of letting someone truly know who I am and my thoughts, my feelings, I'm trying to figure out a way to, to show up, to get this person to like me, because I'm worried I am managing their emotions. I'm worried they won't like it if I say a thing or if I do a thing. Now, that's also somebody that projects or, or hands over their emotional caretaking to someone else. Well, you know what happens when you use that tone with me?

Or, well, I told you that I was already upset tonight and you are the one that still wanted to have a conversation. So it's, I'm putting that back over on you. So both of these are coming from an emotionally immature place. I think one of the difficulties here in particular is it can really feel like the, the relationship is changing, and at first it might not feel like in a, in a good way when one person begins to differentiate, when one person begins to recognize that I need to stop.

Trying to manage someone else's emotions rather than, I'm worried this person will think this thing. Then I need to be able to have the courage to express the thing that I wanna express, and now have give that person an opportunity to have their own emotional experience. It it, and it can be a very connecting, intimate experience when we both can be open and honest about our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions.

But I hope you can see why, why it is so scary, because that is not how we survived as a kid. We, we absolutely played small or we manage other people's emotions, or we didn't deal with our own to the child. It felt like, well, your feelings are my responsibility or my feelings are actually your fault to the adult. Then I care deeply about your experience. But I recognize we are two separate people. Of course, we think and feel differently about things.

So how can I support you while I'm still honoring my own needs or I'm, I'm holding onto my own autonomy because I promise you this is one of those things as, as a couple's therapist, that we don't know what we don't know. This is where if I could give someone some, some magic bean or pill that they could take and recognize what it really felt like to be.

Intimately connected with another human and differentiated and being able to really love somebody for who they are entirely, and have someone love you for that, then I think we would all do everything we could to get to this place of, of authenticity and differentiation. Healthy boundaries are not walls because it often feels like such a, a negative thing, but a healthy boundary is a clear property line that shows where you end and where another begins.

And the most connected relationships actually have very, very clear boundaries. People set boundaries because they want you in their life to a point because they're saying, I still want this connection, but if you handle situations in this way or if you talk this way to me, I can't be in this relationship. So I need to set the boundary hoping you'll respect it so we can still find a way to connect.

So if a, a partner feels anxious and tells their spouse, you need to calm down, you're stressing me out. Break that down from managing emotions. I need you to calm down so I'll feel better. You are stressing me out, so I need you to stop it so I'll feel better. Instead of owning their reaction. Man, check it out. When you do this thing, I get all anxious. What, what is the story my brain is telling me?

I guess I'm feeling, I'm feeling a little bit embarrassed because I grew up in a way that nobody, there were no performers, there was nobody that was out there, uh, going big or being an extrovert, it is super uncomfortable for me. Can you not do the thing that you think is okay to do to make me feel better? Or somebody hears the, a friend is struggling, they immediately cancel all their own plans to fix the situation even when their friend didn't ask for help.

This one, it can be really difficult because you start to notice that if I really just want to vent or I want my partner to see me, to know me, to understand me, and so they say, how was your day? I share it, and then they say, oh man, I'm so sorry. It sounds right. Those are good words to say, but what do you do with that if you're the one that wants to feel heard and understood? Tell them o okay. I appreciate that. Uh, I'm, yeah. No, that's nice. I'm glad that you are, sorry.

But then do we have more conversation from there? I alluded to the psychologist, Terry Real, and he has a type of therapy called Relational Life Therapy, and I've been going through the training and it's, it's so powerful. Terry Reel's work in relational life therapy. I think I'm recognizing offers one of the most compassionate frameworks that I've come across when it comes to things like emotional growth.

He says something that I quote so often because it, it hits home and I want to use an all or nothing statement every time. What was adaptive in childhood becomes maladaptive in adulthood. That simple sentence is this massive shift from shame to self understanding because these patterns that we often beat ourselves up for today, they were never bad behaviors. They actually were these brilliant survival strategies. Let's talk about your inner child.

It was the expert, strategist, picture your inner child not as broken, not as fragile, but as wildly resourceful. You weren't just absorbing emotional chaos or, or instability. You were adapting to it. You were finding ways to stay safe and to stay connected and to make sense of a world that didn't always make sense. The kid that was a people pleaser. They weren't weak. They were learning to manage danger through connection, however they needed to find it.

The kid who went quiet and shut down emotionally, they, they weren't avoidant. They were trying to survive being emotionally overwhelmed. And what's heartbreaking, but also beautiful, is that these adaptations worked. They kept you afloat. They got you through, and now they're still showing up. But instead of keeping you safe, they might be causing you to feel stuck. And that is the paradox. The strategies that saved us as kids are often the ones that sabotage us as adults.

And I think that's why emotional maturity is not about yelling at our inner child to grow up. It's not about beating ourselves up or shaming ourselves. It's about acknowledging how hard that little guy worked to protect us. It's saying, Hey, hey buddy. I see what you did there. It was actually kinda genius. Now not so much, so I need to let the big kid take over. But the irony there is, okay, what does the big kid do? Because I, I'm just now figuring this thing out.

So I think there are these common childhood survival skills and they do become these adult roadblocks. Let me address some of these common childhood adaptations that really do turn into struggles and relationships. And it's not, again, so that we can judge 'em, but we want to, we wanna honor 'em, we wanna understand 'em, and we wanna learn new ways to show up in the present.

And these are ones I haven't covered up to this point. So let's talk about hypervigilance as a kid. Hypervigilance meant scanning the emotional environment, constantly trying to read the room, reading facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, trying to predict when the next emotional shift would hit. And that is how so many kids survive in homes where moods are unpredictable, or where conflict is constantly bubbling. Just. Below the surface or right on the surface.

This is the origin story of so many people that are highly sensitive. I've done episodes on highly sensitive person or HSP. Here's how it shows up. Now, as an adult, you walk into a room and immediately you can feel tension, and even if nobody has said a word, you're on high alert even when there's no real danger. Now your your partner size and you're already wondering, okay, what did I do wrong before they've even said a word and it, it is exhausting. It's emotionally overwhelming.

You burn a lot of emotional calories and mental energy, and it can create anxiety and relationships where calm may actually reside, but you can't trust it. How could you, because that was your adaptation as a kid. One of the best things here is, as I go back to, I'm not saying don't trust your gut.

I've had a, an amazing session or two with a very highly sensitive client of mine and we were talking about this and, and she said, it sounds to me like you're saying that, that this is all just my immaturity. And, and it's not that that actually is, I'm joking a little bit here, but that is a, that is an immature comment about immaturity because that's a black or white statement versus having some curiosity about it because it's actually your hyper vigilance.

It is part of that HSP and now use that to then inform you and guide you and yes, you, you may be very hypervigilant now as an adult and there are times where that might be, you may say, I feel this way, therefore it is, but then having the courage and the maturity to be able to express that, to then have conversations, to recognize that there will be times where, yeah, you are reading the room really well.

There might be times where that sense or that feeling of overwhelm is your, your emotional imprint that has been there since childhood that is saying, Hey, here's an opportunity. We probably need to be more aware. So I will be, I will be more aware. Here's what I haven't talked about a lot. Emotional containment. It's that childhood message that so many of us got of, don't be too much. Don't rock the boat. It's telling you that your emotions aren't safe here.

So you learn to stuff your emotions down, hide your needs. And just stay very easy to be around, very agreeable, and this might even be a little bit you. You might show a bit of a performance every now and again, but it's to let everybody know everything's okay. You're easy in the relationship, but you often find yourself as having been lost as a kid in the relationship as well. Here's how it starts to show up as an adult.

I'm good even if you're not, because expressing your needs, you feel like you are burdening someone. You go along with plans or you stay silent during conflict because you're afraid that being honest is gonna make you unlovable and you are again, you, you're too much. Here's the thing though, being agreeable is not the same as being known.

Emotional containment protected your relationships from short term friction, but it is at the cost of longer term intimacy with a, a partner, a true connection.

Next up is perfectionism, and I hope you can see at this point we could go on an entire episode on each one of these adaptive strategies that have now become maladaptive.

Because perfectionism is something that, I think it's one of those that people don't even recognize what that looks like, and they, they, they will often say, okay, no, I don't struggle from perfectionism because I'm obviously not perfect, but it's, it's that desire to become perfect or belief that there is something that I can achieve, that if I can just get there and be somewhat perfect, then all of my problems will disappear.

Because where that comes from is, in childhood perfectionism was typically about staying one step ahead of criticism. If you can be flawless, then maybe you would be safe. Maybe you would earn love or you would avoid punishment or finally feel like you are enough. One of the areas of therapy that I'm doing more exploration with is internal family systems, and one of the first concepts that I learned about at a training was. And the concept there is beautiful. You are a sum of all of your parts.

When you say, part of me feels this way, part of me feels that way, you are not having a dissociative identity disorder. It's the part of you that that maybe felt unlovable or the part of you that was trying to protect another emotion. And I remember at this training, the trainer, the therapist said that they had worked with someone who was struggling with perfectionism. And when they really dug deep, there was a part of them that as a child, their mom and dad had both told them.

And it's funny, this was a bad word in my home growing up, but how stupid they were. It was the S word, but they were just continually told how stupid they were. So at some point that the poor inner child, that piece became exiled and here came this protector, which was perfectionism. So if I can be perfect, I will never be called stupid again. But that is this endless pursuit of perfectionism. So that I will not have to go through what that felt like as a kid to be told that you're stupid.

So what does this look like in adults? It often will even be things like procrastination because you'll procrastinate on projects because if it's not perfect, it's not worth doing. Or you'll hang on to a project and keep going over it and over it. Where someone that you, maybe someone close to you is saying, Hey, just turn it in. It's not worth your mental health at this point.

But you tie your worth often to your performance, feeling like a failure if you're not overachieving or if you're not impressing everybody. And it is a trap because perfectionism isn't love. Perfectionism is an armor and it keeps people from seeing the messy, but the real, the real authentic or lovable you that's underneath. And it is often from this place of, and it is from this place of, I was about to say emotional immaturity. What about that?

We are literally talking about that on the podcast today, but emotionally immature because I'm afraid to be open and vulnerable and allow people to see the messy parts of me. Let's talk about control. When your childhood world felt unpredictable or unsafe, control became the anchor. What can I control? So you create order where there was chaos, whether that was controlling your environment, controlling your body.

This is where a lot of people that struggle with things like disordered eating may come from, or controlling your emotions and learning how to just stuff them emotions. You are not welcome here and and adults, you may find yourself micromanaging your partner or your kids because unpredictability is uncomfortable and it makes you feel panic, not playful. So you may struggle to delegate because it's easier for you to take care of it, or you may struggle to relax.

Because if you relax, then someone might think that you don't care or that you are lazy or they'll be very judgmental. Or you just need to keep doing things so that you can keep the house in order. So you can make sure that the yard is in order or your car is in order, or your clothes are in order, or whatever that is. 'cause it will. Help you feel like you have some semblance of control, and you're also worried that if I delegate, then somebody else won't do it. Right?

And now we're back to that all or nothing, black or white thinking that there's a right way to do it. This is the way you vacuum. This is the way you iron. This is the way that you put food on a plate because control creates this illusion of safety. But it will drive disconnection, it will drive anxiety. It can keep you from leaning into vulnerability, from spontaneity or from shared responsibility, shared experiences.

Because to really let go of this control is putting yourself in the hands of someone else, and then there will be discomfort, and that takes a lot of courage.

Let's talk about integration, because we're not trying to erase these characteristics or these traits. The goal is not to get rid of these parts of you. It is to integrate them. It's to recognize this wisdom, this internal wisdom in their origin, and then the limits though of their usefulness in adulthood. So when you feel yourself controlling or people pleasing or shutting down or chasing perfection, then you can say, I, this makes sense. Thank you inner child. Thank you body.

This is how I kept myself safe, but I'm not that scared kid anymore or I'm noticing that that scared kid is still on board and I'm gonna acknowledge that scared kid. I'm allowed to start trying things different now because there isn't a necessarily a wrong or right way to do my life, and I need to start having the courage to do and invite all of these feelings, all these things to come along with me. That is emotional maturity.

That is this part the, I think I started a little while ago talking about re-parenting. That's this path where you go from, I was doing this to survive, to now I am doing this to thrive and to live boundary setting. I think this is something that needs to be talked about as well, and. The boundary versus the ultimatum becomes important.

We're not talking about ultimatums that are in disguise because setting healthy boundaries is one of the clearest signs of emotional maturity, but it, I think it's also one of the most misunderstood. A, A boundary is a me thing. It's not about controlling the other person. It's about taking responsibility for what you will do to take care of your emotional and physical wellbeing. So what is that difference between a boundary and ultimatum?

A boundary says if you continue yelling, I am going to leave the room essentially to take care of myself. An ultimatum says, you need to stop yelling, and you can't keep doing this because to the emotionally immature, they see that as a challenge. They're saying, oh, really? I do. I, well, that's, now I know that button works with you. So hopefully you can see the shift boundaries done. I wanna say right, not right and wrong, but a, a healthy boundary is grounded in self-respect.

They're proactive, they're not reactive, and they're about protecting your peace, not manipulating somebody else's behavior. So let's say that somebody says, Hey, I need to talk about something right now, it's okay for you to say if we need to talk about it right now. I'm not really in a good position, so I'm unable to, but I care about you and let's find a better time. That can be a boundary around timing, about emotional availability.

There are people that have such a hard time saying no. That can be a boundary.

If somebody has already committed to a quiet weekend, but now they've been invited to do something last minute and maybe spontaneity is not one of their values, and so they want this downtime, then it takes a lot of courage to say, if to myself, a personal boundary, if I have already committed to a quiet weekend, then I am gonna have to pass on the invite, even if I find myself or notice myself worrying what that other person may think. That could be looked at as a boundary around your energy.

It's not a rejection of the other person. Boundaries say things like, this is what I need in order to show up well in my life. And spoiler, and this is something for a future episode, people who are used to you are. Not having boundaries. Might not love them at first, and that's okay. You are not building walls. You're building this foundation for real respectful connection.

Again, you're doing it so that you can have connection with someone, but that shows you that if they don't respect the boundary, then that is a them thing. And now you may have to make a decision that this isn't a healthy relationship. So I think we can wrap today's episode up by, by talking about what growth or emotional maturity actually feels like. And a spoiler here, it's, it feels awkward, which makes it seem a little bit odd or weird. But don't be afraid of the unknown.

Remember, hopefully by now, you definitely have recognized you didn't know what you didn't know, and now you're learning some new things and some of it is gonna resonate and land and other parts of it you may disagree with. And that's, that's okay. I wanna give you three or four examples of I. Situations and people,

I've changed the names that have happened in the last couple of weeks as people in my office have woken up to their own emotional immaturity and have become more emotionally mature. We'll call the first person Stacy. Stacy was a fixer. She would fix everybody's problems and do so Immediately we'd identified. That's how she felt useful growing up. That was her adaptive coping mechanism, which is maladaptive now as an adult because people weren't asking her to fix their issues.

Especially her husband, when her husband would share something very, very vulnerable and she would say, here's what I think you should do. He would pull back. This had happened over a couple of decades as we communicated in couples therapy. She would acknowledge that's what she wanted to do. She would pause and often apologize and then ask, Hey, what are, what are you looking for right now? And how can I show up for you?

Do you want me to just sit with you or are you looking for solutions or for me to fix your problems? And the reason I chuckle is because she usually could answer that one herself. Although once her husband felt heard, he was definitely open to her feedback. And it was awkward, but it also connected them, or we'll call him Matt. Matt had always, always used humor to deflect some of the one-on-one sessions I would have with Matt, felt like we were just exchanging comedy bits.

But you could see underneath the surface of that, and I would often joke that if people were listening in, they would think that we were speaking in riddles or code, but humor had become his primary emotion. Those around him had started to pull away from him, and he had finally had someone very close to him say that they felt like he had been a bit distant. That was one of the things that had brought him into therapy.

And so now instead of joking it off, he, it was sharing an experience with me where he had opened up and said, honestly, I have realized I, I hide, I hide behind my humor. And when he did that, he said it was this proverbial record scratch moment at a party that he was at where he felt like everybody went quiet and everything slowed down. But as awkward as it felt, he said. The room was quiet. Then he said it almost felt like it got warm.

Nobody laughed and everybody leaned in and he said he felt like he was in a real life movie. Kara spent years saying yes to everything out of fear that she wouldn't be liked, even to the point where her husband would say, I don't even believe you when you say that you are that agreeable, or that you are okay with whatever it is that I wanna do, or what the kids wanna do. And it started to drive a real wedge in the relationship.

So her sister had reached out to her and asked if she could host Thanksgiving. She wanted to say yes so bad, but she also knew that they already had plans for Thanksgiving. She said that when she finally responded to her sister, her hands were shaking. She said that she couldn't host Thanksgiving, and she said it. It wasn't a Disney moment. It wasn't a moment where her sister said, thank you so much. I'm so proud of you. You're so brave. No. Her sister said, oh, great.

Now what am I supposed to do? Her sister was clearly disappointed, but Kara sat in the silence and she said that was the area where in the past if there was silence, she would fill it with a, I will take care of it. I will do it. You are right. I am wrong. But she held that silence and kept her boundary, and she and her husband, I. Grew closer because of that. And finally, Eric, he used to go silent anytime his partner brought up any concern.

But one night he just said, honestly, when I am going silent like this, it's because I don't know what to say, but I really want to understand you and I stop paying attention to you because I'm so worried about saying the wrong thing. And he identified that he realized there isn't necessarily a wrong thing, I just need to be able to express the thing that I am thinking. He started asking for a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

And when that had previously been a way for him to get out of a conversation altogether, now he needed to go back to the conversation and he did and he didn't flee. And that was new. Growth takes time, and it is not linear. It isn't just a simple checklist of 1, 2, 3, 4, A, B, C, D, although I'm literally about to give you four steps. These steps are not exactly linear. You'll go back and forth between them. In Rick Hansen's book, Buddhist Brain, he lays out four stages of learning.

He calls them unconscious incompetence, and that's what I call the, you don't know what you don't know. He said, you don't even know what you're doing, and you don't even know what you're doing isn't working because you don't know unconscious incompetence. The second step is conscious incompetence, which, so now you're conscious of your incompetence. You realize it's not working, but you keep doing it anyway. You try. It's not working.

You're aware that you could be doing something different, but you continue to do the thing that is not working, and this is the hardest stage, and it's most likely the stage that people will stay in the longest. But you'll start to dip your toe over into stage three, which is conscious competence. Now you're aware and you are starting to become competent.

You start doing it differently, but it does take work effort, consistency, forgiveness, grace to yourself when you may not remember what you are gonna do, what you're supposed to do in those situations. So it takes work and it's gonna feel clunky, and you'll probably dip between that two and three conscious incompetence and conscious competence back and forth for quite a while.

And then remembering that unconscious incompetence, the stuff I don't even know that I don't know is still there because I don't know what they are. Because I don't know what it is. And finally, you move into his fourth stage of enlightenment or growth, unconscious competence. You're just doing it. It is who you are. You have become, you are. It is just part of your doing and being. This path takes time.

But like what Rick Hanson says, it's a lot of little moments of practice will replace the poisons of suffering with happiness, love, and wisdom. Each time that you show up differently, you're literally rewiring your brain, the good old concept of neuroplasticity, and you're becoming the adult that your inner child always needed and hoped you would be. And that isn't just growth. That's actually healing as well.

You're healing your own trauma, have grace for the journey. As you continue to explore the concepts of emotional maturity and you're recognizing and naming the places where you might be emotionally immature or even those around you, I want to emphasize something really, really crucial. The goal is progress. It's not perfection. If you think that you will just figure this out overnight, it's actually immature because that is the black or white thinking.

The most emotionally immature belief you could possibly hold is that you'll never be emotionally immature Again. It's like thinking that once you climb outta one hole, you'll never fall into another. Life just doesn't work that way, but now you're gonna know that, do I have the right tool when I'm in that hole? Because that will be the first time that you'll actually be in that hole. In that very moment.

So there will still be these new variables, but you'll start to have confidence in how you show up. The emotionally mature person isn't somebody who never reacts from their inner child. It's somebody who can recognize when they've fallen back down into this hole and they know now how to put down the shovel and reach for the ladder, and it's somebody who can say, okay, check that out. There I go again.

I'm mind reading what my partner is thinking, or, oh, I am noticing my magical thinking as I look at that pile of mail once again, because I have been better about opening my own mail, but I know that there's gonna be a time where I'm, my, my brain is gonna say, okay, check. Got it. I open my mail now until I don't.

I'm gonna have to be very, very consistent and intentional about that, or people recognizing a lot in my office of, oh, I'm actually realizing I'm, I'm seeking external validation, or, I need you to know this because that'll make me feel better. Your inner child deserves a tremendous amount of grace and love and kindness and support and empathy. Those adaptive strategies from everything from black and white thinking to mind reading, to external validation seeking, were not character flaws.

They were brilliant survival mechanisms that got you to where you are today. Listening to the podcast right now. And that child, that inner child, that part of you deserves the standing ovation, actually, not criticism. Thank you. You did great. So the journey of emotional maturity is more about expanding your repertoire, not rejecting your past. It happened. It's about having more choices now in how you respond. Really thinking the past because that's what got you here.

And it's not about eliminating all of your childhood responses. Some days you'll gracefully climb the ladder outta the hole, and other days you'll find yourself digging and you didn't even realize you were. And that is not failure. That's being a human. What matters isn't that you never fall into holes.

What matters is that you'll increasingly recognize when you're in one, you'll have compassion for yourself when you reach for the shovel out of habit and gently, persistently practice using that awkward ladder. Sometimes it might be a rope ladder, and those are really hard to climb. Remember, your maturity isn't measured by never making mistakes. It's measured by how you respond when you do. Can you offer the same compassion you would offer a child learning something new?

That would be really helpful. Can you celebrate small steps rather than demanding instant perfection? That's more of a true mark of emotional maturity, not an absence of childlike moments, but a growing capacity for awareness and choice and self-compassion in the face of them. So as we park today, I invite you to put down the shovel of perfectionism. Pick up a ladder of self-acceptance.

Your inner child's been working so hard to protect you, so now your adult self can take their hand gently, show 'em. There's a whole world outside of that hole, and that's a world where you can both actually be vulnerable and safe and imperfect and worthy, and always growing and always enough, exactly as you are. Thanks for joining me. I'd love to hear your feedback. Share this with somebody if you think it'll help. Taking us out, per usual is the wonderful, the talented.

Aurora Florence with her song. It's wonderful. Have a great week and we'll see you next time on the Virtual Catch. Compress Motions, flying Past, heads Out the Other and the pressures of the Daily Grind. It's Wonder, elastic, waist, and Rub. I'm floating past the midnight hour. They push aside the things that.