I want to talk about the concept of Emotional Childhood and the opposite of that, Emotional Adulthood. I truly believe this information I am about to share could be helpful to every single person in the world. I say this quite often but it needs repeating. We all have a human brain. However, we were not taught anything in our K-12 education system about how the various parts of our brain function and how to utilize this tool of our brain in the most productive ways. Wouldn’t that be so helpful? In fact, we are taught as children that what we do can make others feel a certain way, so it’s only natural that we would think this about what others do to us. We make them responsible for it. It has literally been ingrained in us. So when I share concepts with clients, they often have this moment where it’s like “Why didn’t I ever know this?” I totally get it, I thought the same thing when I began my journey into learning these concepts, tools, and techniques. But it doesn’t matter when you learn it. What matters is that you can learn this now and live the rest of your life in a much more empowered and peaceful way.
Emotional childhood in the simplest of terms, is not taking responsibility for how you feel. You blame everyone and everything for how you feel and the results you are getting in your life. You are often taking action from a place of blame, dependence, and instant gratification. You are focusing on everything external around you, and you are feeling powerless.
The truth is, that most adults function from emotional childhood. Unless they have been intentional to understand this concept and train their mind to understand that their thinking is creating their results.
So there is no shame here, no judgment. This is something very common for us all.
The fact is we were all children once, and we all behaved as a child does. This is normal. As children, we had a limited capacity to control our emotions. And it is not uncommon whatsoever for children to not take responsibility for their actions.
Our reality is that it is so easy for us as adults to slip back into emotional childhood. We started out there and it is comfortable to go back to it. It takes less energy because you don’t have to switch to your prefrontal intelligent thinking. The primitive brain is perfectly fine in emotional childhood.
Let me get more specific about what emotional childhood could look like, because I think that is what we need to hear to be able to recognize it in ourselves.
Things like:
-acting irrationally
-being very selfish, not considering others
-raising our voices
-pointing out the flaws of others
-throwing temper tantrums
-becoming frustrated or aggressive
-not creating or enforcing our own healthy boundaries
-blaming everyone else for what is going wrong
-acting like a victim to everything that is happening around us
-lacking the ability to communicate in a productive manner, such as having difficulty in expressing their thoughts and emotions
-become defensive during a conflict and deny they have done anything wrong, or avoid discussing the conflict altogether.
-lacking the ability to listen and hear what the other person is saying.
-interjecting ourselves into situations that don’t directly involve us
-pointing out things about others that you don’t even have a direct connection to.
-not having acceptance in themselves may project or point out issues in others that uncomfortably connect to them.
I’ve literally seen this in my own life and in others for sure. I can tell you that I used to come from emotional childhood ALL THE TIME. It was just my default comfort zone, and I didn’t see a reason to change. But once I was introduced to all this knowledge and saw the positive effects it has on my life, I would not want to go back.
I always say this to you because I want you to know that anyone can do this work. I am not perfect. I just strive to be better than I used to be. To be continually evolving and growing as a person. I will share an example with you of how I am absolutely not perfect. Just recently, I had a situation where I most definitely dropped into emotional childhood. So, my husband and I had ordered an item as a Christmas gift and it was an electronics item that you wouldn’t want to leave unattended on the front porch this time of year especially. My husband had said that it may need to have a signature. I didn’t research that to find out for sure. So all day I was on alert for the delivery person to come because our doorbell was currently not working. It was later in the day when it arrived. He approached the door and I opened it just a bit to reach out and grab it from him, but in the process of doing so, our dog Rosy who has made it her mission to scare away all the delivery people by barking at them through the window squeezed through my legs and out the door. The delivery person began to run and so the chase was on. I followed trying to be calm and get her attention but as our dog trainer told us when a dog is in chase mode, they don’t hear anything else. So I ended up going across the street where she had him cornered and grabbed her. My husband came out picked her up and walked her back into the house. Now, after that happened I was feeling so foolish because I know better. I know Rosy does not like delivery people and thinks it is her job to scare them away. It didn’t end up needing a signature anyway so I really had no reason why I would need to take it from him. I could have let him put it down and leave and then go outside to retrieve it. As I was in this process inside my own head of how foolish I was to create this whole situation my husband said a few words to me. Really nothing all that terrible, probably just his reaction to becoming thrust into all this commotion. But upon hearing those words, I allowed myself to go all in on emotional childhood. This prompted me to get defensive and yell and place blame on him. Even as I did it, I knew inside that I was showing up in full-blown childhood. It’s kinda cool to have the awareness but again I am not perfect because I let it go. I ultimately didn’t want to take responsibility for how I was feeling. Everything that happened after the initial mishap didn’t need to happen and I eventually realized it and began to take responsibility for it. Which honestly felt so much better than what I was doing before. So it was my thinking about what he said that triggered an emotional reaction in me and I didn’t pause and reset before reacting. Can you see how this happens so quickly? Can you think of situations you’ve been in that went down like this?
Another situation I witnessed this week was while driving. Oh, how just the simple act of driving is becoming an adventure. I was in a turn lane and as I was approaching the light turned yellow. I could have gone and ignored it but I knew it would turn red while I was in the intersection. I slowly applied the brakes and stopped and of course, very quickly the light turned red. The driver behind me was not happy with my decision and proceeded to honk and gesture to me which I saw from my rear view. I thought, wow isn’t that crazy. I would have barely made it through the light so clearly he would be in the exact position he is in of waiting on the light. What made him react that way. Ok, so maybe he was stressed and just needed to be somewhere, but the actions he took next clearly come from emotional childhood.
It really can happen in so many ways. Here is one more made-up example I will share with you.
Let’s say something was impressed upon you as a child. Let’s say, for example, you were always told that it is rude to not send a thank you after receiving a gift. If this belief was imprinted on you as a child, you could now as an adult have heavy judgment and frustration over someone not doing this. Perhaps you begin to treat them in a certain way because of your judgment of them. And all the while they have no idea what is really happening in your brain. That is emotional childhood because as I teach in the concept called the manual. We are not in a position to make demands of other adults. They can choose to behave as they wish and we can either agree or disagree with it, but getting emotionally disrupted because of it and taking action from that emotion is childish.
I hope these examples are obvious as to what the downsides are from acting from emotional childhood. It certainly creates conflicts in relationships, it can evolve into something so much bigger than it needed to and it absolutely does not leave you feeling any better whatsoever. You have the tantrum and you react but it does not leave you in a better place at all. Usually, you just add more to the existing mess to clean up.
On the slip side, emotional adulthood is taking responsibility for every feeling you have. Coming from ownership and responsibility. It comes from an internal place and it is powerful. It also is all about delayed gratification. So you are taking full responsibility for how you are feeling no matter what someone else is doing or saying. We take control of our own thinking and don’t blame other people.
How about we look at examples of what emotional adulthood would look like. This would be:
-Displaying maturity when discussing a situation.
-Accepting responsibility for your part in a problem.
-Practicing patience and speaking calmly.
-Not jumping to conclusions.
-Not looking for flaws and missteps in others.
-Giving people the benefit of the doubt.
-Challenging yourself with how else you could look at this or think about it.
-Recognizing that there is no emotion that can kill you. You can feel them all and they won’t harm you.
-You set healthy boundaries
-you are able to resolve conflict
-you are emotionally aware of your feelings and how they impact your actions
-you are flexible and open-minded
-see that these are often opportunities to learn and grow
So in the example I shared with our dog and the delivery man, emotional adulthood for me would have looked like my realizing I made a mistake and not choosing to treat myself terribly for it. It would have been allowing my husband to say the words he did without getting overly sensitive about them and making it mean something terrible about me. It would have looked like staying calm. It would have meant that the situation was over just as quick as it happened and it wouldn’t have resided in my brain any longer than it needed to. I would have looked at the whole situation with more compassion and lightness that I made a mistake. And I would remember not to do that again when our dog Rosy is nearby.
In summary, I believe that too many individuals are not aware of this concept and aren’t taking responsibility for the negative energy they put out into the world. We need to take individual responsibility and recognize when we are acting from emotional childhood.
I get it, I used to be this way. Only seeing what someone else was doing wrong. This was my defense mechanism for not feeling the best about myself. Once I realized this I took back my power over it and I became the parent to that child. If we all took individual responsibility for our words and actions things could be so much smoother in this world I do believe that wholeheartedly. Being an emotional adult does take more effort but I have seen it to be so worth it. I have more peace and contentment than ever before.
Let this concept of emotional childhood digest in your brain and ask yourself to think about times you have shown up in emotional childhood. Ask yourself if you like the results it is getting you and is there anything you would like to do differently. If there is, then make it a point to be more aware of how you are acting in the moment and tell yourself next time you will try something different. Even if it is just taking a few deep breaths and resetting your energy. Then taking action after that pause.
If you would like help with moving out of emotional childhood I encourage you to request a discovery session with me. It is absolutely complimentary, and there is no obligation to continue. I can help you integrate these concepts into your life so you can grow and thrive in ways you didn’t think were possible. Now that would be an amazing gift to yourself.
“Childhood trauma is not a life sentence. Extreme emotional pain doesn’t guarantee emotional pain for the rest of your life.”
Rachel Hollis