Wow! I just got slapped in the face with an article that screamed at me about my recent conversations with my beloved daughter. We have had soo many conversations that end up going so south because she gets irritated with me, doesn’t want to talk about certain topics, flat out tells me to shut up or stop!…it goes on. It has been so hard and with that, an emotional roller coaster.
The article Women who haven’t grown up emotionally usually display these 8 behaviors (without realizing it) -geediting.com on google listed these 8 behaviors that were pretty telling with what behaviors my daughter has been sharing—1. Overly Reactive. 2. Difficulty in accepting responsibility. 3. Avoiding difficult conversations. 4. Dependence on external validation. 5. Struggle with empathy. 6. Difficulty in setting boundaries. 7. Impulsive decision making. 8. Perfectionism
Wow. This was VERY eye opening for me. I have this BEAUTIFUL, college-age daughter that leads, guides, works a great job, has soo many great skills, gifts and talents, but I believe her emotional resilience is in need of a some growth before it takes a further toll on her health. I worry for her and her emotional wellness and well-being.
My key takeaways from the article: (my summaries mixed)
—Practice mindfulness to help pause, reflect, and respond rather than react. [SEE practices below]
—Take responsibility
—Tackle discomfort head on is how we grow and get better. Embrace the tricky or uncomfortable conversations will help all of your relationships become stronger.
—Don’t let the craving for external validation rule you. Your feeling good should not hinge on the thoughts or opinions of others.This is another place where mindfulness can help switch from seeking approval on the outside to finding it within. YOUR worth is up to YOU. [ideas below]
—Practice empathy to create deeper connections.
—Honor your own needs and necessities by having your own personal boundaries.
—Perfectionism often stems from fear of rejection or judgment. Its a defense mechanism that can hinder personal growth. Strive for progress not perfection. [See tips on doing this below]
MY ADDITIONAL RESEARCH:
My additional research into this topic to help anyone out there in need of some emotional growth—be gentle. Begin. Here are some additional directions to help…
Emotional maturity means having the self-control to manage your emotions and work to understand them. -betterup
“It is a choice. No matter how frustrating or boring or constraining or painful or
oppressive our experience, we can always choose how we respond.”
-EDITH EGER
HOW TO IMPROVE EMOTIONAL MATURITY
- Develop a GROWTH MINDSET: Focus on continuous self-improvement and growth rather than nitpicking failures and shortcomings.
- Set HEALTHY BOUNDARIES: A great sign of standing up for yourself
- UNDERSTAND YOUR EMOTIONS: When you understand what makes you angry, sad, or excited, you can use that to your advantage instead of retaliating at the first hint of negativity. Ask yourself what makes you mad or uncomfortable and why.
- OWN your mistakes: own up and take responsibility for mistakes or errors–dont blame. Next time you make a mistake, apologize for your error without making excuses for yourself. View each mistake as a learning opportunity to expand your skills and learn more about yourself.
- Find a ROLE MODEL: Watch as they handle challenging situations and how they respect their emotions. It could give you insight into better habits to form and inspire you to keep working to develop your maturity.
- now that you understand what emotional maturity means, you can learn to stop bottling up your feelings and fearing vulnerability. Emotional maturity helps you communicate better with others, have healthier relation. -Betterup article
Mindfulness is about observing how you’re feeling in the moment without judging yourself. -childmind
Identifying the PATTERN is AWARENESS; CHOOSING no to repeat the cycle is GROWTH. -Billy Chapata
HEALTHY HABITS & SELF-CARE can help.
MINDFULNESS tips and suggestions: Go on a walking meditation, begin a gratitude journal, practice mindful eating, do a body scan before bed, listen to a guided meditation, do a loving-kindness meditation, set daily intentions for yourself, get out in nature, identify feelings,
Exercises From Self.com
3 minute Breathing Space Here’s how to practice the “three-minute breathing space” technique, as described by Dr. Vieten:
- Set a timer for three minutes.
- Sit in a comfortable position if you can (though standing works too), ideally in a relatively calm environment (the bathroom counts), and close your eyes if you want. Notice what’s happening in your mind and body right now. Are you worrying about a problem or mistake? Do you feel warm or cold? Is there a distracting sound in your environment? Simply notice whatever you’re experiencing at the moment.
- Bring your full attention to your breath, focusing on the sensation of the air flowing in and out of your body.
- Expand your zone of awareness further out from your breathing so that it includes your whole body. You might notice your posture, your facial expression, or areas of muscle tension. Again, simply pay attention to whatever’s going on with your body.
Four-seven-eight mindful breathing The four-seven-eight mindfulness technique is a type of deep breathing exercise. It’s particularly handy for anxiety, as feeling anxious can deregulate our breathing patterns, says Dr. Urgola.8 “This technique can also be helpful if you’re having trouble sleeping,” she adds, since stress can prevent you from nodding off. To practice four-seven-eight mindfulness breathing:
- Close your eyes if it feels comfortable. If not, gaze softly gaze at a spot in your environment.
- Inhale for a count of four.
- Hold for a count of seven.
- Exhale for a count of eight.
- Make sure you’re breathing deeply, from the pit of your belly (compared to shallow breathing from your chest) so your lungs fill up fully.
- Stay with this pattern as best you can.
- End the exercise whenever you feel ready to stop.
People watching exercise You can turn your commute or leisurely walk into a mini mindfulness session by noticing strangers around you. When you notice people, it creates an opportunity to detach from your own mental chatter, allowing you to practice awareness without actually meditating.
- Take a moment to notice the people around you.
- As you observe them, try not to form judgments or stories about them. If your mind starts to judge or assume, try to let those thoughts go and bring your focus back to a neutral awareness.
- If you feel comfortable, you can also try engaging one or more strangers. Maybe say hello, make eye contact, or offer a smile.
- If not, that’s fine too. Simply observe whoever is currently around you.
From positive psychology.com they recommend an actual list of week by week mindfulness exercises https://positivepsychology.com/mindfulness-exercises-techniques-activities/
Mindful Eating habits: Mindful eating involves paying closer attention to your food and how it makes you feel. In addition to helping you learn to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger, it may also help reduce disordered eating behaviors and support weight loss. Mindful eating is about using mindfulness to reach a state of full attention to your experiences, cravings, and physical cues when eating.
Fundamentally, mindful eating involves:
- eating slowly and without distraction
- listening to physical hunger cues and eating only until you’re full
- distinguishing between true hunger and non-hunger triggers for eating
- engaging your senses by noticing colors, smells, sounds, textures, and flavors
- learning to cope with guilt and anxiety about food
- eating to maintain overall health and well-being
- noticing the effects food has on your feelings and body
- appreciating your food. –taken from health line.com
Mindful Walking exercise: https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/lessons/activities/activity-mindful-walking.pdf
EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATIONS: Emotions can hit quickly. Become aware of what you are feeling. Name your feelings. [sadness, anger, resentment,—negatives may be hiding underlying fears. Be gentle with yourself and find self-compassion within your emotional reactions. It is okay to not feel okay. Just helping identify what you are feeling is key to understand what emotions and where they are coming from.
7 strategies that can help to manage emotions in a healthy and helpful way. [from better up.com]
—Identify triggers: You shouldn’t try to avoid negative emotions — or be afraid of them. But you also don’t have to keep putting yourself in a situation that brings on unpleasant emotions. Start to look for patterns or factors that are present when you start to feel strong emotions. This requires some curiosity and honesty. Did something make you feel small? Strong emotions often spring up out of our deep-seated insecurities, especially the ones we hide. What is happening around you and what past experiences does it bring up for you?
–Tune into physical symptoms Pay attention to how you are feeling, including whether you are feeling hungry or tired. These factors can exacerbate your emotions and cause you to interpret your emotions more strongly. If you can address the underlying issue (e.g. hunger, exhaustion), you can change your emotional response.
—Consider the story you are telling yourself
—Engage in positive self-talk: When our emotions feel overwhelming, our self-talk can become negative: “I messed up again” or “everyone else is so awful.” If you treat yourself with empathy, you can replace some of this negative talk with positive comments. Try encouraging yourself by saying “I always try so hard” or “People are doing the best they can.” This shift can help mitigate the emotions we’re feeling. You can still be frustrated with a situation that isn’t working but no longer have to assign blame or generalize it beyond the situation.
—Make a choice about how to respond: In most situations, we have a choice about how to respond. If you tend to respond to feelings of anger by lashing out at people, you likely notice the negative impact it is having on your relationships. You might also notice that it doesn’t feel good. Or, it feels good at the moment, but the consequences are painful.
Next time you feel anger or fear, recognize that you get to choose how you want to respond. That recognition is powerful. Rather than lashing out, can you try a different response? Is it possible for you to tell someone that you’re feeling angry rather than speaking harshly to them? Get curious about what will happen if you switch up your responses. How did you feel? How did the other person respond?
–Look for positive emotions: Human beings naturally attribute more weight to negative emotions than positive ones. This is known as negativity bias. Negative emotions, like disgust, anger, and sadness tend to carry a lot of weight. Positive feelings, like contentment, interest, and gratitude are quieter. Making a habit of noticing these positive experiences can boost resilience and well-being.
IT IS OKAY TO NOT FEEL OKAY.
PROGRESS OVER PERFECTION. A few exercises to help with perfectionism: Become aware of your thoughts…journal your thoughts to be able to see and identify what is triggering and creating the behavior. Once you identify, then you can begin to change. Look at your thoughts and question the evidence of if the thoughts are real or have any validity. Let go and allow for mistakes, mis-steps, and help your brain understand that everything will be okay & that it is an opportunity for greater growth mindsets. Help yourself with better self-talk. No one can do it for you, but you. Alter and improve the daily talk that you live with. Your self-talk effects your self-esteem and will lead to a healthier relationship with yourself, others and your overall wellness in life. Become aware and be gentle with your perfectionistic tendencies. When you can acknowledge that you have these deep seeded feelings within & can become aware that this is a deeper problem, you can begin to take action to help yourself. Begin to be gentle in your attitude and actions with what you create, how you work, share ideas, set goals…with an attitude of “this is good enough” and does not have to be perfect. Let go of impossible goals & set reasonable ones for yourself.
Becoming aware of patterns & create a knowing that progress is fluid and ever-changing . Be flexible with yourself and your directions . Begin to LET GO of the pressure and the fear that creates the false need of striving for perfection .
HELPING GET OVER THE NEED FOR EXTERNAL VALIDATION: mindfulness meditation [see above] . Affirmations or personal mantras [also helps reduce negative self-talk] . Surround yourself with people who lift and support rather than deplete you emotionally . Take the time to slow down and give yourself the validation you are seeking . Create YOUR own support system…how
A few ideas from Tiny Buddha suggests: making a special “YOU” section in your daily gratitude journal. Write down the things you’ve done well, the choices you’ve made that you’re proud of, the progress you’ve made, and even the things that required no action at all—for example, the time you gave yourself to simply be. When you regularly praise yourself, self-validation becomes a habit you can depend on when you need it the most.
Ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” Oftentimes, when we’re feeling down on ourselves, we feel a (sometimes subconscious) desire to punish ourselves. When we reject or deprive ourselves in this way, we exacerbate our feelings, because we then feel bad about two things: the original incident and the pain we’re causing ourselves.
If you’re feeling down, or down on yourself, ask yourself: “What does my body need? What does my mind need? What does my spirit need?” Or otherwise expressed: What will make you feel better, more stable, healthier, and more balanced? You may find that you need to take a walk to feel more energized, take a nap to feel better rested, practice deep breathing to clear your head, or drink some water to hydrate yourself. This is validating yourself in action. Whenever you address your needs, you reinforce to yourself that they are important, regardless of whatever you did or didn’t do previously.
HAVE A TOOL KIT OF GOOD THINGS TO GO TO WHEN OVERWHELM OR EMOTIONS HIT: have a certain number of songs in a ‘stress less’ or ‘calm’ playlist, go for a walk to get out in nature, practice using your senses to calm (To Touch: silly putty, stuffed animal, stress ball, smooth stone, See: coloring book, Happy photos of friends or family or inspiring happy places, Smell: Scented candle, favorite lip gloss or perfume, Hear: Guided meditation, short podcast, favorite song playlist Taste: favorite snack, something sweet and salty, mints or gum, favorite drink) Do certain activities to ground you. Write a loving note to yourself or put in a compliment journal of nice things people have said to you, so when you are feeling down or anxious—you have some kind words to lift you.
Another idea that I shared with my daughter—I gave her a picture of her when she was six years old. I told her to look at the little girl & I asked her, “Would you tell that sweet, beautiful girl all the horrible things you tell yourself? You wouldn’t tell her that ‘she is going nowhere,’ ‘ that she is not happy,’ ‘that she is not where she needs to be in life and should be doing better.'” It was heartbreaking to hear my daughter talk so critiquely of herself. I told her to take the picture of her as a young girl and when she starts to say mean thing to herself or listening to the harsh critic in her head..to look at that picture and tell her, “everything is going to be alright. I love you.”
“When we’re anxious, we get into the cycle of repeating the same thoughts, the same behaviors, over and over again,” says Jennifer Teplin, LCSW, a licensed therapist and the founder of Manhattan Wellness in New York City. “Distraction is grounding and can break us out of those repetitive thoughts.”
Having stuff you can smell, taste, see, touch, or hear is more likely to calm you down and help you focus your thoughts on something tangible at the same time. -jedfoundation.org
I hope these ideas help you or someone you love reach a little higher, be a bit gentler and find the deeper love that we all seek in one way or another. We are all just trying to do our best. We all have different journeys, experiences, struggles…it will get better. Just keep LOVE in your heart.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY.
Give yourself the LOVE and GENTLE CARE YOU NEED. xoxox. -H
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