THE ULTIMATE TEST OF EMOTIONAL MATURITY

One of the more puzzling aspects of the way we�re built is that our emotional
development does not necessarily or automatically keep pace with our physical
growth. We can be fifty-five on the outside and four and a half in terms of our
impulses and habitual manner of communicating - just as we can be on the threshold
of adulthood physically while an emotional sage within.

In order to assess our own and others� emotional development, we can make use of a
single deceptively simple question that quickly gets to the core of our underlying
emotional �age�.

When someone on whom we depend emotionally lets us down, disappoints us, or leaves
us hanging and uncertain, what is our characteristic way of responding?

There are three methods which indicate emotionally immature behaviour (we might
grade ourselves on a scale of 1-10 according to our propensities).

Firstly: we might sulk.

That is, we simultaneously get very upset while refusing to explain to the person
who has upset us what the problem might be. The insult to our pride and dignity
feels too great. We are too internally fragile to reveal that we have been knocked.
We hope against hope that another person might simply magically understand what
they have done and fix it without us needing to speak - rather as an infant who
hasn�t yet mastered language might a hope a parent would spontaneously enter their
minds and guess what was ailing them.

Secondly: we might get furious.

Another response is to get extremely, and disproportionately angry with the
disappointing person. Our fury may look powerful, but no one who felt powerful
would have any need for such titanic rage. Inside, we feel broken, at sea and
bereft. But our only way of reasserting control is to mimic an aggrieved emperor or
taunted tiger. Our insults and viciousness are, in their coded ways, admissions of
terror and defencelessness. Our pain is profoundly poignant; our manner of dealing
with it a good deal sadder.

Thirdly: we might go cold.

It takes a lot of courage to admit to someone who has hurt us that we care, that
they have a power over us, that a key bit of our life is in their hands. It may be
a lot easier to put up a strenuous wall of indifference. At precisely the moment
when we are most emotionally vulnerable to a loved one�s behaviour, we insist that
we haven�t noticed a slight and wouldn�t give a damn anyway. We may not simply be
pretending: remaining in touch with our wounds may have become conclusively
intolerable. Not feeling anything may have replaced the enormous threat of being
fully alive.

These three responses point us in turn to the three markers of emotional maturity:

Firstly, the Capacity to Explain.

That is, the power - simple to describe but a proper accomplishment in practice -
to explain why we are upset to the person who has upset us; to have faith that we
can find the words, that we are not pathetic or wretched for suffering in a given
way and that, with a bit of luck, we will find the words to make ourselves
understood by someone whom we can remember, deep down, even at this moment of
stress, is not our enemy.

Secondly, the Capacity to stay Calm.

The mature person knows that robust self-assertion is always an option down the
line. This gives them the confidence not to need to shout immediately, to give
others the benefit of every doubt and not to assume the worst and then hit back
with undue force. The mature like themselves enough not to suspect that everyone
would have a good reason to mock and slander them.

Thirdly, the Capacity to be Vulnerable

The mature know, and have made their peace with the idea, that being close to
anyone will open them up to being hurt. They feel enough inward strength to possess
a tolerable relationship with their own weakness. They are unembarrassed enough by
their emotional nakedness to tell even the person who has apparently humiliated
them that they are in need of help. They trust - ultimately - that there is nothing
wrong with their tears and that they have the right to find someone who will know
how to bear them.

In turn, these three traits belong to what we can call the three cardinal virtues
of emotional maturity: Communication, Trust and Vulnerability.

These three virtues were either gifted to us during a warm and nourishing childhood
or else we will need to learn them arduously as adults. This is akin to the
difference between growing up speaking a foreign language, and having to learn it
over many months as an adult. However, the comparison at least gives us an
impression of the scale of the challenge ahead of us. There is nothing to be
ashamed of about our possible present ignorance. At least half of us weren�t
brought up in the land of emotional literacy. We may just never have heard adults
around us speaking an emotionally mature dialect. So we may - despite our age -
need to go back to school and spend 5 to 10,000 hours learning, with great patience
and faith, the beautiful and complex grammar of the language of emotional
adulthood.