Emotional Maturity

There are 6 levels of emotional maturity in order to achieve the highest standards of emotional responsibilities. Based on the guide from Kevin Fitz Maurice, we will look into each levels from the lowest to the highest.

Level 1 - Emotional Responsibility

When one realizes his/her emotional states as responsibility of externals like people, place, etc. He/she will drop and alter his/her expression the take responsibility over his/her emotion. The expression usually refers to oneself first before expressing the matter. Example:

You make me so mad when you do that ... ➔ I feel mad when you do that because…

Hence, they usually express in this way:

• “When you did that, I felt …, because I thought it meant ….”
• “When that happened, I felt …, because I interpreted it to mean ….”

As they advances, they may express as such:

• “I chose to feel … when you or I did that, because I thought it meant ….”
• “I choose to feel … whenever that happens, because I choose to think it means ….”
• “I chose to feel … when he, she, or it did that, because I chose to think it means ….”
• “I am in the habit of choosing to feel … whenever my or your [mother, father, sister, brother, etc.] says anything to me, because I think it means ….”

They own their life, take on task of learning and practicing emotional responsibility.

Level 2 - Emotional Honesty

These people are honest to their emotion. It's already a step passing self-acceptance and self-understanding and is now working on self-discovery.

The very obvious trait is they have the ability to choose how and what to feel to avoid hurting themselves. They knew how not to interact with the inner-devil like using ignoring, distracting, or redirecting techniques.

They also do not hide their emotion (are true to themselves) and honestly express the emotion. They are the people who know how to switch from stupid thinking into something realistic and effective thinking, attaining the capability of "never becoming stupid from acting stupid".

Another good trait is that they managed to locate others with whom they can safely share their real feelings, their real selves, in an accepting and supporting manner.

Level 3 - Emotional Openness

At this level, one is willing to share and skills in sharing his/her feeling in an appropriate manner and at appropriate times.

These people understands the value of letting go feeling and the danger involves hiding feelings from each others. They are capable of ventilating their own feelings correctly by freeing and open up oneself to better options and choices, not reinforcing it. Some example of ventilation is like:

• Express to let pass.
• Ventilate to detach.
• Share to let go.
• Stop stewing and start swimming.

Level 4 - Emotional Assertiveness

At this level, one is capable to give and take the nurturing he / she wants - first from self, then others.

If it is safe to do so, he or she assets his/her emotional needs in all his/her relationship. He/she knows how express feelings appropriately.

These are some traits:

• Asking for alone time to contemplate, meditate, and pray.
• Asking for encouragement to complete a task or to achieve a goal.
• Asking for help to grieve a loss.
• Asking for time and space alone to process feelings.
• Asking for understanding and compassion for some unpleasant feelings.
• Asking to be heard out without advice or judgment.
• Being able to accept compliments with a simple, “Thank you.”
• Expressing what you are feeling while giving the other person permission to feel differently.
• Expressing what you are feeling without requiring others to understand or appreciate your feelings.
• Informing others that you are feeling vulnerable and may react poorly under stress or to confrontation for a while.
• Letting someone know you love and care about them in a non-sexual and safe way.
• Offering congratulations to others for their achievements.
• Rewarding positive social behaviors with approval and support.
• Telling someone that you think what he or she did was smart, timely, or important.

Level 5 - Emotional Understanding

At this level, one is completely capable of understanding cause-and-effect processes of emotional responsibilities and irresponsibility. He/she understands that self-concept cannot exists without a complimentary bad self-concept. Similarly, he/she achieves emotional empathy.

He/she understands a person's feeling has duality characteristics (responsibilities, irresponsibility), whether the other person hides it or not. He/she continuously moves himself/herself outside self-concept, self-images, and self-constructs. Hence, he/she will remove himself/herself in order to learn the feeling of others.

Some trait includes:

• Attempts to capture a moment of self can only kill the self, because the self is a living process and not knowledge or memory.

1. To reduce self to knowledge is literally to kill the self.
2. Either one has his or her self and is alive and experiencing, or one has found his or her self as knowledge, lost his or her self, is dead, and is remembering, not experiencing.

Level 6 - Emotional Detachment

At this highest level, one has achieved life without depending on emotional burdens. He/she recognizes oneself is a being experiencing life, unknowable, untrappable, dynamics, and part of the life journey, not static or fixated onto something. In other words, he/she has successfully detached from his/her emotion.

A notable trait for this types of person experiences unconditional loves for their enemies. Others includes, empathy, life appreciations, and selflessness.

That's all about emotional maturity level.