4 Painfully Bad Habits That Interfere With Emotional Maturity

Emotionally mature people have a healthy relationship with their emotions, which comes from building healthy habits of mind.

On the other hand, when you have unhealthy mental habits, it tends to produce emotional immaturity. This is a problem because…

Emotional immaturity is a recipe for insecurity, low confidence, poor relationships, and chronic stress.

Here are 4 painfully bad habits that interfere with emotional maturity:

1. Criticizing yourself for feeling bad

Unfortunately, many of the kindest and most compassionate people are incredibly judgmental and critical of themselves. A perfect example of this is how they deal with bad moods…

If a friend came to you and shared that they were having a hard time and were in a bad mood, how would you respond? Probably with compassion, understanding, and gentleness. But the minute you find yourself in a bad mood, you start judging yourself for being weak selfish irrational, or whatever. You criticize yourself, judge yourself, and compare yourself.

Feeling bad is hard enough without feeling bad about feeling bad.

When you judge yourself for your bad moods, you end up feeling bad about feeling bad. And when you compound painful feelings, it’s a recipe for long-term suffering and emotional fragility.

The next time you find yourself in a bad mood, try a little self-compassion before you jump to self-judgment.

“Words matter. And the words that matter most are the ones you say to yourself.”
― David Taylor-Klaus

2. Trying to fix painful emotions

Surprisingly, trying to fix or get rid of painful emotions only makes you more vulnerable to them.

See, when your brain sees you trying to get rid of or escape something, it learns to see that thing as a threat. And when your brain thinks something is a threat, it makes you afraid of it. So when you habitually avoid or try to “fix” painful feelings, you train your brain to be anxious about your emotions. And this makes you emotionally fragile.

When you treat your emotions like problems, that’s how they start to feel.

The solution is to learn to approach your emotions — even the painful ones — and welcome them. Because when you do, you teach your brain that even though painful emotions like anxiety or grief feel bad, they aren’t bad things — and you aren’t bad for feeling them.

The acceptance of all feelings is the heart of emotional strength.

“Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can.”
― Vironika Tugaleva

3. Using other people to feel good

It’s human nature to want comfort and support from others when we’re upset or feeling bad. And for the most part, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s a very good thing to surround yourself with supportive, encouraging people!

The problem is when you rely on other people to feel okay.

If you’re in the habit of constantly seeking reassurance and outsourcing your painful feelings to other people, you’re telling your brain that you’re not capable of handling those difficult feelings yourself. And this makes you emotionally fragile.

Your feelings are your responsibility and no one else’s.

Emotionally mature people can ask for help and support as part of a larger strategy of working through emotional difficulties. But if other people are your entire strategy for working through emotional struggles, you will be stuck in a pattern of low confidence and emotional immaturity.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
― John A. Shedd

4. Trying to always be happy

Everybody likes feeling happy. But it’s a profound mistake to assume that you should always feel that way or even aspire to always feel happy.