Storms are Raging

Today we’re going to talk about what it means to really step into being an adult. It’s not about having children or paying bills or any of the other “adulting” things you may have on your checklist.

It’s actually about leaving behind emotional childhood.

Emotional childhood means that you’re reacting to emotions and acting them out or avoiding them rather than taking full responsibility for each and every emotion that you experience.

Essentially, it’s not taking responsibility for how you feel. It’s saying to someone “when you said that you hurt my feelings” or “I’m mad because my boss was a jerk”. 

It’s operating the way most people do on a daily basis because it’s so much easier to blame other people than to take ownership of our own feelings. 

When you step into emotional adulthood, you recognize that you’re the only person responsible for how you feel at any given moment. Since we know our thoughts create our feelings, this is the best news ever because it means no one ever has the power to “make you feel” anything. 

Emotional adulthood is basically a superpower.

Now, before you start feeling bad about being an emotional child at 21, 43, or 72 - take a moment to remember that you were conditioned to be this way from the time you were an actual child.

Parents and teachers say things all the time like, “You go apologize right this minute for hurting her feelings.” Or they might ask, “Did it hurt your feelings when he said those mean things?”

Children are taught from a very young age that other people cause their feelings and that they in turn are responsible for other people’s feelings.

It’s actually the complete opposite. How’s that for a red pill wake-up call?

You’ve been programmed to believe that emotional childhood is just the way the world works, but it isn’t.

It’s a debilitating, disempowering way to live that has people of all ages blaming everything and everyone around them for how they feel, the actions they do or don’t take, and even the results they create. 

The only way to reach emotional maturity is by embracing personal responsibility.

This looks like:

• Taking full responsibility for our pain, but also our joy
• Not expecting other people to “make” us feel happy, loved, or secure
• Really understanding that we are the only ones who can ever “hurt” our feelings and that we do that with our thoughts

Easy right? You’ve totally got this and I can stop talking?

It’s ok, I know how much practice it takes. I’m all in on believing this is completely true and I *still* have to remind myself on a daily basis that it’s not that my child didn’t follow directions, the bad customer service experience, or some other random thing outside of my head “making” me angry.

I get it. But I can promise you, it’s worth the effort.

Here’s why. When you live in emotional childhood, you experience life in much the same way a child would. It can seem like life is happening to you and that you’re at the mercy of all the other people in the world. 

But it’s not true, it just seems that way because you’ve been giving the power over how you feel to so many different people. Your mother, your ex, the dude that cut you off when you were driving home, your boss, or the bullies who made fun of you in school.

Ok, let’s test this out. I want you to get a piece of paper and take the time to really think about each of these.

I want you to think of a circumstance or a person you think is causing a negative feeling.

Describe the situation in detail and exactly how it makes you feel.

Now, why do you think they have the power to make you feel all these things? Is it because you love them, they got in your way? Write it all out.

Ok now look at that list and find the thought that’s really making you feel the feels. For me, it tends to start with a “should”, but yours could be totally different.

Can you see how it’s this thought and not the circumstance or the person who is “causing” the feeling? I know, I know. It feels way better in the moment to blame someone else but stick with me.

How might you take ownership of your feelings in the future and how would that change the experience for you?

This is just a little taste of what emotional adulthood is like and the freedom it can grant you.

Music Time

I offer today’s song as another example of emotional childhood that’s just as disempowering - the idea that you cause other people’s feelings in a subjectively good way. That you can make someone feel your love - spoiler alert, it’s only their thoughts that make them feel loved just as it’s only your thoughts that are making you feel loved by them. 

On with the show. Today’s musical selection is Adele’s version of Make You Feel My Love. From the song: 

When the rain is blowing in your face

And the whole world is on your case

I could offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I've known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue

I'd go crawling down the avenue

No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rolling sea

And on the highway of regret

Though winds of change are throwing wild and free

You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

Nothing that I wouldn't do

Go to the ends of the Earth for you

To make you feel my love

So tell me... 

Had you heard some version of this song before? I’m going to assume you have and that you probably thought it was romantic and showed just how much love the singer felt towards the object of their affection but through the lens of emotional adulthood, can you see how it’s really just the singer’s own thoughts that matter and not the experience of their beloved? I mean really…. If you’re hungry and beaten and crawling down the avenue and I don’t know that it’s happening and not even having thoughts about your situation...that may or may not make me feel loved. The song is all about what the singer wants and has literally nothing to do with whomever they’re singing to. The thoughts about being willing to do anything make the singer feel the emotion of love but unless their lover has the exact same thoughts about those various acts, they won’t feel love…. They might even think “chick is a stalker.”

Spend time with all the things and see what comes up. If you’re feeling frisky, hit me up on Instagram and share your thoughts with me.

Until next time, my wish for you is the freedom that comes from leaving behind childhood and becoming an emotional adult. 

Podcast Theme Music

License:  Rustic Ballad by Alexander Nakarada