Emotional maturity

Maturity in general is completeness and precision, and human maturity is the completion of bodily, psychological, social and spiritual functions and the harmony between them. Emotional maturity is the elevation of the individual by adjusting his emotions and their proportionality with the level of his chronological age and experiences and the nature of the different situations, so that his emotional responses are consistent with what is expected of a specific energy and proportionate to the situation. * An escalating progression of the soul from the physical level (the brain and the perceptions it receives through the senses or the executive orders it sends to the prey) to the mental level (where the logical analysis and abstract objective thinking) to the cardiac level (where the beliefs and sentiments are) to the spiritual level (where the eternal communication is) With the world of the unseen and where the tendency towards immortality and the pursuit of God)  

And the psychological functions - in this perception - move dynamically up and down through the aforementioned levels (physical, mental, cardiac and spiritual), and in the case of psychological maturity we find that all of these levels are active and functional without neglecting or excluding any of them, and the leadership of the soul is in the central operations unit, which is the heart (Moral).
In the case of immaturity
, the psychological activity is confined to the lower levels only (physical only or physical and mental) and this activity is confirmed in those levels in the sense that his movement becomes less flexible, and thus this immature person lives a limited existence and is drowning in the details of his physical and mental needs and spends his life as a defender About his pleasures and possessions and his awareness does not extend to higher levels of existence. (For more details, see the book: "Levels of the Soul"
The Five Dimensions of Affective Intelligence:
Goleman spoke about five dimensions of that type of intelligence, which we briefly list in the following: 
1- Self-awareness: Self-awareness
is the basis of self-confidence and good management. We always need to know our strengths and weaknesses objectively, and we take this knowledge as the basis for our capabilities. We also need to learn from a young age to recognize our feelings and call them the correct name, so that we do not confuse anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, hunger, etc. This objective awareness of oneself makes us more efficient in managing it and makes our decisions closer to the right. 

2- Dealing with emotional aspects in general: (Handling emotions generally)
We need to know how to treat and deal with the emotions that hurt and bother us and those that please us. This continuous flexibility in knowledge, treatment and handling increases our experience day after day in managing our emotional apparatus to benefit from its tremendous advantages and avoid its harmful risks. 

3- Motivation:
The presence of strong motivations that motivate us to progress and strive towards our goals is the third element of emotional intelligence. Hope is an essential component of motivation, to have a goal and to know our steps step by step towards achieving it, to have the enthusiasm and perseverance to continue the pursuit. 

4- Mental empathy (understanding) .. (Empathy):
Mental empathy (understanding) is the fourth component of emotional intelligence, and it means: reading other people's feelings from their voice or facial expressions and not necessarily from what they say. Knowing the feelings of others is a basic human ability that we see even in children. Goleman says that the three-year-old who lives in a loving family seeks to calm other children or sympathize with them if they cry, whereas children whose parents mistreat them or neglect them will scream at the crying child and sometimes beat him. 

Goleman stresses that emotional intelligence is an educated person, and that learning begins from the first years of life and continues.
Goleman cites the case of a murderer who committed seven murders and in one clinical interview he answered the question: Did you feel any pity for the victims? He replied: Not at all, and if I had felt pity, I would not have been able to do what I did. We conclude from this that empathy is what restrains human cruelty, it maintains human civilization, and that emotional intelligence is not related to the known mental intelligence ratio. 

5- Social Skills: The
more a person is equipped with adequate and appropriate social skills, the better his ability to deal with situations and crises. Those who lack social skills flounder and suffer from maladjustment disorders. 

The importance of emotional intelligence: 
1- Emotional intelligence plays an important role in the compatibility of the child with his parents, siblings and peers and his environment, so that it grows together and harmoniously with life, and it also leads to improving and raising the efficiency of academic achievement.
2- Emotional intelligence helps to overcome the crisis of adolescence and all other crises after that, such as the midlife crisis, peacefully.
3- Emotional intelligence is an important factor in the stability of marital life, as a good expression of feelings, understanding the feelings of the other party and caring for them in a mature manner, all of this guarantees a wonderful marital harmony.
4- The emotional intelligence behind success in work and life, the most intelligent and sentimental are loved, persevering and assertive, brilliant and able to communicate and lead and insist on success. 

Given that emotional intelligence is of great importance, psychologists have recommended its development through educational lessons, training courses and workshops with the aim of reaching high degrees of emotional intelligence, which we call emotional maturity, and we will talk about it now in some detail due to its importance. 

Different measures of age:
When we ask someone: How old are you? He answers us immediately: Fifty years (for example). This answer is very short because here he mentioned his chronological age only, and this chronological age does not help us much in knowing the personal dimensions of the one we asked him because there are other measures and dimensions of age (sometimes they are consistent with the chronological age and other times they do not coincide), we mention them as follows: 

1- Choronological age: It
is the number of years that a person has lived in life.
2- Intellectual age:
It refers to whether this person's intelligence is less, more, or equal to his chronological age (i.e., intelligence with respect to chronological age).
3- Social age: 
It compares the social development of a person with his chronological age, meaning: "Does this person deal with people socially as he expects for those of his age?"
4- Emotional age: 
It compares the emotional maturity of a person with his mental age, meaning: "Does this person deal with his feelings as those of their age do?" 

These different types of ages do not go parallel and equal in most cases, so we find some of them precede the other, and the greater the distance between them, the more that leads to compatibility disturbance, so we find, for example, a man who has reached the age of sixty, but his social relations are very similar to that of adolescents, and his maturity Affective does not transcend the maturity of children. 

We have no control or control over our chronological age, and we hardly have weak control over our mental age. As for our social age and our emotional age, we can develop and improve them greatly, leading to social maturity and emotional maturity. 

In order to understand ourselves more and know where we are from the emotional stages of maturity, we will review the characteristics of late maturity and then the characteristics of maturity. 

Characteristics of delayed emotional maturity:
1- Emotion disturbance: its signs: emotional agitation, impulsive behavior, excessive responses to the situation, increased sensitivity, frustration intolerance, acute outbursts of anger, mood swings, excessive jealousy, intolerance, pain intolerance, Inability to control emotion. 

2- Dependency Excess: The natural growth of a person moves from dependence (I need you) to independence (I do not need you) to interdependence (we all need the other).
And the dependent person needs the other in an excessive and extended way too much, and he cannot take a decision on his own, is easy to lead, is afraid of change and prefers to remain as it is because he does not bear the challenges of change. And the overly conservative and conservative people seem to belong to this class of people. 

3- Desire for instantaneous gratification: meaning that they want to obtain what they want from interest and gratification at the present moment, and they do not have the ability to postpone the satisfaction of some desires in pursuit of a better level of satisfaction, as they want everything now and immediately. These people are characterized by superficiality and the inability to think and they are often impulsive, and their loyalty does not last only as far as they achieve the benefit of the relationship. They care about marginal things, their moral values ​​are superficial and fragile, and their social and financial lives are random and turbulent. 

4- The inability to learn from life experiences (the external point of control): as he sees that what happens to him always is the result of luck, circumstances, or the mistakes of others, so he does not seek to change for the better, but keeps repeating his mistakes over and over. 

5- Self-centeredness: The most important sign of self-centeredness is selfishness, and selfishness is accompanied by low self-esteem. A selfish person does not give consideration to others and at the same time he gives little consideration to himself. And this person is always busy with his feelings and feelings only and asks - in excess - attention, care, sympathy and gratification from others. He cannot see himself realistically, does not bear responsibility for his mistakes or shortcomings, cannot criticize himself constructively, and is not sensitive to the feelings of others. 

Signs of emotional maturity:
1- The ability to love and be loved: That person has a sense of security and confidence, and therefore he can flexibly express his feelings of love towards others and he can receive from them such feelings without fear or shame. 

2- The ability to face reality and deal with it: Mature people face reality as it is and know that the closest way to solving problems is to deal with them immediately. 

3- Caring about giving as much as taking care: A sense of security among emotionally mature adults allows them to give consideration to the needs of others, and allows them to spend for them, whether with money, time, or effort to improve the quality of life of those people they love. They are also able to accept others' bids. Balance and maturity go hand in hand. 

4- The ability to look at life experiences in a positive way: One of the signs of maturity is that a person sees in his life experiences something positive always. . And when things go wrong, he looks for the opportunity to succeed. And this person does not deny any of his life experiences, because denial of some experience or period of a person’s life leaves a black hole that threatens his security and stability. Every experience and every situation in our life is a part of our personal history that we cherish because it builds our accumulated experience. 

5- The ability to learn from experiences (the internal point of control): It is the ability to take responsibility for mistakes, the ability to self-criticism and change for the better so that the same previous mistakes are not repeated. A mature person does not blame luck, circumstances, or others, but reviews himself and learns from his mistakes And his experiences. 

6- The ability to endure frustration: When a mature person faces frustration, he does not freeze in his place, his breath does not stop, and he does not curse fate or time (as the immature do), but he tries to deal in other ways with the problem and tries new and innovative solutions and moves in various directions in order to overcome difficulties That you encountered. 

7 - The ability to positively deal with feelings of aggression: When a mature person is exposed to frustration, he is not looking for another person to blame (as an immature person does), but he is trying immediately to search for a solution to the problem for which he is frustrated, so the immature attack people while the mature attack the problems. A mature person uses his anger as a source of energy and redoubles his efforts to solve problems. 

8- Relative liberation from the symptoms of stress: A person who is emotionally mature enjoys a state of inner peace and has a sense of security and a sense of being able to get what he wants from life, in contrast to an immature person who is filled with feelings of anxiety, rejection, pessimism, anger, jealousy and frustration. 

9- The ability to solve conflicts: Life is not without conflicts between human beings, and a mature person recognizes this fact, and has many mechanisms to solve conflicts safely without destructive confrontations for himself or the other.
10 - Acceptance of difference and distance from fanaticism: Difference is one of the universal norms in this life, and therefore we have to deal with it and benefit from it in enriching life through good communication and peaceful and constructive coexistence with the different other.

11- Balance: You do not find in a mature person any psychological or congenital protrusions or deformities, rather it is balanced in everything, and balance is one of the most important features of emotional maturity and mental health, and it is a fair medium far from excess and negligence. 

12- Motivation for achievement: and motivation here is subjective and internal, as a mature person knows what he must do, and he is driven internally to achieve his legitimate goals, and he does not need external push but rather his internal motives suffice to remain productive all the time. 

13- Creativity: The fruit of a sense of security, a sense of love, and a psychological and social harmony is that the mature person is emotionally oriented towards creativity, as he has a positive vision of life that makes him listen to its secrets and trusts and discover the relationships between divergent things, thus becoming creative and developing for himself, his community and his life. This creativity makes the mature person renewed and fresh all the time and gives him a special taste, radiant luster and lasting glow. 

14 - The ability to teamwork: Since a mature person accepts difference and pluralism, has feelings of love for others and wants to innovate and add to this life, so we expect him to succeed in working as a team, that social queen that cannot be dispensed with to achieve great achievements. 

15- Compatibility and harmony with oneself, with people and with God: The fruit of all the above signs and characteristics of maturity is a state of comprehensive peace and harmony with oneself, with people and with God. 

How do we improve our emotional maturity ?: It
is a long journey that starts from early childhood and continues until the last moment in life, as there is no ceiling for emotional maturity. Here, dear reader, are some recommendations:
1- Self-awareness: Try to see yourself as it is not as you should see it, you will face some difficulties as psychological defenses (such as repression, projection, denial, and rationalization) will prevent you from this objective vision, so ask Loyal and honest people around you can tell you honestly about yourself, and accept their vision even if you don't like them. Practice well and for a long time to read the thoughts and feelings that are going on inside you. 

2- Self- acceptance : Self- acceptance does not mean consent to what it is always, but rather an important stage from which change for the better begins. 

3- Do not try to control others: instead of controlling and controlling others, try to cooperate with them, and when there is a conflict or disagreement with another party, try to reach a solution in which the two parties are winners, and do not be keen that you are always the only winner. 

4- Be prepared to change your social prayer: Avoid people and situations that bring out the worst in you, and make sure to expose yourself to people and situations that bring out the best in you. 

5- Find a meaning in life that goes beyond your self:That meaning that gives you a broad telescopic perspective of life, not that narrow, narrow meaning that does not exceed the limits of your self-interest. And if you have this great meaning that extends to life, then you will work for eternity and thus your goals will be great and stimulate your abilities to grow steadily and the sign of your success in reaching this meaning is a rich and full feeling of life, not only your life but also the life of others, and the architecture of the universe, that beautiful feeling does not feel it only reached the maturity of emotional pursuit of the face of God, who praised the qualities of maturity emotional in his Messenger, peace be upon him, saying: (the great mercy of God Lent if you're rough and the heart to shake around you forgive them and ask forgiveness for them and go ahead it determined, then put your trust in God Indeed, God loves those who trust in trust.