Anger, Resentment, and Silent Treatment: How to Regain Control Over Your Emotions

Why adults avoid emotional responsibility

Observing particularly the younger generation (ages 20–40), one might get the impression that our emotional maturity is not in a good state. Escaping from choices and taking responsibility, dodging the consequences of one’s actions, breaking promises, as well as adapting to others at all costs, the uncritical pursuit of acceptance and liking, blind stubbornness, and impulsivity—these are just a few examples of common attitudes among young people.

Emotional maturity and relationships with others

One can and must work on their reactions—for one’s own sake as well as for the comfort of others. A human being is not a lonely island in the middle of the ocean. We live in relationships with others: in society, in the family, and at work. Developing emotional maturity and relationships can decisively help us build bonds with other people, understand ourselves, and create healthy connections.

Silence and sulking: A familiar pattern

Example one: A girl points out to her boyfriend that he forgot her birthday. He, instead of admitting his mistake and trying to fix the situation, sulks and remains silent for several days (because he felt offended) or flips the situation and blames the girl, reacting with: “You’re always nitpicking me, I did something wrong again.”

Example two: A woman and her partner planned to spend Friday evening together, but the man had to stay late at work. She, instead of openly saying she is sorry, sulks and behaves in a passive-aggressive manner (to the partner’s question: “Has something happened?” she answers “no,” but demonstratively behaves in a cold and haughty way, hoping the partner will guess the reason).

The above situations illustrate how emotional immaturity can hinder our daily functioning. Without awareness of the mechanisms occurring within us and working on our own emotional weaknesses, it is difficult to change anything for the better.

Where regretted reactions come from

If one were to define what emotional maturity consists of, it could be described as the conscious management of one’s emotions, the ability to build healthy relationships, and responsible reacting to life’s difficulties. Emotional maturity manifests in both recognizing and understanding one’s own emotions and those of other people, as well as in controlling one’s reactions. Such a person can sensibly manage their emotions, regulating them appropriately to the situation, but also reacting empathetically to the behavior of others.

Emotional maturity vs. stress

An expression of this is also appropriate communication with another person. The goal of such communication is to strive to resolve conflict or calm difficult emotions, rather than generating further misunderstandings. Today, emotional maturity and relationships undergo a particularly difficult test when confronted with stress and overstimulation. It can also be stated that emotional maturity is a process that constantly develops under the influence of successive experiences and the self-reflection we undertake.

Suppressing emotions looks like maturity—but only from the outside

Above all, in addition to the aforementioned awareness and regulation of emotions, a mature person can recognize and name them. This stems from the fact that they can identify the source of their emotional state and find the cause of their sadness or joy.

A person involved in their internal development understands how various stimuli generate their moods. A valuable skill resulting from this is recognizing one’s needs and communicating them to the outside world in a healthy way (that is, not through violence or passive-aggression).

How to control your emotions

Controlling one’s emotions is a valuable art and by no means signifies suppressing or negating them. On the contrary. Bottling up anger, irritation, or pain is an example of avoiding or escaping from one’s experiences, and this does not signify internal maturity. An emotionally mature person can express these emotions, but in a way that does not hurt or offend other people.

What creativity tells us about a person

Openness and flexibility—in thinking, experiencing, and reacting—are also skills that an emotionally mature person has mastered well. This can best be observed in situations that require a person to be creative in their thinking and to react quickly to changing circumstances.

Closing oneself off in known, “safe” reaction mechanisms, rigidity in responding, and becoming stubborn in one’s impressions are manifestations of a lack of maturity. Broadly understood creativity combined with openness to what is new and unknown often says a lot about a person’s internal structure.

Why we revert to childhood reactions in relationships

It seems that in the modern world, it is easiest to observe the deficiencies and flaws in people’s emotional maturity by looking at their way of building relationships with others. On one hand, the lightness and ease of entering new acquaintances, and on the other hand, breaking them off just as quickly, does not speak well of our maturity. Healthy emotional maturity and relationships should be built on a sense of responsibility for one’s own emotions, but also those of another person.

Can emotions be tamed?

As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in The Little Prince: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” This process is built on gradually decreasing the distance in an acquaintance. Recalling the story of building the relationship between the Little Prince and the fox, the author of this philosophical parable described the process of taming. It consists of gradually creating a bond as a path that is traveled every day.

“One only understands the things that one tames. People have no more time to understand anything. (…) You must be very patient. To begin with, you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. But you will sit a little closer to me every day.”

Relations, couples, work: How to avoid disappointment

In the 21st century, one can get the impression that this process proceeds exactly in reverse. First, we throw ourselves into the deep end. And after gasping for air, we want to get to the surface as quickly as possible—only to escape. If escape is not immediately possible, then the violation of mutual boundaries, blaming, or entering a pattern of toxic emotional dependency begins.

Psychologists also emphasize that without a gradual but consistent process of getting to know another person, it is easy to succumb to one’s own imagination. The result is the idealization of the other person. This is also a manifestation of emotional immaturity, which usually ends painfully when realism comes to the fore. Then only disappointment remains, along with resentment toward the whole world but not oneself, regret, and wounds that can close a person in a circle of their own pain.

The instability of modern interpersonal relationships—their superficial and often shallow treatment—is one of the most common manifestations of emotional immaturity. Building and maintaining secure and healthy acquaintances is increasingly moving into the category of “luxury goods.” How can we change this?

Can one learn to react maturely?

Working on emotional maturity is a task we carry out throughout our lives. We begin as early as infancy, reacting to a mother’s smile; we continue in childhood, imitating the patterns passed down to us by our parents; we reach a culmination in adolescence. However, there is no defined and clearly specified age that would be the deadline for our development. Everything we experience over the years shapes our personality. Consequently, it influences the patterns of our reactions. Every newly acquired experience affects our emotions and our ways of dealing with them.

Maturity is a work in progress

The shape of our emotional maturity is influenced by many factors, ranging from individual predispositions, through the way of upbringing and the environment in which we grow, learn, and work, to our own self-awareness and the will and desire for change. Psychologists emphasize, however, certain factors that can promote development and self-improvement even in adult life.

What really helps to change emotional reactions

The most important ones include:

• Practicing mindfulness techniques (e.g., mindfulness, meditation). These help to better identify one’s emotions and hear them within oneself before we “throw” them outside. Observing oneself, one’s experiences, and feelings in various situations provides us with new knowledge about ourselves. Asking oneself questions: “Why did I react this way? What was the cause? Could I have behaved differently?”—that is, an internal dialogue with oneself—gives us a broader perspective on ourselves.
• Practicing assertiveness, which means acquiring a way of healthy, balanced reacting to emotions and stimuli coming to us from other people. Assertiveness plays a particularly important role in open communication. We then let others know what we feel in a given situation. However, we do it in a clear and calm way. This helps to maintain respect for others and oneself. we do this instead of manipulating, sulking, or aggressively expressing our state.
• Finally, taking responsibility for one’s emotions and decisions, while simultaneously developing empathy and understanding for both oneself and other people. The attitude of empathizing can be practiced and developed through successive practices. It is a far better solution than judging and evaluating (others and oneself). Its main advantage is that it helps to understand. Emotional maturity is also expressed in the fact that we can listen and not just talk and advise.

This is why emotional maturity matters

It is worth remembering that emotional maturity is one of the key aspects of our personal development. It affects both our daily well-being and the quality of our relationships with other people. We work on it all our lives—we are on a road whose goal is to improve the quality of our existence. By developing further skills, emotional competencies, and learning new reaction mechanisms, we influence our psychological well-being day by day.

Read the original article in Polish: Złość, uraza, obrażanie. Jak odzyskać kontrolę nad emocjami