The post ‘When does fear serve us?’ [1] ends with:

“Since emotional mastery and the capacity to skillfully and wisely choose our emotions already exists and they only appear far removed because the mind fabricates that story, all that is needed is to let go of what hinders and merge with the creative spark which has designed us. What hinders is the subject of another post.”

This is the other post, and looks at both what hinders and what supports emotional maturity.

A person in the Emotional Mastery forum asked, “Could you please comment on why emotional mastery is desirable?”

The term ‘maturity’ fits more with my view than ‘mastery’ and I use them as different nuances of the same thing.

To answer the forum participant with questions:

“Why stay a seedling, when the design of Nature is that it grows into a tree?” and “Is it desirable to thwart the design of Nature that humans actualize themselves as conscious beings?”

What exactly is self-actualization?

Abraham Maslow described self-actualization as a high-level need in the following way: “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” (Maslow, 1954, Motivation and Personality, p. 93) [2]

I am in complete agreement with Maslow to this place and with his outlook in general — and branch away when it comes to what a human being can be. Visionaries have seen into the future of technology. Their visions, thought strange and crazy in their day, became the everyday reality of more ‘advanced’ technology. Who has envisioned an ‘advanced’ human?

Yes, there is the philosophical concept of the Renaissance Man, that ‘a man can do all things if he will,’ which considered man the “centre of the universe, limitless in his capacities for development, and led to the notion that men should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own capacities as fully as possible.” [3]

I see the whole human [4] not as being advanced, the centre of the universe or able to do all things. It is not about trying, knowledge, or developing, but simply about growing into emotional maturity, an original design of Nature that has never been realized. My ‘vision’ is not envisioning in the sense of fantasizing some grandiose idea. It is gained by listening deeply to what Life is saying and perceiving what already is. Engineers cannot design the emerging human, as Nature has already written the blueprint.

What prevents the realization of a mature, whole human? The primary hindrances to maturity are rigid beliefs, stuck patterns of behavior and fear in all its variations. Fear is its own frequency, the carrier wave of fragmentation in humans. It generates and supports the illusion of separation from the one being of universal consciousness. The fruits of fear are smallness, suffering and slavery. Most people choose fear because of its familiarity, which gives comfort to the immature. The immature remain a seedling. When a person chooses to grow into maturity, they are steadfast to go through the discomfort and — in the fullness of unfolding — experience themselves as the mature tree of their original design.

Staying un-realized and emotionally immature is what keeps humankind in a cycle of suffering, and controllable by those in power. Consciously evolving to fulfill my highest potential is my greatest joy.

If a person doesn’t have the longing to mature, then there is no spark to unfold and the seedling remains a seedling. But a person who dies in old age an emotional child is not a tragedy. In Nature’s efficiency, unconscious human biomass is recycled so new biomass has a choice to become conscious.

“I don’t display emotions. I have every feeling that everyone else has, but I’ve developed ways to suppress them. Anger is one of my most comfortable feelings.” – Curtis Jackson

Staying steadfast through our discomforts, neither suppressing nor avoiding nor wallowing in them, is the way to grow.

Though I have no attraction to feeling emotions for the sensation, I understand some people do. And I understand that until now earth and its inhabitants are emotional. Even plants have emotions. These energies in motion have served a purpose. For those who choose to grow — feeling the emotion as it passes through, accepting and observing it neutrally and not acting upon it, can certainly be supportive of the unfolding into emotional maturity.

As mentioned before, I feel that with the earth changes and shifts in consciousness occurring now, we have a window of opportunity for those who choose to not only mature but transform.

Stages of unfolding cannot be compared between people because unfolding is not linear. A coastal Redwood unfolds and matures differently than an apple tree or an oak. There are no ‘shoulds’ and shouldn’ts. Emotional maturity has a certain look and feel to it, to me. It is a personal perspective. We are not in competition to compare who is ahead of the other. That is what hinders.

My lists of what hinders and supports emotional maturity is of course from my perspective. It is not meant as a rule book or even to apply to anyone else. This is to share the general idea of recognizing what hinders and what supports, not to be too specific and definitely not legalistic. Letting go of what hinders reveals what supports. What hinders is part of the fragmentation of humans, what supports is part of the original design of the whole human.

The emotions which hinder maturity are unstable and stormy energies in motion, automatic reactions triggered by stimuli, and fast changeable. A person may experience awe in one moment and disgust in the next, expectation is followed by disappointment, exultation by despondency. Emotions which hinder maturing seek gratification from the outside and are greatly influenced by swings of circumstances. There is deep stillness in emotional maturity. External stimuli which clamors for attention and is able to draw a person into it hinders. The immature seek entertainment and comfort and are drawn to the clamoring. The mature abide in stillness while acting in the flow.

Some people stay in hindering emotions or behaviors for the experience, and if a conscious choice it can still be a part of their unfolding. Even when a habit in the ‘unsupportive’ list is unconscious or stubborn, at some point a lesson can be learned and it would support emotional maturity. It just is a slower process and may end in being recycled before growing out of the seedling stage.

I am not a ‘list person’ usually and the words by themselves may be unclear without explanation. This is just a start. Your input will help me understand how others view it and perhaps begin writing how I see the energy behind the word being either a hindrance or a support to emotional maturity. In the end, lists are not needed. When a person can sense it for themselves without naming, when they are self-aware enough to feel their inner landscape, all that is needed is to let go in the moment of whatever hinders. Your questions and comments will be read with an open mind. Many thanks.

Hindrances of emotional maturity/mastery
(and characteristics of emotional immaturity)

Addiction
Aggressiveness
Analyzing
Anger
Angst
Anguish
Annoyance
Anxiety
Apathy
Arousal
Arrogance
Assumptions
Attachment – to what hinders
Awe – when drawn out of oneself into stimuli
Beliefs
Blaming
Boredom
Comparing
Competing – Measuring
Confusion
Contempt
Contentment – in circumstances
Control of others/circumstances
Cowardice
Curiosity
Cynicism
Depression
Desire
Despair
Disappointment
Disconnection
Disgust
Disrespect
Distraction
Distrust
Dread
Easily influenced/influencing others
Effort
Embarrassment
Envy
Excitement – as stimuli
Expectation – which turns to disappointment
Fear of emotions
Fear of the Unknown
Fear
Frustration
Greed
Grief
Guilt
Gullibility
Hatred
Helplessness
Hidden motive
Horror
Hostility
Hysteria
Identifying – with status, image, role, hindrances and so on
Imbalance
Indifference
Intellectualizing
Internal Chaos
Internal clutter
Irony
Irresponsibility
Jealousy
Judgments
Labeling
Laziness
Linear thinking
Loathing
Loneliness
Loss
Lust
Manipulation
Numbness
Obsessiveness
Opinions
Outrage
Over-thinking
Panic
Partial view
Pity
Pleasure
Polarity
Possessing
Poverty / Victim Consciousness
Preference
Prejudices
Pride
Projections
Pushing
Rage
Regret
Remorse
Resistance
Sadness
Sarcasm
Seeking – outside oneself for what already is
Sentimentality
Shame
Shock
Shyness
Social Behavior
Sorrow
Speculations
Stagnation
Stubbornness
Suffering
Surprise
Taking – Getting
Tension
Trying
Unawareness
Unconscious Habits
Withdrawing within
Wanting
Worry
Supportive of emotional maturity/mastery
(and characteristic of same)

Abundance
Acceptance
Accepting
Actualizing
Allowing
Appreciation
Authenticity
Autonomy
Awareness
Awe – when it reflects from the stillness
Balance
Beauty – recognized within
Being
Caring
Celebration
Centeredness
Clarity
Co-creating
Communion (with Nature, the one being and oneself)
Compassion
Confidence
Constancy
Courage
Creativity
Detachment from what hinders
Effortlessness
Empathy
Equanimity
Essence
Expanding energetically
Feeling
Flowing
Freshness
Generating
Giving
Grace
Gratitude
Grounded-ness
Harmony
Honesty with self
Humility
Humor
Inspiring
Integration
Integrity
Internal order
Intuition
Joy
Kindness
Knowing
Letting go
Love
Naturalness
Neutrality
Nurturing
Opening (heart)
Owning
Pausing
Peace
Play
Playing
Presence
Purity
Quality of attention
Respecting
Responsibility
Sensing
Serving
Spaciousness
Strength
Surrender
Trusting
Whole view
Wholeness
Will
Wisdom

After letting go of what hinders and embracing what support emotional maturity, what next?

[1] ‘When does fear serve us?’

When Does Fear Serve Us?

[2] What exactly is self-actualization?
http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/abraham-maslow/

[3] Renaissance man: Philosophical concept
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Renaissance-man

[4] Being a Whole Human
http://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/

• This topic was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by Gary R. Smith.