7 Traits Of Sentimental Maturity

Feelings are more elaborate realities than emotions. They include the latter, but they also have a rational component, as well as a longer duration in time and deeper roots. Sentimental maturity, then, can be defined as an emotional sediment product of experience and emotional intelligence.

Sentimental maturity is never total, but when it reaches a certain level it becomes a relatively stable characteristic of the personality. This is because it is the result of personal work and, therefore, it is not very sensitive to fluctuating events.

As with other psychological realities, sentimental maturity is not so much a concept , or a discourse, but the updated result of a practice that manifests itself in the practice itself. Thus, it is staged through different capacities, attitudes and behaviors. Some of them are the following:

1. Self-knowledge, a trait of sentimental maturity

Self-knowledge is the ability to objectively identify the characteristics that define us. It also means having developed the capacity for self-observation. That ability to review our actions and draw conclusions from them.

Self-knowledge also allows us to predict our reactions to different situations. Also our inclinations and aversions. It influences the ease of accounting for our actions and of identifying our motivations.

2. Search for stability

One of the traits of sentimental maturity is the search for stability. This should not be confused with the need to create comfort zones to settle there, nor with the desire to stay still and stop moving forward.

The search for stability has more to do with the need to give continuity to our actions and link them together. He opposes dispersal. You can be a backpacker and be stable in that way of life. The real instability is in repeating cycles where you start something and don’t really end it, but you go, anyway, to a new beginning.

3. Realism

It assumes the ability to stick to the facts. To appreciate them as they are, making the mediation of subjectivity minimal. That is, always trying to see the world as it is, not as we wish or fear it to be.

Realism leads to emotional maturity and this, in turn, reinforces realism and fit. They are two dimensions that feed back on each other. Being realistic does not mean stopping dreaming or having illusions. Rather, it is about knowing how to differentiate what happens inside us from what happens outside.

4. Multi-faceted personal care

Another aspect in which sentimental maturity is reflected is in the ability to explore the different dimensions that make up our life. We are body, spirit, creation, thought, fullness, pain, etc.

Many times we confine ourselves only to our work, sentimental, or family experiences. It is also possible that we only allow ourselves to suffer or have fun, trying to avoid everything else. A full life encompasses the different dimensions of being.

5. Understanding the ups and downs

When sentimental maturity is reached, it is understood that the ups and downs are an immanent fact of life. That every situation, no matter how stable, includes mistakes and successes, reasons for sadness and joy. Of effectiveness and limitation.

What is learned, above all, is that not a bad time means that everything will be bad and a good moment does not mean that everything will always be fine. It is understood that all this is part of life and that it is worth living it, without escapes or evasions.

6. Coherence between feeling, will and commitment

Self-knowledge and realism lead to a condition that is part of sentimental maturity: coherence. In other words, you get to do what you want, assuming the responsibilities that this implies.

Therefore, there is a basic consistency between the purposes that are specified in commitments, the will to make them come true and the desire for this to be so. Therefore, there is no place to deny one’s life or the past. Simply, you live as you want to live, assuming the cost of this.

7. Self-regulation

Self-regulation has to do with the ability to modulate reactions and actions, adapting them to the context and objectives. That is, to ensure that the intensity of emotions or reactions does not become an obstacle for oneself.

Self-regulation is not repression. It is not about “holding on” or overlooking. The idea is to know how to express what you feel, so that it is understood and fosters understanding, not conflict.

Human beings reach full maturity in few respects. Faced with these dimensions in which we will always have a way to go, what we can do is work to get closer and closer to a state of balance. If we cultivate it, our life will become fuller.