I often find myself jerked back and forth in life.
While difficult to overcome my complacency, I will on occasion catapult myself forward in an attempt to get to a place of thriving. I then will experience whiplash when I am discouraged backwards by the inevitable setbacks that accompany this attempt.
Then I find myself on a random Tuesday afternoon pitying myself with a mini existential crisis wondering, “what is the point of trying when it is so hard?”
After many such initiatives over the years I have stumbled upon a few insights that have transformed my life. They say that an expert is just someone who has made every mistake in a given field. If that is the case, then I hope to share some nuggets of hard fought wisdom in this article. Consider it my own personal playbook to emotional stability and fulfillment.
Read on to see what I have learned about growing your resilience, courage and emotional maturity.
Emotional entanglement
Emotional entanglements tie your peace to forces outside your control. Healthy boundaries help protect you from these over-attachments.
During my time in university I was greatly impacted by a national non profit here in the States. After graduating I wanted to give back by starting a branch of that organization in Daytona Beach, Florida. The goal would be to develop local college students into leaders who could make a positive impact on the world.
I started the process of fundraising the thousands of dollars needed to make this a reality. At this time, my network still primarily consisted of friends and peers from university who were either still in school or who had recently graduated and were starting to pay back their student loans.
After a flurry of fundraising activities, I found I was struggling to secure even a third of the budget needed for the first year of operations.
Despite not meeting my fundraising goals so far, I decided to plow forward and start working with students in Daytona on top of my full time job. As I began working with students it renewed my passion and gave me new strength to continue to strive for more funding.
A few months later, the funding reality had not changed much, yet I decided to step away from my engineering job to pursue the non profit full time. Over the next three years, I became even more passionate about the vision of the organization. While I struggled mightily with the financial side of things, I was too focused on the impact we were seeing with students.
Then I found myself standing on the back porch of the house I was living in at a loss for words. For years I had romanticized the sacrifices I was making financially. I believed that because I was trying to do a good thing that the money would take care of itself. However, now the reality of my situation was inescapable.
I had been able to get super cheap rent in a house that probably should have been condemned but now I was getting kicked out as the owners needed the space back.
I had been able to keep my car running and functional but now at 300,000 miles it was completely breaking down on me.
I had been able to defer my student loan payments but now I was facing the prospect of a large monthly payment.
I stood on that back porch for a long time wondering how I had gotten to this point. I was out of money and soon to be without a place to live.
I was frustrated as I felt powerless to do anything about my situation. It was inconceivable to me that after putting so much effort into the non profit that I would then be rewarded with this. I was surprised to learn that even after doing everything possible in my power it had not guaranteed that things would work out.
The mission I had undertaken in Daytona had started as a good thing but over time it had become all consuming. Without realizing it the lines between the non profit and myself had become so blurred it was hard to tell where one ended and the other started.
That moment on the back porch was the result of slowly letting my work define and dictate every area of my life and decision making. It was not until years later that I would reflect and realize I could have done things completely differently.
Emotional entanglements tie your peace to forces outside your control. Healthy boundaries help protect you from these over-attachments.
Emotional isolation
Choosing to be emotionally distant offers protection but it prevents you from fully living and stalls your growth.
Many years ago, when I was still a student, I met a girl and as we got to know each other we began a serious relationship. After a while the relationship did not pan out for a number of reasons.
However, instead of either moving forward with or clearly ending the relationship I fumbled the process and left things unclear. Eventually the relationship dissolved itself but I felt embarrassed for how I had handled the situation.
Overall it had been a jarring experience to someone still new to romantic relationships. The vulnerability of opening up to someone, the highs and lows of navigating a relationship, and the eventual shame tied to how it ended taxed me. I was left with a conviction to steer clear of dating and relationships for a while.
Fast forward a few years and my solution to avoid repeating the same mistake was to continue to not pursue relationships. Like someone who burnt their hand on a stove once and vowed to never again cook their own dinner, I persisted in the idea that the solution was to avoid the topic altogether.
I could have owned my failures, confronted the challenges of relationships, and used it as an opportunity for growth. Instead I withdrew like a monk who joins an abbey to avoid being stained by the world. I thought there was wisdom in this approach until I was arrested by the following CS Lewis quote.
Choosing to be emotionally distant offers protection but it prevents you from fully living and stalls your growth.
Emotional maturity
Emotional maturity means maintaining inner stability regardless of external chaos, allowing you to influence your surroundings positively rather than being destabilized by them.
A few years ago I gained clarity on how I wanted to be a methodology designer. I realized I wanted to create content, frameworks, principles, and tools that simplified complex fields and allowed folks to expertly execute.
Not long after this I saw a job posting for a company that I thought could accelerate my pathway to this dream occupation. It felt like this was a golden opportunity to work with folks who had been doing what I wanted to for years.
There was only one problem. The job opening was related to client management and not at all tied to the type of work I wanted to be doing with them. Undeterred I applied anyway thinking that if I could get my foot in the door I might be able to then switch to a different role over time.
I poured myself into the application and interview process. I did as much research as possible, wore my best suit and put my best foot forward. However, I had zero client management experience and therefore obviously did not get the position.
I was crushed. This had been my opportunity to get to where I wanted career wise. I could not control the hiring process and felt powerless to know how to move forward.
It was at this moment that I realized that I was repeating my past mistakes from Daytona. I was again conceding who I really was by applying for a position that had nothing to do with my skillset thinking that things would just somehow fall into place.
I did not want to follow this wrong path for years like I had with the non profit. I therefore made myself confront the two options I had in front of me. I could continue to ignore reality, wait for things to work out, and then complain when things did not miraculously come together perfectly for me. Or I could recognize that there were going to be setbacks but that if I wanted to pursue something it was on me to go and make it happen.
Emotional maturity means maintaining inner stability regardless of external chaos, allowing you to influence your surroundings positively rather than being destabilized by them.
Take control
Over the years I have learned that to grow your resilience, courage and emotional intelligence you must avoid emotional entanglements, not settle for being emotionally distant, and pursue emotional maturity.
In the 1950-60s Murray Bowen was a psychiatrist who was researching the most effective therapy methods. One of his most famous studies was around trying to help young ladies who were suffering from extreme cases of schizophrenia.
The girls that were a part of the research were all found to be in completely co dependent relationships with their mothers. There was a startling level of correlation found to exist between the emotional state of the mother and the daughter.
It was also found that the emotional web between mother and daughter would often ensnare those around them. The anxiety and emotional distress exhibited in their relationship would often bleed into and unsettle everyone who came within their orbit.
The fathers of these girls had all found a way to coexist in these family scenarios by staying emotionally detached from the drama that inevitably flared up between mother and daughter.
Murray Bowen and his team tested and trialed a number of interventions and methods to try to improve the situation for these families. None of these initial efforts led to anything other than the research team getting pulled into the emotional frenzy created by the mothers and daughters.
Then finally the team had a breakthrough insight. The key to lasting change was found to be the introduction of a well differentiated person into the family dynamic. With the mothers and daughters struggling, this role fell to the fathers.
They found that if the fathers could stay close emotionally to their daughter and spouse without being emotionally contaminated they could be a powerful positive force for change. Instead of being overrun by the anxiety of the others, the fathers focused on staying connected yet calm. Their primary role was to be a non anxious presence in a high strung emotional environment. Their presence then influenced and caused those around them to mature and improve.
The insight: to pursue emotional maturity do not try to change others but focus instead on changing yourself. This can feel counterintuitive.
In other words, to take control, stop trying to control the situation (e.g. the relationship, the job opportunity, etc). Instead focus on avoiding emotional entanglements. Do not allow yourself to settle for being emotionally distant. And focus on having the emotional maturity to stay connected while maintaining your sense of self.
Within the tension of this environment you will be forced to change. And as you change, you will find that you take control.
*this article is a potential chapter for the book “Activate your agency“
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