Episode #83 – What Does It Mean To Be Mature In A World Full of Immature Adults?

Although environment will not be an excuse to stay stagnant.

You should not excuse your bad behavior after the fact that you have found out that you don’t need to be your mother. You don’t have to copy your dad’s bad behavior. You don’t have to continue the lineage of abuse and generational pain just because you were mistreated as a child. just because people around you were unkind, impatient. We have a choice as an adult hopefully in the room to make changes.

I know that changes is not easy. It’s often hard because nobody likes to do it. If change is that easy, it if adulting would that be easy, everybody would have done the work. But you cannot be mature in a healthy way.

And you cannot be an adult without again having the accountability adapting what needs to be adapted which is learning from your mistakes and changing them one step at a time. Stop making excuses for your bad behavior.

Admitting the fact when you make mistakes. Learn to apologize sincerely and then simultaneously change your bad habits into something that is going to make you a better person. And so when we talk about love. So this is what adulting is because before he said about when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reason like a child and when I became a man or a woman, I put away childish things. So the preface of that is that when you become an adult, you become patient, supposedly. We must be kind because when you’re a child, you’re very impatient. I remember when I was a child, I wanted to get it now.

Characteristics of immaturity:

When I want something, I wanted to have it now. And some people, we know that some adults will still throw a tantrum when they don’t get the attention and the affection and the things that they need from your spouse maybe or from other people. We throw a fit like a child. But these are the prerequisite of becoming an adult. Patience, kind, it does not envy. When you’re a child, you’re very envious of what your sister maybe have. You’re trying to compete with your siblings. There’s always a rivalry. Maybe your classmate, you’re trying to compete.

It does not boast. When you’re a child, I have a 12-year-old boy who keeps on boasting, who keeps sometimes of trying to say that he’s better than everybody else. It is childish.

Actually, we don’t know that. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. Bullying is also part of being a childish behavior. And we all know that some adults are also still bullied to this day. Dishonoring other is because they belittle others to make them feel good about themselves and they criticize others to make them feel better about themselves. People who exercise this kind of behavior are still not adults.

These are people who have not matured.

These are the things that the Bible is clear about for you to differentiate between maturity and immaturity.

These are the traits of a mature person. Patience I know is very hard because without problems we will not be patient. The only reason why your patience is being tested or you know exactly where your patience is going to show forth is when you have problems.

You cannot really know how patient you are unless you are being triggered or being pushed by people or being what do you call this? Challenged perhaps by people in your life. So we know that some of us patience is the very hardest trait to develop. Like many of us patience is not it doesn’t come easily. It takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of self-awareness. And this is why these are the things that we can learn that when you become an adult, you should lose the performance. You should cut the show because those are kids. And I think many adults still today dress up like little boys and little girls who likes to perform, who constantly wants your attention, who wants to provoke you to get the focus in you.

I mean, just recently, I know the fact that sometimes my son is sometimes trying to trigger me because he wants his mom’s attention. But there are times that when you are doing something and you are working in the middle and he’s trying to provoke you or trying to do some things that is going to waste your time. This is why sometimes you put people in their place. You correct people. And even Jesus did not shy away from correcting people and putting them in their place so that they’ll they are aware of what they’re doing. When we become an adult, if we know that something isn’t right, we have to speak up.

We have to say something to speak the truth in love.

I’m not saying that when you correct someone. I know sometimes we become so belligerent and we become snappy when correcting our children because our patience is very thin. But this is exactly where we have to learn how to activate patience. And so we have to really understand that you integrate becoming an adult by becoming aware of yourself. It takes a lot of awareness and knowing thy oneself. As I said, you have to really know.

Maybe you’re tired, that’s why you’re being triggered. Maybe you’re hungry. That’s why do not make harsh decisions and hasty decisions when you’re hungry, when you’re tired, when you’re sad, when you’re too happy, because most likely these are the emotional state that you’re going to eventually not making a rational decision.

• And so when we think about maturity, it all comes down to regulating your emotions. And there are ways that I’ve been talking on my channel about how to regulate your emotions and how to develop emotional quotient or emotional intelligence, which is by breathing, slowing down.
• Maybe perhaps you have to get out and go to the park, walk in nature. It is something to do with connecting with yourself. It is not something that you have to disregard.
• You have to feel every emotion. You have to acknowledge every pain that you’re feeling.
• But because we have been so conditioned in our society to keep on being busy, we are being conditioned to entertain ourselves, to numb our pain, to ignore the things that are happening within us.

However, when you want to become an adult, if you want to know exactly who you are and the root causes of your trigger, you must unplug. You must go somewhere in a quiet place without interruption. Learn to listen to your thoughts by journaling perhaps or maybe talking to God. Go to a dark room or maybe to a church where there’s no one talking and you and God can just talk to each other maybe in your own thoughts. And I have read this book. I know it’s a Buddhist kind of book. It is a Thich Nhat Hahn. It is the art of communicating.

And one of the things he said in his book that when you truly want to have compassion for others, if you really want to know about other people, to understand them is that you have to come home to yourself. You have to understand why you feel the way that you do. Where does your pain come from? Because you cannot really understand other people without understanding yourself first. You cannot love other people. As cliche as it may sound, if you are coming from an empty cup, you cannot give anything that you do not have.

First of all, you must fill up your own cup by taking care of your own thoughts, by listening to yourself, by trying to understand why do I act this way? Why do I react this way? Why did I say that? How did I why did I feel that way when he said that? Where did it all come from? Majority of our pain, majority of our issues are basically rooted from our childhood memories that has been embedded in us and we carry it throughout adulthood.

We bring this baggage with us wherever we go. And that’s why Jesus had invited everyone to come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. When Jesus has invited us to come to him to lay down our burdens because life is burdensome. It is very heavy sometimes to carry all the trials and tribulations that we’re facing especially when we become an adult.

We have to take care of our husbands. If you’re married, your children, you have to deal about maybe your in-laws that you have to live with. You have to understand about your own project. If you’re a career woman, if you have a business that you’re trying to run, and if you’re a woman who is going to job from 9 to5 and then pick up your kids and then you have to cook, you have to clean and you have all of this responsibility. And sometimes we don’t have time to breathe. We don’t have time to just sit with our thoughts. And many people might question, well, I don’t have the time in a day.

And yet, it’s all about on purpose. You have to be intentional to set aside time for yourself in the morning. Even if you would tell yourself that I don’t have time, just find time to really unplug. Find time to get out from your head or not your head, get out of being distracted rather, and constantly trying to be stimulated by social media. And this is the reason why many people do not go into themselves. There is a parable I think somewhere in Luke that Jesus said, “Woe to you lawyers.”

And he was reprimanding the lawyers because you are giving too much burden to people. You’re giving them too much. I’m not sure why Jesus reprimanded them about law and the prophets. Perhaps the lawyer was probably asking Jesus was being interrogated and then he replied that you give people too much burden. You give them too much rules but yet you yourself do not even go in to get the knowledge which is within you.

So if you are trying to understand who you are the knowledge is within you.

The mastery of oneself is trying to understand who you are by learning to sit with yourself and by learning to understand your own self, knowing your weaknesses and your strength and understanding where does your pain come from and why do you act and behave the way that you do. It all stems from the way that you were brought up. It all stems from your environment, from your society, and from the culture. If you were brought up in a toxic family dynamics and you’ve copied the bad behavior, most likely you’re going to copy that behavior and you’re going to carry that with you throughout adulthood.

Unless, of course, you’re going to autocorrect. Unless, of course, you’re willing to say that is not appropriate behavior. That is an acceptable behavior. I will not copy that.

It takes a lot of unlearning patterns because guess what? People are going to drag you back down.

• People are going to test you. People are going to provoke you. And we know this with narcissistic family members. When they know that you have changed and when they know that you are going to become better of yourselves.
• The demons in them because we do not wrestle against blood and flesh. There are demons in people’s body that being recited on.
• If they can see that you’re trying to make the right decision for yourself, you’re trying to be the adult in the room. They will try to provoke you as if they are very intimidated. The fact that you’re willing to change, they are threatened by your growth.
• People that are pigeon-minded because you try to be an eagle, you like to soar above the sky, then they don’t like it. They’re going to drag you back down. It’s like a crab mentality.
• You know what a crab mentality is? When people can see your growth and changes in your behavior, they will try again and again to provoke you, play mind games with you, and try to pretend like they don’t know what they’re doing.
• These are toxic individual instead of doing the work for themselves, instead of trying to copy and be inspired by your growth. But because some of them are still immature and some of them are unwilling to admit that they too have issues.

So that’s why they rather want to run, hide and pretend like they have no issues. Another sign of immaturity is that they will blame you for their bad behavior. It is a classic narcissistic immature people that would say you made me feel this way. You are the reason why I acted this way. It is because of you. No one can make you feel that way without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can feel you inferior without your consent.” If you do not want to feel that way because you don’t want to feel that way, but if you want to feel that way, no, no matter what people say or do or heckle or laugh in your environment, because people, we know that people when they know you, the gangster, mobster, whatever you want to call them, gang-talking.

We know that they have been watching you.

The monitoring spirit. Monitoring spirit are people who’s been watching you because maybe you’re set up for Satan to study you. We know that Satan have minions and they have been trying to study and copy your behavior or maybe they try to understand you. We live in this world that you think people are not watching especially when you’re a Christian. We are being watched constantly and they keep on watching us whether we live up to the standard. Either we talk the walk or walk the talk. Because as I said many people lived double lives because they claim to be Christians but because God’s word has been blasphemed because of these people they think that they love God with their mouth.

But their heart is far away from it and we have to really be vigilant today that if you want to be construed as a mature Christians that’s why Paul said you have to be able to eat the solid meat and chew the food because it is your turn to teach other people. You could not pretend like drinking an infant milk is going to sustain you. You have to be able to when you become a Christian. Of course, before becoming a Christian, you did not know anything about yourself or God. You know so much about the world. You copy. You behave like the world. You dress like the world. You talk like the world. You’re constantly being in the world because that’s part of the world. However, when you become a Christian, there’s a point in your life where you have to stop drinking baby milk. You have to start becoming an adult, acting like one, thinking like one, behaving like one, and talking like one.

As I said, it takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of awareness. It takes a lot of discipline because adulting is hard. We all know that adulting is very hard when you are surrounded with bunch of immature adults. you are being dragged back down to where you come from.

Especially when you were surrounded with with adults supposedly that are going to teach you and guide you, but you look at their lives and they’re the most immature individuals at all. They have no discipline. They have no motivation. They are lethargic, lazy, apathetic in life. And that is why sometimes we think that our environment do matter. But even if you cannot change location, it is how you deal with these people in your life. It is what you do with yourself by setting healthy boundaries, by learning your standard and what you tolerate and what you what you do not tolerate.