Am I Unhealthy?

Recently, I heard a speaker emphasize how important emotional maturity and health are to a relationship. How important asking yourself, “Am I unhealthy?” is. Obviously, we’ve all heard this on an individual level, but what struck me was how much emotional maturity impacts our relationships, the ones in closest contact with us, the ones we care deepest about.

As a very strong, dominant woman, I never realized my lack of emotional health/maturity, or how much weight my words and actions carried, until I started working on my self-awareness. With the help of my amazing husband pointing out when I’m acting like a complete jerk, I’ve slowly started to realize how vital being healthy and mature is!

In our relationships, it’s easy for us to point out the flaws of our spouse, partner, parent, child, etc. For the longest time, I thought I was deserving of a love so perfect and that met all my expectations and when it didn’t, I’d get upset with the other person… umm, Ana, that’s very immature of you. I learned the hard way that our loved ones are not designed to meet all of our expectations, but rather to push us to be our best selves, to shine a light on our emotional immaturity/unhealthiness. To support me as I do the work to meet expectations of myself.

It is NOT the responsibility of our loved ones to “make” us healthy or mature, it’s ours!

Don’t misunderstand me saying you’re undeserving of a love that can meet your expectations, as hoped. Like anything else, it requires compromise! As I do the work to become healthy and emotionally mature, I hope Stanton, my husband, would also do the same, so that when we come together, we are only pushing towards the same goal without laying those expectations on each other. It’s what we like to call “extending grace,” it’s called emotional maturity.

The speaker said this:

“Be healthy and mature enough that your life actually starts to bless others.”

— Pastor Linn Winters

As I pondered this over the last few months of my self-awareness journey, I came up with a list to test my progress against. Please know that I have not mastered these and will continue working on them.

I encourage you to also Ask yourself

• Am I able to effectively handle conflict?

• Do I lie?

• Am I selfish?

• Am I able to control my anger?

• Do I have a healthy self-esteem?

• Do I understand and respect authority?

Some of these questions may seem silly or obvious, but for me, I need the reminder every now and again. If you ask yourself these questions vulnerably, it will be uncomfortable, and it may uproot some unhealed pain or trauma. You can’t heal the pain that you refuse to feel.

I challenge you this week to reflect on how emotionally healthy and mature you may or may not be. If you find yourself leaning towards unhealthy, that’s totally okay. There are plenty of days I suck at emotional maturity. I would encourage you to try to brainstorm a few ways you can improve in at least one of the areas above. If you have a partner, make it a date night to reflect humbly together. You’ll be surprised at what you find!

Wishing you the best on your self-awareness journey! If you have questions or want to learn more about emotional maturity and health, reach out here!

I love and appreciate all our readers for supporting my mama and me! See you next week for another blog.

Ana, OUT! ❤