S3 E26 - Dealing with Emotionally Immature People

Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking… What just happened?

Maybe it was a family member who can’t take accountability, a coworker who twists everything into drama, an employee who refuses to change, or even a client who blames you for something that clearly wasn’t your responsibility.

If you’ve ever tried to “communicate better,” explain yourself more clearly, or bring up the past hoping they’ll finally get it—and it only made things worse…

You may be dealing with an emotionally immature person.

In this episode, I’m breaking down what emotional immaturity actually looks like, how to recognize it quickly, and why trying to reason with these people is often a losing game. You’ll learn why emotionally immature adults can be incredibly intelligent and successful on the outside, but still emotionally operate like a teenager (or even a child) when conflict shows up.

Most importantly, I’m teaching you the exact mindset shifts and boundary strategies that will save you from years of frustration, emotional spirals, and self-doubt.

Inside this episode, we’ll cover:

• The biggest signs you’re dealing with emotional immaturity
• Why logic, “talking it through,” and bringing up the past won’t work
• How emotionally immature people rewrite reality to protect themselves
• Why they almost never apologize (and what to do instead)
• The only type of communication they actually respond to
• How to stop needing to be understood
• How to let them feel their feelings without it wrecking your peace

If you’re tired of feeling like you’re the only emotionally regulated adult in the room, this episode will feel like a deep exhale.

Bookmark this one. You’re going to need it.

🎧 Listen now, and learn how to protect your energy while continuing to build your favorite life.

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Have a topic you would love to hear Sophia address on the podcast? Send your ideas to hello@sophiahyde.com

Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:01.038)
Hi, welcome back. This week, I am excited to dive into this topic because it's been coming up on several calls and you guys, if you've listening to me a while, you know that one of the predominant places that I get inspired to create content for this podcast for you is when I start seeing patterns in my coaching calls. And probably three or four times in the last month, I've had to

teach people the concept of what it means to, what is an emotionally immature person and what does it mean, like how do we navigate being in relationship with them? And I just came up again yesterday on a coaching call, but I had to deal with it like about two weeks ago, I had two clients and so I said, you know what? This is coming up over and over again. And so if people don't know how to recognize an emotionally immature person,

and how to navigate being in relationship with them, then this is going to pay dividends. And I've never recorded a podcast episode on it. And I decided it was time because we need to be able to save this for the future. Bookmark this. You're going to want to come back to this because if this is not something that you need to address today in your life, I promise you it's coming for you. Most likely when you start listening to the signs, you're

going to think of somebody you either do life with right now or that you have done life with in the past. And so let's dive in. What is an emotionally immature person? So let's start with, there's quite a few ways to talk about this. And I'm gonna start by telling you the three most recent ways that I saw it show up in a client, okay?

Cause you got to recognize the signs first and then I'll get into like the lingo of like some definitions and stuff like that. But how did I know that my client was probably dealing with an emotionally immature person? The first example was yesterday's was I'm coaching somebody who was kind of had her feathers ruffled by this bizarre experience dealing with an upset customer who was

Sophia Hyde (02:27.532)
blaming problems on her and she's like trying to take personal responsibility and she can see how, you know, maybe if I would have handled this differently, they wouldn't have gotten this end result. But also like, I'm not responsible for the fact that in this case, it was financial and the woman's gonna owe more in taxes because of some choices that she made. And my client was like, it's not actually my fault that she didn't talk to her CPA.

and learn financial, like I never pretended to be a tax advisor, I'm not a tax advisor. I educated, I gave options, you made a choice and now it's my fault that you owe more in taxes? what's happening here? But then the upset client is like, it's your fault, this is all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then is escalating and talking to people that they both know and making this like,

really a dramatic thing. And so this, my client's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, do I, you know, she's in the call, her initial instinct was this is all my fault. What could I have done better? How could I have avoided this? How do I do this in the future? I need to start doing business differently so this never happens to somebody again? And I'm listening to this story and I'm asking clarifying questions and I said, mm.

Do you think there's any chance this woman was emotionally immature? And she was like, absolutely. And I said, OK, like, so we're gonna talk about that. So that's one that's one reason that it came up. Another time was very recently was a client trying to navigate dealing with an employee who they had recently who had recently come under their jurisdiction, but they had not managed in the past. And so now they're managing this employee and it's bizarre stuff.

She's like, why can't I get this woman to be accountable? Why is this relationship so hard? I've had multiple conversations with her and I feel like we're not getting anywhere and this is so like, what the heck is happening here? Is this woman like not capable of change? Like can she change? Do I have to let this person go from our organization? Because it's like.

Sophia Hyde (04:49.166)
I'm saying all these things and they make up these recommendations and nothing is sticking. And if they don't change and produce different results, can't keep them in this organization, but I see all this value they're adding over here. So it's like, I don't like the idea of letting them go, but these behaviors have got to change to keep them on the team. And again, I said, are we dealing with an emotionally immature person?

And then the one that comes up a lot is people in their families. They're just like, you know, signs of like passive aggressive behavior and trying to deal with somebody that you can't have a level headed conversation with and they want to feel control over your life or they blame you for the fact that they're unhappy and you're just like, what is happening? Okay. So I'm telling you guys these signs so that you can learn to start being like, whoa, wait a second.

you will need to deal with conflict a completely different way when you are dealing with an adult to adult or adult to emotionally immature adult. It's not the same thing, okay? And so you have to learn to differentiate the signs because the way you will communicate with them is drastically different.

Emotionally immature people are not, the relationships do not become improved because you get better at communication. There's not a way to say it better or get them to understand or break through. The way that you handle dealing with an emotionally immature person is you getting better at boundaries, trusting yourself.

and allowing them to feel the emotion of disappointment. Okay? So these are just some of the, I just wanna give you guys this, paint this picture of like, when would this topic, when and how will it be relevant to me? When will it show up? Those are the kind of the signs and some concrete examples of dealing with somebody who's emotionally mature. So let's dive into this. Now I'm gonna start getting into like the weeds of what it means.

Sophia Hyde (07:07.39)
I almost everything that I'm teaching you I have learned from Dr. Lindsay Gibson. So I let's preface this with you are listening to a podcast by a life coach. I am not a therapist. I am not a psychiatrist. And so I am teaching you are things that came from the work of Dr. Lindsay Gibson. And so

If you wanna deep dive in this, do you wanna learn more? I recommend that you dive into her work. She's fantastic. She's got lots of content out there, whether you, the books that she has written, the interviews that she's done, the articles that made about her, like recommend her highly. And so I've studied her work and also I've applied a lot of this in my own life. And I have for years now been

situations like this, three examples I just gave you where a client's coming to me, they're trying to achieve a goal, they're trying to make progress, and then this person's like getting in a way or it's a giant energy leakage or they're very frustrated because they like, this is a very stressful situation for them, right? And this person is getting in the way of their progress and their goal. And I recognize it as emotional immaturity. And then I teach them, okay, here's some principles and the principles I'm gonna teach you.

Here's some basic things for you to understand about these people and the way they move through the world so that you can communicate in a more effective way with them and then move on towards the goals you're trying to achieve, right? And so I'm giving you this preface so that first of all, give credit to where credit's due. Dr. Gibson is phenomenal. And also understand the lens of

I'm coming to this from a very, what is the word, anecdotal place, right? These are going to be lessons that have been learned from me applying it in my life and me watching a lot of my clients apply it. And it's through those lenses that I'm gonna be teaching you guys some real world impacts of what I have seen and witnessed and experienced for myself or through my clients. And if you wanna study this at an academic level or a research level or all the other ways that this could be looked at, like,

Sophia Hyde (09:33.154)
Go dive into that work, okay? All right, so how do you recognize somebody? What does it mean to be emotionally immature? The way that I like to think of it, and the way I usually describe to a client, is an emotionally immature person is somebody who at some point in their life, their emotional needs were not met.

whether that was they were emotionally neglected or like some adult in their life did not show up for them in the way that they needed that adult to show up. so developmentally they stopped growing, but they stopped growing emotionally. They still want to become an adult. You can be emotionally immature and still be extremely smart, very intelligent, very successful in your career. Fantastic at

you know, wonderful social skills, super charismatic, right? You can look on the outside like a very, what's the word I'm looking for, like arrived adult and yet emotionally stunted. So just because you are looking into the face of a 50 year, five year old person doesn't always mean that

you're actually dealing with a 55 year old person. You might be dealing with at whatever point emotionally that their development stopped. You might be dealing with somebody that has the emotional capacity of a seven year old, a 12 year old, a 16 year old. And I am the mother of a seven year old and a 12 year old. You guys know without me even telling you, you already know.

that there is no way when I have a difficult situation or a hard, I have to have a hard conversation or we have a conflict, we have a problem. You guys know that the words I'm choosing and the way that I am managing the situation is very different with my seven year old than it is with my 12 year old, than it is with my, how old's Brandon now? 41 year old husband, right? I am not communicating the same way with any of them. For each of those people,

Sophia Hyde (11:56.234)
I am meeting them where they are at the level that they can wrap their mind around this, right? Okay, I want you to think about that. When you're dealing with an emotionally immature adult, whether it's a customer, a client, somebody that you work with, a coworker, somebody in your family, it's important that you recognize, like, I might be dealing with a...

somebody who has the emotional capacity of a 13 year old trapped in the body of a 55 year old. Okay? Sometimes that's just like the easiest way. And from there, once you recognize, I'm dealing with a 13 year old, intuitively you know where to go from there. Okay?

But I'm gonna teach you the most effective ways and save you a ton of time, headache and hassle. All right, what else do we know about them? It's very important to understand when you're dealing with an emotionally immature person that the whole world in their brain, so what happened was when their needs were not met and they became emotionally stunted, their development stopped emotionally.

and their brain has been rewired in a way to protect them, because that's our brain's job. Our brain's job is to protect us and keep us safe, okay? And when they felt that the world was not safe emotionally, their brain rewired in a way to protect them. And part of those protective mechanisms are really harmful to the people around them. The first thing that happens is they stay

And I mean, we know, we all know biologically, like teenagers are, they're selfish, right? They are, their brain is very me focused. It's not until later in adulthood that a teenager starts to realize like, wow, I should be considerate of other people and the things I do affect their lives, right? So some people never arrive there. And so their world is very egocentric.

Sophia Hyde (14:08.36)
everything comes back to me and how it affects me. They lack a lot of empathy. It's very hard for them. Like their brain cannot, physically cannot put themselves in somebody else's shoes. So when you're having a conversation with them, it's like two sides of a coin. You're seeing heads, they're seeing tails, and all they can see is tails. You're frustrated because you know that, shoot, I already lost who was heads and who was tails.

Shoot. All right, let's say, I might've said this differently 10 seconds ago, we're gonna go with you are seeing tails, they're seeing heads, okay? So you're seeing tails. As you're seeing these tails, you can, you have the ability, because you have continued to evolve, you have the ability to recognize that you're seeing tails and then pause.

Imagine yourself flipping around to their side and being able to acknowledge, from their perspective over here, they're seeing heads. And so you have the emotional and intellectual capabilities to say, that's their perspective. This is my perspective. And so how do we meet in the middle? What does it look to like, instead of being stuck in tails or stuck in heads, how do we come around to the side and kind of see both of yous and now compromise and be able to move forward in this dynamic?

that when you come to a conversation and you wanna have that with them, okay, here's your, I see that you see heads and I see tails and let's meet in the middle, their brains cannot meet you there. You are wasting your time to ever try to have a conversation with them that's asking them to see something else from their point of view. Because if they see heads, that is all they're ever going to see, period. Their point of view, their perspective is the truth and the only truth.

And so you're like, what? Sophia, this is like, what am I supposed to do with that? I'm gonna teach you what to do with that. The first thing is accept it. Okay, you have to accept it. Like that's how their brain's wired. You're not going to change them. So you just have to learn how to adapt your behaviors around the reality of the way they move through the world. They also don't have the ability to self-reflect. They're not gonna self-reflect. Their intuition, you might walk into a situation.

Sophia Hyde (16:33.206)
and not like the result, right? Like something happened and you hate the way it went. Just like the client I just told you, right? Like she walked away from that customer being so mad and her first instinct was, what did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong in this process? Did I not, you know, set up the expectations for them correctly? Did I not communicate? And she's like, Sophia, I went through all my emails and I went through all my stuff. like, I did, I did give them all this information and I did warn them and I did say all this stuff.

I just, but how do I do better next time? Do I need to like over communicate this one thing? Right? Like her knee jerk reaction was something went wrong. It was probably on me. I need to take personal responsibility for where went. I did better, right? That's what a mature person does. An immature person can't do that. It's always somebody else's fault. They are always looking for somewhere else to put the blame.

they're not ever going to self-reflect and be like, I created this result, it's my fault. And so their brain protects them from that. And you can't expect them to start self-reflecting, you just have to deal with it. And we're gonna get there, I've got my recommendations, It is also important to understand that whatever they believe to be true,

like their feelings, their perspective is it is their full blown reality. So once they have decided that this situation looks a certain way. So like that example, it's they saw they they're going to owe way more in taxes than they thought. And so they're frustrated and they're angry about it. They've decided that it's this person's fault. There is no changing their mind. That's the reality. The reality is

I feel like they

Sophia Hyde (18:34.594)
didn't explain this well enough to me and I believe it's their fault, so it is. Whatever they feel, their feelings, their feelings are their truth.

and you can't logically change them. You cannot use logic to change their emotional experience. Again, like a child. When I am dealing with my seven-year-old, especially like remember when kids, it's really the worst around like three, four years old, When they are throwing a fit and they get stuck in that emotion side of their brain, you cannot speak to them logically.

There is no using logic when they are crying because you brought the wrong toothbrush on vacation and like you grabbed the red one and they wanted the blue one and they're having a fit on the middle of the floor over the fact that you packed the wrong color toothbrush and it's all your fault and you've ruined their whole life by picking the wrong color toothbrush. You cannot use logic.

to meet the needs of the four-year-old. You can't be like, babe, it's the exact same toothbrush. It works exactly the same. It cleans your teeth exactly the same. It doesn't work. When you're dealing with a child, you have to calm them down, right? And then we can figure out what we're gonna do to move forward. When you're dealing with an emotionally immature adult, if they believe, just like the toddler, you ruined this trip by packing the wrong toothbrush.

That's their truth, period, end of story. That's their reality. You have now ruined the vacation with the wrong toothbrush. No amount of logic is gonna get them to change that view. So you have to stop trying to change their views, because you're not going to.

Sophia Hyde (20:35.724)
All right, their brain, so one of the other things I always try to explain to people is part of their protective mechanism is that they are so afraid to feel their own pain. Like the idea of feeling their pain is so scary to their brain that, they can't process it, that they look for somewhere else to put it externally. So they're always looking for everything to be.

somebody else's fault, somebody else did something wrong, somebody else is to blame. Because having someone to blame and be mad at or be angry at or be frustrated at is an easier pill for them to swallow than to acknowledge that they might have fucked up and this is their fault and they have to own it. That level of pain, it's too big for them to...

Now, is it really too big for the bear? You and I both know it's not, but it doesn't matter. Their brain is wired in such a way that it believes that feeling that pain is too scary. So it won't let them. Okay?

So what does this mean? How do you move forward? All right, I wrote down, how many points do I have here? One, two, three, right, seven pieces of advice. Here's my recommendations for dealing with this. First of all, number one pill to swallow. You can't talk to them like they're peer. This is not an adult to adult conversation. Now, this does not mean, again, maybe you're dealing with a seven-year-old, 12-year-old, 16-year-old.

you know, we don't know what you're dealing with, but you are not, you think you have a 55 year old in front of you. Intellectually, yes, maybe they're very successful in their career. Maybe they're very smart. Maybe they're so charismatic in a social setting, but emotionally, they can't process. So you have to imagine that you are dealing with that little seven year old who's trapped in that adult body. That does not mean that you talk down to them because younger people are not beneath us.

Sophia Hyde (22:35.88)
You have to acknowledge that you are the grownup in the room now, and it's up to you to figure out the effective way to communicate. And you have to accept that the work is on you to do. Sorry, it sucks. know, like we want the 55 year old to take accountability for themselves. They're not going to, okay? So number one, accept that you're not dealing with a peer and you have to be the adult in the room. All right, second pill to swallow.

is because they refuse to feel their own pain and they refuse to take personal responsibility and their brains cannot self-reflect their actual survival in the brain, the stories in their brain, they literally, their brain believes that they have to have somebody else to blame in order to survive. You can see this so well when you think about all the people, like if they're broke, they genuinely believe it must be the president's fault. Maybe it's this president, maybe it was the last president, maybe it's two presidents ago.

but it's their fault that I'm broke, not mine, right? Their policies. They're not also because they don't want to their own pain to take personal responsibility. They're never gonna apologize to you. If you are sitting around waiting on an apology, it's not coming. Stop waiting for it. It's not coming because in their brains, they cannot see themselves as the bad guy.

Somebody else always has to be the bad guy. So what's my advice? What's my recommendation? You have to allow yourself to be, give yourself permission to be the villain in somebody else's story. Just, just think in your head when you have to do the thing that they're not going to like in your head, just imagine, you know what? It's okay. I will take on, if it helps them preserve their self identity, I will be the bad guy.

so that they can remain the hero in their own brain and move on with their lives. I just had to deal, just had to, there's a client that I have who we know that one person on her team, we've been dealing this for a few years, is an emotionally immature adult. And we've had to navigate like how to show up in relationship with them. Well, the time has finally come that they really, at this point for the organization to keep growing, this person,

Sophia Hyde (24:59.36)
It doesn't, they don't fit on the team anymore. We've navigated around as many things as we can, but it has finally like.

the shit has hit the fan, they can't stay on the team. And so my client was having to navigate how, like she really cares about this person. Nobody, if you are a compassionate human, nobody likes firing people. It's awful, right? And so the conversation that we had was she was trying to figure out like how to preserve the relationship, how to like not make them hate her for this change and how to navigate it so there's not fallout in all these different directions and.

And what I told her was really he has a choice. He could, by the way, he doesn't have to be fired. He has a choice to change or leave. It's really, it's really not being fired. He's basically being told, get on board with where we're going and change or exit the company. And he's probably going to exit. And she's like trying to preserve this in the most compassionate way that she can. And I said, you know what the most compassionate thing that you can do is, is allow him to be mad at you.

You know where the company is going. The changes have to happen. And if you let him stay the hero in his story and you take on the role of being villain, then you just helped the other 12 people at your company because the other 12 people are trying to build a great organization and they're trying to create this very positive culture. They're trying to use this new technology.

They're trying to do all of these great things that if these building blocks can get put in place, this organization can more than triple its growth in the next few years. And if we're going to triple this company, we have to start operating differently. And the way that we used to do things isn't gonna keep working, right? And this person's preventing the growth. If you can be his villain,

Sophia Hyde (27:00.588)
then you get to be the hero in your own life for your own business and also for your other 12 employees who are going to be like, thank God she made him like either get with the program or leave and him leaving is going to make all of their lives easier. But you can't please everybody. So give yourself permission to be the villain in somebody's story so that you can be the hero either in your own or in the other people whose lives are being affected.

Next, number three, it is a complete waste of time to ever bring up the past. It's not gonna work. They store information in their brain in a way that preserves their identity. So everything is always going to benefit them. Their memory literally stores everything in a way that makes them look good. So just stop.

you can't refer to something from last year or to you remember when this happened and I said blah, blah, blah, blah, and then you did this thing, you're wasting your effort. They remember that in a way that makes them look good. I've even tried, I had a situation a few years ago where I wanted to bring up something that had only happened an hour ago and my gosh, I caused such a disaster. So I've learned if you're gonna deal with something, you have to deal with it in the moment while it is occurring.

Otherwise, you lost your chance. You lost your chance. So here's a great example. If somebody in your life speaks to you in a belittling way and you don't want them to continue speaking to you in a belittling way, you can't wait a week later and be like, hey, last week, you said this thing to me and it really hurt my feelings and I didn't like it. And in the future, please don't speak to me that way. They are going to be like, I did not say that. I did not word it that way. It is your fault that you feel belittled.

I did not belittle you. You are wasting your effort trying to talk to them about something from last week or yesterday or I learned my lesson an hour ago. You have to deal with it in the moment. So in the moment, you have to say to them, and we're gonna get to this. The next thing is you can only communicate with them in boundaries, okay? So the only thing that they can understand, if you want behaviors to change,

Sophia Hyde (29:26.562)
they can only understand very clear boundaries, just like a child. have to hold your very clear, you have to communicate clear boundaries and hold them. That is also how you deal with these kind of people. So in this case, you can't bring up the past from last week, but you can communicate your clear boundary, which is, I will not allow anybody in my life to speak to me in a belittling way. And if you speak to me that way, again, I will hang up the phone.

But you have to say it when it happens. if they say to you, oh my God, I can't even think of it. What is something that is belittling? That your clothes doesn't look good on you or like you look, oh really? You're gonna wear that outfit today? The one that, you know, makes your, I don't know, I'm trying not to repeat terrible things that were said to me.

like, that shirt that's not a good color for your eyes. I'm making this up on the fly, guys. really? You picked that green shirt, the one that isn't that great for your eyes? You have to immediately say to them, I don't appreciate being spoken to me that way. It feels very belittling that you're criticizing my clothes, and I don't like it. So the next time that you criticize my clothes or speak to me in a way that makes you feel belittled, I'm going to hang up on you. In the moment.

If you don't deal with it in the moment, you have to just wait till they do something offensive in the future and deal with it then. Bringing up the past doesn't work. So in a work setting, like one of the things I workshopped with my client that had the employee, what we figured out was she very clearly communicated, these are the organizational goals. Inside the organizational goals, this part is your responsibility. You are responsible for this piece of our organization achieving these goals.

in the next 90 days. So this is your responsibility, this is your job, and this is where we're going. I expect, here's the boundary, I expect you to send me a report every Friday telling me what you did to further our organization achieving this goal in the next 90 days. If you do not turn in your report to me, I will have to send a write-up to HR.

Sophia Hyde (31:47.852)
I will be submitting it right up, right? It's your responsibility to send me the report every Friday and I expect your work to be in this lane. That's the clear boundary. And if you don't do it, then this is the consequence. And if there is not a clear communication and a clear consequence, you won't ever get a behavior change. That's the only way that you can get change out of these people. All right, number five.

You must release the need to feel understood. You won't ever feel understood by these people. And so you have to let it go. You have to let it go. So many of us have this deep need to be like, they could just see my point of view, if they could just understand why I did this or why I feel this way or why I got upset. If you're wanting to feel seen and feel understood by these people, it's never happening.

never happening you've got to let that go and for me I learned that it was just easier for me to let go of the need to feel understood by anybody. I don't need anybody to understand me anymore. That's not it's a need I used to have in a very big way and I ultimately realized that it was exhausting. If you want to understand me you are welcome to ask me questions and be curious about my life and ask and you know

want to learn and if you want to learn I will share but I don't need you to understand me anymore. Number six.

they are allowed to feel their feelings. So when you set the boundary and you say the thing and they don't like it, they don't like being told that they were belittling you, they don't like being told that they have to send in the report, whatever the thing is, they're allowed to feel their feelings. You have to let these people be mad, be disappointed, be frustrating, throw the fit, let them feel it all. Think about the three and the four year old throwing the fit in the middle of the floor. What do you do as a parent? We've all had that moment. If you have ever parented a child.

Sophia Hyde (33:51.63)
or even just worked around them in a preschool or some setting or whatever. We know sometimes you just gotta let them get it of their system. Okay, you're gonna throw a in the middle of the floor. I'm just gonna walk around you. I'm gonna let you get all your feelings out. But you have your little feelings and you cry, you let that out, right? Just let them feel their feelings. Let them have their little meltdown, okay? Preferably not around you. But so many people are scared to let these types of people get mad at them.

And you just gotta let them, let them go feel their feelings. Your job is to manage yourself. Were you operating according to your value system? Were you coming from a place of kindness and love and consideration? Were your motivations and intentions coming from a good place? That's what you're responsible for. And if you were coming from a good place and then you set your boundary and they didn't like it, that's on them. That is all their responsibility. They are allowed to be mad.

It's very normal for this type of person to behave in a way that is like number one, like passive aggressive behavior is huge for them. So if they give you the silent treatment, let them. Their loss, like whatever, that's them. That's very normal for them. It's very immature to give somebody the silent treatment. But if they're gonna do that to you, let them. They will try to, one of the things that they're craving is they're craving control.

and they think that they can control you with things like the silent treatment. Like, oh, if I, you know, maybe they'll treat me differently or respond differently in the future if they understand that this really made me mad, you know? And you have to decide that you're not going to respond to that. So if...

whatever it is that they're gonna do, maybe they give you the silent treatment, maybe they get angry, maybe they whatever, you have to be okay with that. It's really, really, really important that if these people wanna behave like a child, you let them feel their feelings, not your responsibility. Okay, last one, point number seven is so many times when dealing with this type of person, my clients, and I craved this so badly too, they wanna be able to like,

Sophia Hyde (36:13.166)
If we could just talk it through and you're willing to have a hard conversation, like let's just sit down. I know it'll be, you know, a little bit difficult, but let's have the hard conversation and you want to like clear the air and you want to like get everything out on the table and like, let's, know, discuss it and then we'll figure out a way to move forward. I do that with my husband. I do that with my friends. I do that with people I need to have, but they're, but an emotionally immature person. I'm not doing that. You can't. They are in.

capable of having a hard conversation. So there is no big discussion to have. There is no talk. There is no airing it all out. It's completely unproductive. The only way you can communicate with them is through clear boundaries and expectations. When it comes to feelings, intellectually sure, whatever, but when it comes to something that is touching on feelings,

All you can do is communicate in boundaries and then hold the boundaries you set. There is no big talk. There is no airing it out. There is no kumbaya moment where everybody kisses and hugs and says they're sorry and changes. That's how you manage conflict with a mature adult, not an emotionally immature one. So.

I hope this helps you guys, I it helps you navigate your relationships better, and I hope you learn something from this so that in the future, you have much more success with that person, the one you're thinking of. Maybe it's a family member, maybe it is the coworker, the boss, the employee, the whatever. I hope this has left you feeling equipped. If you wanna keep diving into this and you wanna learn more,

I already recommended Dr. Lindsay Gibson and I recommend that you go follow her tools, resources, books, and there's a lot of content here. So sending you guys love and I hope that you have a beautiful week and you continue to design a beautiful favorite life for yourself. Goodbye.