Emotional Maturity vs. Emotional Drama - Peace Series

Hey family, welcome back to Karolyn Cares. Where we talk about community, compassion and commerce in real time. I'm your host Karolyn.

This is Part 3 of the Peace Series. 

Last episode we talked about when people don’t like your boundaries.

Today we’re talking about emotional maturity… versus emotional drama.

If this episode or any of our previous episodes has met you where you are, or if you know someone who would benefit from this episode, would you please like, subscribe, and share this with someone who needs it.  

 Alright, put your seatbelts on. This is getting gooder and gooder. Let's go!!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey family, welcome back to Carolyn Cares, where we talk about compassion, community, and commerce in real life. I'm Carolyn, your host, and we're focused on the Peace Series. As a matter of fact, this is part three of the peace series. So part one focused on protecting your peace, or what does protecting your peace look like? Part two is when people don't like your boundaries. But today, and it's getting juicier by the moment, we're focusing on emotional maturity versus emotional drama. Everything doesn't require a reaction. But we've been taught to respond to everything. So again, this is part three of the peace series. We're talking about emotional maturity versus emotional drama. What is emotional maturity? Emotional maturity is responding versus reacting. It's regulating your emotions, and it's choosing timing. Maturity is not silence, it's control. Let's say that again. Maturity is not silence, it's control. We have to learn how to respond versus react. You know, responding takes forethought. It takes a pause where you have to really think about what it is you want to say and how you want to say it, versus reacting, where you just say the first thing that comes to your mind, and in the heat of the moment, you just blurt it out. You just say it without thinking about any of the consequences or the decisions behind what you've said. As far as regulating your emotions, emotional maturity deals with the regulating of your emotions. So again, you have that emotional intelligence. You know when to say, speak up, you know when to be quiet. You know when to. Now, this talks about, this is actually referenced in the book of Ecclesiastes. And again, I'm a Bible woman, so you'll hear me reference the Bible from time to time in references to God, meaning Jesus Christ, from time to time. So if this offends you, then you're just offended. I'm not apologizing for any of that. But Ecclesiastes talks about the timing and the season and when to speak up and when to be quiet, you know, when when it's a time of peace, when there's a time of war. And it goes on and on and on of knowing the timing. You we have to understand the time or the times that we live in. You can't just pop off the mouth saying whatever you feel like it, because it could possibly cost you your life. We have a lot of people who are who are dead. We're talking about graveyard dead because of something they said, whether it was something they said while driving, something they said while they were in a store, in some sort of establishment, and as a result, they lost their life because of uh unregulated emotions. And when you allow your emotions to get the best of you, there could be deadly consequences behind it. There's also timing. You have to know when to say whatever it is that you believe you need to say in the right time. You can't just say anything and the timing be off and expect a favorable result. You have to you have to observe the time and you have to know when is the good best time to say or communicate what you need to say. And it may be sometimes you don't need to say anything at all. You need to zip it, you need to shut up. And sometimes people think, oh, that's a harsh word. What other word do you want us to say? Zip it, close it, don't say anything. Sometimes people don't like those words, it triggers them for some reason. And I get it to some extent, but sometimes you need to be able to just shut it, zip it, because again, it could cost you your life. What's emotional drama? Emotional drama is overreaction. You just went overboard, you just took it up to another level where sometimes people are thinking, like, wow, okay, all that requires was a no. But you went in not only with a no, but then you started cussing and fussing and just being the drama king or the drama queen, because we we do have some drama kings out there. We do. So it's not just women. It's women are not just emotional. We have some very emotional men as well. Well, emotional drama is also urgency. So we have have times where you feel the need, you just gotta blurt it out. You just gotta say what's on your mind, say what's in, say what's in on your mind, say what's in your mind, say what's from your mind. And that sometimes leads to disaster because again, we're not thinking. We're going, we're going strictly from our emotions, we're not regulating anything, we're just letting people just let it rip. As sometimes people say, let it rip. Let it rip again. You don't know the consequences behind you just letting it rip. Sometimes it can be favorable, but other times there is an unfavorable consequence besides you letting it rip. Emotional trauma also deals with attention-seeking patterns. Let's let's park there for a moment. Sometimes people are delivering messages simply for attention. You love attention, you love all eyes to be on you, you love to be the life of the party, you know, the center of everyone's attention, so you you become emotional, whether it's loud laughter, loud talking, whether it's again, you're reacting in a in a loud way where you're drawing attention. You want all eyes to be on you because you feel that what you have to say is the most important thing. And sometimes it's just unwise, it's foolish. Let me just come out and say it's foolish. Don't be a fool, don't be a fool, people. Don't be a fool. The Bible talks about being a fool and how a fool relying on a fool is foolish, it's foolery to rely on a fool to get things done, to handle business like it should, to carry out the instructions without cutting up and acting a whole fool. Have you ever seen someone that is acted up or what they say in the South, or you know, sometimes black folk, black folk act like a plum fool. You acting like a whole fool out there, and you're you're drawing the wrong kind of attention to yourself, where people are looking at you like, wow, they have no home training. That's what we say in the black community. There's no home training going on, acting like a plum fool or a whole fool. So, drama, if you notice people that love drama, they thrive on urgency because they have to say it. They got to get it out, they gotta let it rip, they gotta get what's on their heart and mind just out, not thinking, not dealing with the emotional intelligence behind what they're about to say. Maturity, however, thrives on clarity. Let's get, let's understand, let's get some, let's, you know, make sure we are clear on what's happening before you start saying something just without thinking. You're talking without thinking. And I've noticed, and my experience has been the loudest people in the room sometimes are the foolish people in the room because they don't know how to exercise or use discipline in their emotions. So again, you love attention, you love everyone to, you know, look your way because you've come in a room, you know, you've entered somebody else's, you know, event event, and you have have decided, hey, I want all eyes to be on me so you draw attention. How do you shift? How do you shift? How do you make a shift? You don't have to attend every emotional invitation. Let me say that again. You don't have to attend every emotional invitation. You do know that you can decline invitations. It's okay to decline, it's okay to refrain, it's okay to be quiet, it's okay to say no comment or not to say anything. You know, you can shake your head like no, I'm not participating in it. Or you can just be quiet and say absolutely nothing. People don't know what you're thinking until you open your mouth. So sometimes the situation calls for you to just be quiet. Here are real life examples of emotional maturity that takes place versus emotional drama. We see it every day in text messages. Do you know, for those of you, maybe you're not technologically savvy, but do you know that typing in all caps is a symbol of yelling? When you type in all caps, you're yelling at people. If you've ever gone to an online public forum and you see people responding, do you know that person that is typing in all caps, they're yelling? They're they're drawing attention to themselves because you're seeing the letters all in in all caps. However, they are considered yelling when they're doing that. So sometimes you have to again know how to discipline yourself in your text messages, especially in relationships. For ladies, I'm well let me let me switch that up. For for older people, and I'm saying my age category, I'm born in the 60s. So for me, I'm not a I'm not a text message person all the time. You I need to hear you, I need to talk to you, I need to hear your voice because I want to determine where are you? Where are you in your mind? Where are you in your heart? Where are you in your intentions? So I need to hear that from you. And I like to hear voices as opposed to the younger crowds. We're talking about millennials and younger, they love texting. That's how they respond. Text. You can even be in the same household and they'll still text you. What we can't use our voices in our house, we can't, you know, yell across the room or you know, ask, we gotta text you. So that's how the younger generation responds. They love text message messaging one another. That's how they respond. But your text messages also have to display emotional maturity, emotional intelligence. Family conflict is another example. These are real life examples of emotional maturity versus emotional drama and family conflict. How do you handle conflict? How do you handle it? Again, are you one of the very expressive, demonstrative people or person, persons that when you are when you are angered or when you are upset, you have to, you know, flail with the hands and the and the clapping, clapping of the hands, or the flailing of the arms. That's what I wanted to say. The flailing of the arms or clapping of the hands because you're trying to get people's attention, or the smacking of the lips, or the rolling of the eyes. How do you deal with emotional family conflict? Are you the one that starts cursing immediately? Excuse me, to deal. Are you one that deals with profanity just coming out of your mouth? Or do you think for a moment before you just let it out, before you express how you feel? Or are you one of the ones that you get quiet? Because you want to you want clarity. You want to you want to understand what it is that you need to be responding to so that you can respond correctly as opposed to incorrectly. You want to get clarity so you can get quiet and you listen and then you ask questions because you want that clarity so that you can express yourself or communicate in the right way as opposed to the wrong way. There's also workplace tension. How do you deal with tension in the workplace amongst co-workers, amongst management? How do you personally deal with workplace tension? Do you deal with it the same as as if you would deal with it at home, or do you handle it totally different? Do you handle workplace tension different as opposed to family conflict? And people have, you know, people show different sides to themselves, you know, at home as opposed to work. I get that. But is your style of handling conflict the same or is it different? And again, you want to be on the right side of these things. You don't want to be on the wrong side. If you're known as a hothead, people don't deal with hot heads. They don't because they know how hot heads respond. You are showing no emotional intelligence, you are not thinking, you are totally letting your emotions override everything, and people can't get a word in. They can't get a word in, or they're trying to get clarity, and they can't because you're just out of control. I have homework for you. Let's do some homework. So, again, I'm a former school teacher, tutor, private tutor, all of that. And I love giving out homework because that's how I believe you're going to learn the lesson. You're going to be able to apply the lesson and then use that lesson to help you in your life. So I want you to pause before reacting. Just pause, come to a complete pause. Now, typically, you know yourself. You know yourself, but others may know you too. And if you're known as being emotionally charged, and you're typically the one that just blurts it out, you're not thinking, you're not considering the feelings of others, you are just trying to get yourself expressed or communicating. You're trying to communicate, but you're doing it all the wrong way. I want you to pause before reacting the next time and ask yourself this question. Is this necessary? Do I need to react this way when somebody's asking me a question or something that's troubling me? Do I need to really respond this way? Is it necessary for me to do this or is there a better way? And I want you to practice non-response. So if you're known as a hothead, if you're known as a going off person, you know, I want you to practice being non-responsive. And and I want you to notice the looks in people's faces and their responses, because they're they are typically used to you handling a situation in a particular way. And when you don't, I want you to jot their their responses down and their and their their responses physically as well as their responses in the things that they say. Jot it down. You're gonna be surprised. But I think you but I think you're gonna be surprised in a good way. So if you typically would go off the handle and this time you said, okay, let me think about it for a moment. I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna change course. I am not gonna say anything. And they'll respond, hey, did you hear what I said? Yeah, I heard it. I heard it. And just leave it at that. You'll be surprised at the at the level of response that you'll get from people because sometimes people will think, Oh wow, you took it better than what I expected. I thought that that you would just blow your stack, but this time you didn't do that at all. Or you said, Hey, you know what, I don't have any common with that. It's not necessary for me to respond. People are going to be shocked, but in a great way. Are you working on reacting less or responding better? Let's say that again. Are you working on reacting less or responding better? Or maybe both. Maybe if if you have an issue that is brought to your attention that affects you, and you could go down the road of negativity or in a way that demonstrates you're not demonstrating demonstrating wisdom like you should, are you working on reacting less and responding better? I think that's a great a great area for a target for you. So in closing, peace doesn't come from controlling people. It doesn't, it comes from controlling your response. Let me say it again. Peace doesn't come from controlling people, it comes from controlling your response. You don't have to attend every emotional invitation, and drama is loud, but maturity is clear. If this episode resonates with you or someone you know, please like, comment, and share. And again, thank you for listening to Carolyn Cares. And until next time, bye bye.