Maturity has nothing to do with getting older.

Most people you see on the street are not mature, they just pretend to be, acting like grown ups. Deep inside they are stuck at the age they received the least amount of love.

How do we get emotionally stuck?

We are born whole. When I say whole I mean without emotional wounds and parts of us we try to suppress. We give love and receive love without any fear.

However, there comes a time when you get emotionally neglected. You might love and not receive love in return. This moments create a schism in us.

A part of us is emotionally wounded and another part tries to protect the part that is hurt.

This protection is how we create a wall around the wounded part and even suppress it deep into our subconscious mind.

That’s the moment when we start living inside our minds, creating our own labyrinths and loops, looking for things outside of us that will make up for the love we didn’t receive.

It’s like a hero whose wife was wounded and he locks her home, inside a room protected from the world, so he can go out into the world and look for something to cure her.

Only the hero never finds a cure, and the wife never goes out to play into the world again.

Our body ages, time passes and we become grown ups. Well, at least that’s what other people see.

How to know if someone is emotionally stuck?

Most of us act as grown ups while being emotionally stuck at that same period when we received least amount of love.

Someone might have a family, a successful job and be much more spiritually evolved, but their heart is still in need of that love they did not receive.

Even more, all of those things might be a product of their intent to prove themselves worthy of that love so they can finally get it.

They live in the same loop, in the same reality, only the details are slightly different. They feel as the same bs is happening over and over again, only the place and time is different.

Symptoms that show someone is emotionally stuck:

People who are emotionally stuck display the following symptoms in their adult life:

– They fail to develop the skills necessary to form healthy relationships with others.

– They have difficulty establishing connections and giving their trust to others.

– They don’t have a sense of self-worth.

– They are scared to initiate healthy relationships with others.

– They want to be always in control.

– They feel insecure and unsure of themselves.

We create scenarios and put ourselves in similar situations as the one we have not healed yet.

We search for similar people as the ones that did not return our love with intent to make these new people give us the love we didn’t get and fix the past.

If, for example, you were hurt by your parents, you will seek partners with a similar behavior like the one that got you hurt. Subconsciously you intend to recreate the same situation and get another chance.

How to get unstuck and grow?

In order to really grow and mature, all of our parts need to be whole. And love is like the water that flowers need to grow.

In order to become whole you do not need to fix the past, but accept it.

The hero does not need to lock his wife protected from the world and look for cures, but open the doors, accept that she got hurt and hug her.

In order for the wife to heal, she needs to play again out in the open world, while the hero needs to be with her. That’s how both of them heal and become whole again.

By accepting the past you get a chance to look beyond the walls that protect the part of you that’s stuck. Now you have the chance to heal this part instead of avoiding the fact that it exists.

And the trick of healing is this:

Give yourself the love that you seek from others!

Realize that you do not need love from anyone to be able to give as much love as you can. You are the source of your own love. In fact, you are love!

Accept being hurt, accept being the one who did not got love in return and start loving again. Start giving love without demanding anything in return!

And you’ll realize one BIG secret!

It was never the love you received from others that grew your soul, it was the love you gave to the world that really grew you!

References:
– https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culturally-speaking/201303/overcoming-the-pain-childhood-abuse-and-neglect;
– https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-to-recognize-overcome-childhood-emotional-neglect-0218165;
– https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/02/14/8-steps-to-becoming-emotionally-unstuck/;