On going slow

I initially became interested in the slow movement after watching an ABC documentary called Frantic Family Rescue. In this doco, journalist Carl Honore descends into the lives of over-active families and gives them a 'slow fix' for several weeks, which involves significantly cutting back on extra curricular activities, screen time, and general rushing about, and increases time spent together and facilitates enjoying the moment in every day life. At the end of several weeks, one family out of the 3 has succeeded in implementing a less frenetic lifestyle, but the other two still seem hellbent on fitting in as many achievement-focused activities into their children's lives as is humanly possible (poor kids). To find out whether your family is stuck in hyper-parenting mode and in need of a 'slow fix', following this link. 

Maturity in adults

So what does maturity and immaturity look like in adults? It's important to note that although it's common to think that once we reach adulthood, we're mature, the reality is far from it. The reality is that we all develop in maturity throughout life, but never fully reach it. Reaching adulthood only guarantees physical maturity, but certainly not emotional maturity.

So, you want to know what maturity looks like. Here goes:

Maturity looks like experiencing strong emotions but not letting them hijack your behaviour. An immature response might be big emotional outbursts when upset (e.g. screaming at others, or becoming aggressive when things don't go how we want them to)

A mature attitude would be avoiding blaming others when things don't go our way, but instead considering how we ourselves have contributed to the situation. Needless to say, immaturity is marked by looking for fault in others when something goes wrong, and making sure others know they are to blame

Staying in relationship with people who disagree with you or have differing views is a mark of maturity. It is easy to cast off friends or relatives who don't see eye to eye with us because it's uncomfortable, but by doing this, we deny ourselves an opportunity for mature growth (not to mention the relationship itself)

A mark of maturity is taking responsibility for solving your own problems. Demanding that others find solutions to our problems, and making it their problem, is probably a sign that we've still got a bit of growing up to do

Holding onto your values under pressure or in the face of conflict is a mark of maturity. 

Recognising that your needs are not particularly concerning for most people, and responding to this with grace, rather than demanding, 'What about me?!' is also a hallmark of maturity.

Maturity

We all have an idea of what maturity is but many of us would probably have trouble defining it. One way to to define immaturity is to examine it when it's at its strongest, which is in childhood. Childhood immaturity is marked by pushing to get one's own needs met instantly. When they aren't met immediately, emotions go out of control, and the emotions are sometimes out of proportion (for example, screaming because denied chocolate). Childish behaviour is about finding the fastest way to get our own way, no matter the cost. For example, if a child is denied what they want, they may tell their parents that they hate them, or that they aren't their friend. In addition, children will try whatever they can to avoid doing unpleasant tasks, and will be reluctant to share the fun (e.g. a favourite toy) when they're enjoying themselves.

So what does maturity, and immaturity, look like in adults? Part 2 coming shortly...

What happens to the brain after psychological trauma?

Many of us go through a psychologically traumatic experience at some point in our lives - perhaps a car accident, witnessing someone else being seriously injured or killed, or being mugged. Following a such an experience the brain becomes hypersensitive to any signs that the traumatic event might be about to reoccur. Your brain is a 'don't-get-killed' machine, focused on protecting you from any danger via anxiousness and fear, so any reminders that it associates with a traumatic experience may make you highly anxious.

For many people, strong emotions caused by a traumatic event settle after several weeks to a few months. However, for some people, they fall into chronic patterns of hypervigilance, irritability, anxiety, depression, and withdrawal.

If you've experienced a trauma and you've noticed that strong emotions, or flashbacks, aren't diminishing after a few months, see a GP who understands mental health issues for a referral to a mental health practitioner.

You're so clever!

An individual's understanding of the relationship between diligent study and academic success is critical.

Some children seem born with a talent for learning - they pick up concepts quickly and often don't have to study much at all in the early years of school (up to Year 10 or so) to achieve good grades. It's these children who will often receive praise from well-meaning adults, telling them they're clever.

Problems arise when these children become teens and reach the latter years of school. Suddenly their 'natural smarts' and cleverness don't get them through anymore - the work becomes concept- and content-heavy, and study is necessary. With a sudden increase in difficulty, it's these adolescents who are vulnerable to believing that they can't do it any more - that they have reached the limits of their intellectual ability. In actual fact, they've simply reached the limit of their 'natural smarts' to get them through on minimal study, but not the limit of their capacity as a learner. However, convincing them of this is much harder than you realise.

So if you're going to praise a child on their learning ability, praise their effort and application to their work, rather than their innate ability. By pairing effort with success, children can avoid that sense of hopelessness and helplessness that arises when their 'natural smarts' eventually let them down.

Would life be easier without emotions?

Many people experience too much of one emotion or another - anxiety, sadness, guilt, anger, shame, to name a few. That life would be better if humans were rational rather than emotional is a natural conclusion to make. But life without emotions would be very difficult indeed. The word 'emotion' means 'to move'. And without emotions, it would be difficult to know what direction to move in, so to speak. To start with, emotions help us very quickly determine what's worth 'moving for' and what isn't - if something isn't important, we'll have very few emotions about it. Our emotions are our guides, acting as sign posts for our lives - whether it be guilt on considering cheating on someone leading us to disengage in a developing affair, anger when someone hurts us leading us to defend ourselves, anxiety about big decisions leading us to carefully consider all options, or excitement on pursuing an important goal leading us to work hard to achieve it. And yes, sometimes emotions become problematic, but we'd be far more dysfunctional without them than with them.