What is Your True (Emotional) Age?featured

I often ask people who are older than myself if they ever truly feel like an actual “adult” or if they are forever an awkward teenager trapped within an adult body.

I often get the same response – They never really feel like adults and their inner children are alive and well.

So are we really just a bunch of little kids running around playing dress-up? Are the children inside of us really the ones leading the show?

I have read about how some therapists apply a technique where they have their patients carry out conversations with the children they once were so that they can heal from past traumas.

The idea is that “our own inner child is where so many behavioral, emotional and relationship difficulties stem from.” And that we need to parent and nurture our baby child throughout the course of our lives so that we can truly grow into emotionally mature adults.

So how old are you really? What is your emotional age?

I often meet people and can tell how old they are emotionally after a few conversations. I have been on this earth for 30 years, but I believe I am about 27 emotional years old.

Obviously, my emotional age measurement is biased and based on my own life experiences but I am emotionally evolving each and every day. I have gone through spiritually transformative experiences and have learned how to find my true voice and deepest truth.

My inner child still has a lot of healing to do and she sometimes makes surprise appearances during less than ideal situations.

Her name is “Baby Karen.” You know all those ‘Karen’ memes that are floating around? They all apply to my inner child. She is entitled, bratty, and always wants things her way, of course.

Instead of telling Baby Karen to “Shut up” when she decides to show up, I talk with her. I ask her why she is here to visit and try to figure out what exactly she is feeling rather than what she wants to present to the world in the form of verbal vomit.

And you know what happens when I talk with Baby Karen?

Time stands still.

I suddenly think before I speak. I recognize what it is that I am feeling and I consciously choose calm composure over erratic reactiveness.

Why?

Because all my defense mechanisms belong to that little hurt girl within me. Not to the 27 emotional-year-old that I have become.

While my parents and your parents might have done everything they possibly could to raise emotionally mature humans, they too had their own flaws and inner children guiding them on some level.

As adults, it doesn’t serve us to blame others for raising us “wrong” or without the sufficient tools to fend for ourselves. It also doesn’t serve us to let our inner child takeover under stressful or anxious situations.

But we also need not ignore our inner child completely. When we do that we digress on our emotional journey. Our inner child will continue to show up as an angry child on a very long timeout.

To truly grow up emotionally, we must parent our own inner child, accept their pain, and own our present moment. I don’t need to hide Baby Karen but rather hold her delicate little hand and tell her that it is okay to feel that what she is feeling and that she will handle that familiar feeling with grace, wisdom, and strength this time around.

Love Deeply and Forever,

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