Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 93: Emotional Maturity in Recovery: How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding

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93: Emotional Maturity in Recovery: How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Hey, everybody. All right, so I had just a
• 0:02
  friendly reminder. So this was episode as part of
• 0:05
  the phase two series focused on development and the integration.
• 0:09
  So if you haven't had a chance to be in a guest, if you're a
• 0:12
  man who's working through this stuff, we get a chance to attend
• 0:15
  our phase two groups. But the last episode, we talked
• 0:19
  about conflict, and we talked about boundaries and
• 0:21
  communication, at least in the last episode, as a part of the
• 0:24
  series. This episode's going to move
• 0:27
  deeper into what allows those skills to actually work in real
• 0:30
  moments. So emotional maturity and
• 0:33
  responsibility, right? So what am I responsible for?
• 0:36
  And I want to emphasize that recovery isn't just about
• 0:38
  knowing what to do. It's about becoming someone who
• 0:41
  can do it under pressure. Whoa.
• 0:43
  How much pressure do you feel? You're like, oh, my gosh, I
• 0:45
  can't take the pressure. Yeah.
• 0:47
  Let's talk about what that looks like a little bit.
• 0:50
  So a little bit of a personal reflection here.
• 0:53
  There was a time in where in the middle of a hard conversation,
• 0:57
  it felt like everything was urgent for me and felt like I
• 1:01
  had to say that right thing immediately and I had to fix
• 1:04
  that situation right away. I had to calm everything down as
• 1:08
  fast as I possibly could. And I didn't feel like there was
• 1:11
  space to slow down. There wasn't space to think.
• 1:14
  And in fact, I thought if I might think, then she was like,
• 1:18
  oh, she's just, he's just coming up with the script.
• 1:20
  Just a line to make me feel better.
• 1:23
  And maybe I was like, is this a line?
• 1:25
  Is this a script that I'm using? Is this authentically me?
• 1:28
  Is this, you know, I wasn't so much questionable.
• 1:31
  There was truth or not. So it felt like I, if I didn't
• 1:36
  respond really quickly, something worse would happen.
• 1:40
  Feel like nails on the chalkboard.
• 1:42
  But over time, through doing this work, and I'm definitely
• 1:44
  not perfect at it, realizing that the most important thing I
• 1:48
  could do in those moments was not react, but to pause, and
• 1:52
  that pause did not come naturally.
• 1:54
  It had to be learned. And that's what this episode is
• 1:57
  going to be all about. So let's get into it.
• 2:04
  Welcome to Beyond the Facade podcast.
• 2:05
  I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and I'm thrilled to have you join me
• 2:08
  in this space today. What we're going to be doing is
• 2:10
  diving deep into the trials and triumphs and truths of seeking
• 2:14
  authenticity. Becoming your true self isn't
• 2:17
  about a single action or a moment.
• 2:19
  It's a relentless pursuit, a commitment to self that reveals
• 2:22
  a rich connection and meaning that our life has to offer.
• 2:25
  So whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a
• 2:28
  regular listener, know this. What you're building here goes
• 2:31
  beyond a conversation. You're here to challenge, to
• 2:33
  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
• 2:37
  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show.
• 2:39
  Up fully the. Rewards are immeasurable, so
• 2:42
  welcome to be on the facade. Let's get started.
• 2:46
  All right, everybody. So this is just kind of a
• 2:49
  transition into this concept here.
• 2:52
  Emotional maturity is often really misunderstood.
• 2:55
  Many people think that it means I'm staying calm, I'm not
• 3:00
  feeling strong emotions or you're just like I'm their
• 3:03
  emotional maturity means I'm always having the right
• 3:06
  response. I got the right answer.
• 3:08
  But emotional maturity is not about eliminating emotions, OK?
• 3:12
  It's about what happens after emotions show up, after I have
• 3:15
  those big feelings. So what emotional maturity
• 3:19
  actually is, is the ability to stay aware of what's happening
• 3:23
  internally. OK, I notice something about
• 3:26
  myself. I can feel it.
• 3:27
  I can name it inside my body. I know where I'm experiencing
• 3:31
  this. So recognizing that emotion as
• 3:32
  it arises, staying present under that pressure, OK, that's
• 3:37
  emotional maturity. Not reacting automatically to
• 3:40
  that, just the way I've done them for decades.
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  It's emotional maturity is choosing how to respond.
• 3:46
  Emotionally mature people still feel anger.
• 3:52
  Emotionally mature people still feel that frustration.
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  They still feel that fear. They feel that disappointment.
• 3:57
  The difference is that they don't let those emotions control
• 4:00
  their behavior. If you take a look at
• 4:03
  responsibility reactivity in the pause, one of the biggest shifts
• 4:08
  in emotional maturity is moving through that reactive reactivity
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  to responsibility. So that reactivity is automatic,
• 4:18
  right? They can look like things.
• 4:21
  Our partners probably said this about us defending immediately,
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  right? That's a reactivity.
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  Shutting down, walling off might be me raising my voice, or I can
• 4:31
  be blaming or trying to end the conversation quickly, doing
• 4:35
  anything I can to get to go back there.
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  But those moments, our nervous system, what's going on inside
• 4:40
  of us, it's trying to protect us.
• 4:44
  It's not trying to connect us. A lot of times in recovery of,
• 4:48
  you know, so often our partners are asking us to take
• 4:52
  responsibility, take ownership for what we did.
• 4:55
  But let's talk about responsibility this way.
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  What responsibility actually means is responsibility is not
• 5:00
  about blaming yourself about what is happening inside of you.
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  What it includes is recognizing your own emotional reaction,
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  noticing your level of activation.
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  Are you aware of it? And what were am I blind to it?
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  Do I notice how activated I am? And it's a lot of times we want
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  to place assign my reaction to somebody else instead of saying
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  you're making me angry. It becomes something more like
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  I'm noticing I'm getting activated right now.
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  I notice I'm getting reactive right now.
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  So this is extremely difficult. So sometimes I drive myself
• 5:43
  crazy with this concepts cuz we'll share it.
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  And even in a group or in a session and some people are
• 5:49
  nodding their heads going like, yeah, I'll do that next time.
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  But this is so difficult because these emotional reactions, they
• 5:55
  happen so fast, so quickly, though our bodies respond before
• 5:59
  thinking even catches up at all. So most men were not taught how
• 6:04
  to notice emotions early. So many, so many times I'm
• 6:08
  asking like, hey, where do you feel that inside your body?
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  And they're like, what are you talking about?
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  I don't even, what do you mean feeling something inside my
• 6:15
  body? Is that even really?
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  They hear another man say, I'm noticing like I'm feeling
• 6:21
  tension on my shoulders. And if your guy is still in
• 6:24
  recovery or longer or newer to recovery, he's like, is he just
• 6:28
  making that stuff up? But most men, because they
• 6:32
  weren't taught like how to notice those emotions really,
• 6:35
  they weren't taught how to stay present with discomfort.
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  They weren't on top of it was OK to slow yourself down, to
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  breathe in those moments. So the default becomes reacting
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  first and and then reflecting later.
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  And that's really destructive. If I'm just reacting and then
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  I'm always reflecting and I can't pause in that moment.
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  There's a lot of destructive things that are going on.
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  And I do recognize there's rupture or repair, like I am
• 7:01
  going to make a mess and I'm going to need to come back to
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  it. But if I lack the ability to be
• 7:05
  able to pause, that's problematic.
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  What? Let's talk about what the pause
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  actually is. So the pause is the space
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  between what you feel and what you do.
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  So it's not avoidance, it's not withdraw, it's not
• 7:19
  disengagement. It's an intentional decision to
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  like slow things down, to regulate, to come back to
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  awareness. So without that pause, reaction
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  takes somewhere. And with that pause choices
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  becomes very possible. I don't feel like that way in a
• 7:35
  moment, but you sit and pause long enough and I'm the guy.
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  This is me. You all like that silence?
• 7:43
  That pause. Oh, scares the crap out of me.
• 7:47
  Like I could. I struggled with it when I
• 7:49
  started doing this work. Like just sitting in silence
• 7:52
  with another person. That pause matters.
• 7:55
  That's where choice becomes possible.
• 7:58
  So what taking a pause actually looks like?
• 8:02
  OK, so again, easier said than done, but it takes practice,
• 8:07
  right? It only takes like making a
• 8:10
  joke, but kind of not only takes 10,000 times.
• 8:13
  So what taking a pause looks like is noticing activation.
• 8:18
  So being able to voice. I'm getting defensive, I'm
• 8:23
  overwhelmed. I'm not thinking clearly.
• 8:27
  You don't have to expect your partner to respond.
• 8:29
  Well, that to go, Oh, thank you so much.
• 8:31
  I'm going to give you a hug for stating you know what you're
• 8:35
  experiencing activation wise, but you are.
• 8:38
  That is intimacy when you're leaning into it.
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  You're not asking your partner to hey, I'm overwhelmed, so that
• 8:44
  means you need to fix up for me. You're just saying hey, I'm
• 8:47
  overwhelmed. I just want to let you know
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  where I'm at. I'm responsible for being
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  overwhelmed. I need to follow my process to
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  get back to a place where I can be connected with you.
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  What taking a pause looks like. Let me go back to it.
• 8:59
  Slowing your body breathing. I'm going to do it right now on
• 9:04
  this episode by myself. You talking fast, fast.
• 9:07
  I'll do it right now. Slowing your body down,
• 9:13
  breathing, grounding, stepping back.
• 9:17
  You don't have to leave the road.
• 9:20
  Maybe you might need to if it's the place of a lot of
• 9:22
  dysregulation, but it's OK to step back.
• 9:26
  But there's times when maybe you need to choose to not continue
• 9:29
  that conversation on that state. Maybe you're going to be
• 9:30
  destructive, disruptive, maybe there'll be some destruction.
• 9:34
  That does need to step away and always be the case, though.
• 9:37
  The pause is OK in that moment. Just let's talk about
• 9:41
  communicating. That pause and a pause without
• 9:45
  communication really is, I don't know, it's sounds like an
• 9:50
  abandonment. If you just stand up and leave
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  the room because you're outside of your window with tolerance,
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  that can feel like that can feel really destructive to a partner.
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  So a pause without communication can feel like withdraw to her,
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  right. So emotional maturity includes
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  explaining what you're doing. Hey, I'm feeling myself
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  bluttered right now. I'm noticing myself wanting to
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  explain and come up with something to make you feel
• 10:16
  better. I explain.
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  I don't even have the words right now.
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  I need just a moment and just allow your partner to have what
• 10:24
  kind of experience you're going to have.
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  I think I mentioned this at the beginning of the episode, but if
• 10:29
  they feel like that's you just taking time to come up with a
• 10:34
  thing that is bull crap, that's going to make her feel better,
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  validate that. Of course, that was what that
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  feels like. But the goal is you get back to
• 10:43
  where you're regularly in place, communicating.
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  Pause. Let me give you some examples.
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  You say so like I'm noticing and getting reactive right now and I
• 10:51
  don't want to respond that way. Another example, I care about
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  this conversation and I want to stay here with you, but I need a
• 10:58
  few minutes to settle down or maybe another one is I'm not
• 11:02
  leaving this, I just want to come back to it in a better
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  place. And I'm going to be back in 5
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  minutes. So I'm going to take it.
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  I'm going to take a minute. I'm going to go figure out
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  what's going on and then I'll come back and have this
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  conversation with you. And I think why communicating
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  that pause really matters? It shows your intention.
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  And so just avoiding things, it is reassuring to a partner that
• 11:26
  you're not leaving the relationship, that you're not
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  abandoning them. And it does build trust over
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  time and it keeps that connection intact while you
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  regulate. It doesn't have to feel good.
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  She doesn't need to give you kudos for disconnecting from
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  that, from taking a pause, whether it's will you stay there
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  in the room or not, but it keeps that connection more intact
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  while you do regulate and there's some responsibility
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  after that pause. Please don't forget about this.
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  A lot of times when you get a chance to not have that
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  conversation, the pause only works if you return, right?
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  Coming back to that conversation is part of the responsibility.
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  So this is where listening and repair and accountability,
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  that's actually where that happens.
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  So just let me give you a key anchor here.
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  Emotional maturity is not about never reacting right.
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  It's about recognizing that reaction, taking a
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  responsibility for it, choosing what happens next.
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  And for partners here, just for a relational translation place,
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  emotional maturity is something others experience does.
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  She is going to. It's greatly going to impact her
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  or then a betrayed partner when there is emotional maturity
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  growth, they feel it's when you stay present, so it shut down.
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  Oh my goodness, that's a different experience.
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  They notice. They feel it when you take
• 12:58
  responsibility instead of defending, when you say, hey,
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  this is what I'm experiencing inside of me.
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  They notice when you come back after pausing instead of when
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  you come back to that. Now, you know, my story that I
• 13:13
  tell myself that I have some evidence of is that from the men
• 13:18
  that I work with, they find it very scary to, they find it very
• 13:22
  scary to come back. They get regulated and like, Oh
• 13:24
  no, it's just going to go back to the way it was before and
• 13:27
  they come back. And that's a big deal for a
• 13:29
  partner. And then there's not like credit
• 13:31
  given for that for coming back to it, but it is noticed.
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  And that creates consistency. And that consistency is going to
• 13:38
  create safety over time. You don't want to be perfect
• 13:40
  there, but consistency does matter.
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  So this work takes so much practice early on, you may still
• 13:47
  react, I'll only recognize it afterwards.
• 13:51
  And that awareness is part of the growth.
• 13:53
  You all just if you, if there's a lot of recognizing it after,
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  just have some compassion that hey, that's, I'm been
• 14:02
  recognizing it after a lot. And that compassion will allow
• 14:06
  you to start having some more accountability and give you some
• 14:10
  leverage and some lengths to grow, to move forward.
• 14:13
  And that awareness is a big part of that growth.
• 14:15
  So over time, that gap between reaction and awareness, it's
• 14:19
  going to shrink. It's going to shrink as long as
• 14:22
  you keep recognizing and noticing it.
• 14:26
  And please, those phase two groups.
• 14:28
  Phase two helps men practice this in real time.
• 14:31
  We all we practice it tell you how many times I've like was
• 14:34
  able to sit with a my therapist took early on the like, hey,
• 14:38
  wait, what are the words? And they were his words.
• 14:41
  They weren't mine, but I was able to practice it.
• 14:44
  So men who learn in these groups to recognize those active that
• 14:48
  recognize that activation. They learn to take those
• 14:51
  intentional pauses and communicate that super clearly
• 14:55
  and then return and repair. Get in that environment when you
• 14:58
  were with other men that they are holding themselves
• 15:00
  accountable to practice that. This is where that emotional
• 15:03
  maturity begins. Consistent.
• 15:05
  So anyway, in our next episode, we are going to talk about
• 15:09
  values and identity and integrity.
• 15:13
  So what it means to actually build your life around something
• 15:16
  and become the kind of man that you want to be over time.
• 15:18
  So we are now making it like the episode 10 and 12 to we are able
• 15:22
  to get to place where we are talking about what happens long
• 15:25
  term, where we are, where we are going destination farther down
• 15:28
  the road. So anyway, looking forward to
• 15:31
  that next dialogue. Just a quick thank you.
• 15:34
  I appreciate you so much for the kind words that come through.
• 15:37
  I've been hearing a lot of them lately.
• 15:39
  For me and the guests that show up in these podcasts, I'm glad
• 15:43
  this makes an impact. I'm glad this is helpful.
• 15:45
  I appreciate the encouragement when I was saying we don't stop
• 15:48
  recording on us and to the guest too.
• 15:50
  And with Amy and Alana's podcast and Halley's means a lot.
• 15:54
  So as always, tell us what you want us to hear, hear about for
• 15:58
  missing something that you want. Do you feel like it is going to
• 16:01
  be a crucial part of the journey?
• 16:03
  Tell us what that looks like, what you need to be hearing, and
• 16:06
  take care of it. Don't stop fighting.
• 16:07
  The fight's worth it. Stay connected.
• 16:12
  If you've been doing everything you can to heal, listening to
• 16:14
  the podcast, reading the books, going to therapy, and you still
• 16:18
  feel the impact of betrayal in your body and nervous system,
• 16:21
  this message is for you. The Revive and Thrive Somatic
• 16:24
  Healing Intensive is designed for women who know that talking
• 16:28
  and processing have helped and have been important, but also
• 16:32
  feel that something deeper is still holding on.
• 16:34
  Betrayal doesn't just live in your story, it lives in your
• 16:36
  body. And if we don't address the
• 16:39
  physical imprint of trauma, we may be missing the very thing
• 16:42
  that could help you take the next step forward.
• 16:44
  My name is Hallie Roderick, and as a professional and a woman
• 16:47
  who's walked this healing journey myself, I'm honored to
• 16:50
  be part of a skilled and compassionate team that holds
• 16:52
  this intensive. Together, we create a safe,
• 16:55
  supported, and deeply guided environment where women can heal
• 16:58
  from the inside out. You won't just learn about
• 17:01
  somatic Healing, you'll experience it through breath
• 17:04
  work, movement, nervous system regulation, and embodied
• 17:08
  practices that help your system finally, exhale.
• 17:11
  You can find all the details in the show notes, and I would
• 17:13
  truly love the opportunity to spend some time with you in
• 17:16
  person as we do this healing work together.
• 17:24
  Hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 17:26
  If this is. Something that you connected
• 17:27
  with? I'd love to meet with you more
• 17:29
  and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
• 17:31
  choose. Recovery services dot.
• 17:33
  Com or check the show notes and there what we can do is set up a
• 17:36
  quick conversation we. Need.
• 17:38
  Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
• 17:40
  unmask the authentic self.