Ep 33. Emotional Adulthood

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 33: Emotional Adulthood.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, everyone, welcome back. How are you today? It’s a rainy morning here at the beach. You know I live at the beach. It’s been beautiful. But every day’s kind of different. We had an amazing Easter, I hope you did too. My kids came over on Saturday and we just spent the day together, just the seven of us. So, Jeff and I, we’re Pipi and Papi, our son, Riley came up from Santa Barbara. Our daughter, Clancy and her husband, Kyran, and our two grandbabies, Goldie and Dolly came over on Saturday. We ordered steak and fries from our little favorite restaurant down the road.

And we just had the best time together, just being together, you know that feeling. Honestly, it’s my favorite. And then on Sunday, my sister lives right around the mountain from me. And that we’re super tight, and they invited us all over for a barbecue. And my brother-in-law, Gilbert, well, they’re just such a dynamic duo. They’re great hosts, and they’re great cooks, and entertainers, and all of that.

So, my favorite meal or one of my favorite meals that my brother-in-law, Gilby makes is he makes this delicious fried rice and homemade chilli beans. And then he usually adds a barbecue to it, tri-tip and chicken is what we had. And oh my gosh, you guys, it was just pure deliciousness. It’s just so fun to be together. And they have, they actually have two really beautiful homes over here. One is right by the water, has ocean views. And then one is in the Avila Valley. And that’s the one we were at on Sunday, on Easter Sunday.

And they actually Airbnb both of them and have great success doing that. They’re pretty amazing. But anyway, so we got to be with them on Sunday and my heart was just full. It’s just my favorite thing to be with my family. I have a really great family. I think you probably do too.

So today I want to talk to you about emotional adulthood. This is what we call a tool in the life coaching business. Emotional adulthood is really what we’re all after. The difference between emotional childhood and emotional adulthood is what we need to know. So, it’s pretty obvious. I mean you could probably come up with all kinds of behavior that would indicate that someone is living in emotional childhood. And it’s basically not taking responsibility for your own emotions. It’s basically just reacting, and blaming, and shaming when you’re upset.

Because kids are supposed to act like that. That’s why we call it emotional childhood. But the thing is, you guys, is a lot of people never grow out of emotional childhood. They live their entire adult life in emotional childhood, not taking responsibility for their own emotions. And that creates so much unnecessary suffering for these people. Emotional adulthood is the complete opposite. And it’s not like it happens to us overnight. It’s a continual work that we do just with awareness.

So, I mean hopefully we start growing into emotional adulthood in our teen years and then just continue through the decades of owning our own life experience. And understanding that we’re creating it. No one outside of us is creating it. And it’s so helpful to know this. And you know, this is what I teach and how I coach. So, I’m going to give you a couple of examples.

I was raised by a mom who has never – she’s only, gosh, I think she’s 18 years older than I am. But she has never grown out of emotional childhood. And I’m not telling you this because I am criticizing her or judging her, because I am not. I love her. And I have so much compassion for her. But the awareness, her actions, the way she lives her life, the way she raised us, and a lot of the work I’ve had to do because of my childhood is because my mom raised us while she was in emotional childhood.

And then even as I grew up she never ever took responsibility for her own life experience. It was always either my dad’s fault, her parent’s fault, or my fault, or her other kids’ fault, my siblings’ fault. So, we were kind of trained in this way to take responsibility for my mom’s emotions. So that’s why I’ve had to do so much work as an adult to get out of people pleasing, to get out of codependency and really just get into emotional adulthood. And realize that I alone am responsible for my life experience. And when I was kind of in a season of blaming my mom, I realized that I was doing the same thing that she was doing.

She was blaming me, I was blaming her. Maybe she still does blame me. I don’t know. But my guess is that she does. But it doesn’t mean I have to blame her. I can take responsibility. I can see things. I’m so much more aware of what her model is, what she might be thinking and feeling, and the reasons why she behaves the way she does is she because she’s in emotional childhood. And that’s okay. And that’s the life she wants to live, and she should be living that. So that’s her choice. We all get agency to make these choices.

But for me I do not want to live in emotional childhood. I want to live in emotional adulthood. So, every day I make choices to own my life experience. I recognize if my brain, sometimes my brain really wants to make me a victim to my circumstances, maybe to someone else’s behavior. But I don’t let it because I am, I would say 90% in emotional adulthood. I just decide without making myself wrong, without making anyone else wrong. I decide what I want to think about the circumstance. How do I want to feel about it? How do I want to show up to it?

And not make the circumstance wrong but let it be an opportunity for me to step into emotional adulthood, to step into the next highest version of myself. Listen, you guys, I have opportunities all the time to do this. So, I let my past be perfect. I let my mom, the mom that raised me and the mother that I have now be perfect. She should have done everything that she did. And now who do I want to be? What choices do I want to make? That’s how I want you to think about your life, your circumstances, your past, your present and what you’re creating for your future.

This is so helpful, you guys. Don’t make yourself wrong when you see yourself in maybe bits of emotional childhood. When you feel a little bit stuck there, you’re wanting to make yourself the victim, you’re wanting to complain about it, you’re wanting to not show up in your life as your highest self by making excuses and literally not showing up, hiding under the covers, or watching Netflix instead. Notice that. Notice how you’re blaming the circumstance for the way that you’re feeling. That’s emotional childhood. Or blaming even your parents, or blaming your kids, even your grown kids.

So many moms are blaming their grown kids for the way that they’re feeling because maybe their adult kids aren’t behaving the way that they hoped they would. But I promise you, your grown kids are behaving exactly how they should behave. And the minute that you can think that is the minute that you can step into emotional adulthood. And decide how you want to behave, how you want to feel, how you want to think. So, it’s so interesting how our brain is so keen and so laser focused on how other people are doing it wrong. But then ignores how we could show up better instead.

Literally we’re the only ones that can change. I’m the only one that can change. You’re the only one that can change. And I’m the only one that should change. You’re the only one that should change, no one else should change. They’re here for our benefit. They are here to teach us our circumstances are perfect the way they are. And I always say, then what, now what, who do I want to be in this circumstance? Gives me so much opportunity to grow, to evolve, to literally step into the next highest version of myself because that’s what I’m after, you guys.

I know that’s why you’re listening. I know that’s what you’re after too. So, this emotional adulthood tool is one of our most powerful tools, to help us in our growing, to help us in our evolving. To help us create in the second half of life the best life yet, way better than anything we’ve created in our past. We get to start just now, just today with this new idea, this new tool, this new thought. How can I become the emotional adult that I’m hoping that everybody else would be?

That I’m hoping my husband will be, that I’m hoping my grown kids would be, that I’m hoping my mom would be, that I’m hoping my best friend would be, or hoping my boss, or my coworkers would be. No, they’re supposed to be doing what they’re doing. They’re supposed to be being who they’re being. Now who do you want to be? You want to be an emotional adult, so start being her right now, start owning all of your emotions, the negative and the positive. And this is what’s so helpful too, I’ll talk to you about emotions on another episode.

But I am so much happier because I allow so many negative emotions now, without resisting them, without avoiding them, without numbing them. I can just allow them and not make myself wrong that they’re here. I’m very familiar with anxiety. I’m very familiar with overwhelm. I’m very familiar with fear. They’re all welcome. I know what they feel like in my body and I’m so proud of myself that I allow them without making myself wrong for feeling them. I should be feeling whatever I’m feeling. And when I allow them and process them, I get over them so much quicker.

We think that avoiding them is the answer or running from them is the answer, pretending they’re not there is the answer. But I promise you, they’re going to keep showing up in a worse way. Emotional adulthood is allowing all of our negative feelings, noticing them, knowing for sure our brain is creating them, nothing outside of us is creating our feelings. And then not making ourselves wrong for feeling them, and giving ourselves a minute to be okay with this feeling in our body. And then we can release it. And it works itself out pretty quick.

And then we can step into who we want to be, just today and get our work done. And not be stuck in overwhelm, not be stuck in anxiety, not be stuck in fear. And not ever using those emotions as an excuse for not getting our work done and as an excuse for not showing up as the highest version of ourselves.

So, I just want to encourage you and inspire you with this tool of emotional adulthood. And I don’t know if we ever reach the pinnacle before we die, of emotional adulthood. I know, I’ve just decided for me, it’s this ongoing work, that’s why I will always have a life coach. And I get coached every week, sometimes on the same old stuff, on the same old thoughts. I just want to drill in and just really connect with myself and understand what in the heck. And then not make myself wrong for having the issues that I have, knowing that that’s all part of the 50/50 of life.

I’m just a totally normal human being, normal 61 year old woman who just wants the best life that she can have. That’s me. I will always be her. I will always be working on emotional adulthood.

If you need some help, if this is all even a new concept to you or you’re getting some traction on it, or a little awareness around it and you’re like, I’d love some weekly help on that. I want you to hire me as your life coach and we’ll get to work on your emotional adulthood. I will just help you so much in understanding who you are and where you want to go, take ownership for all of it. And you will love it so much.

Okay, you guys, that’s what I have for you today. Thank you so much for showing up, thanks for following along. Thanks for supporting me and being an inspiration for me. You know I love you and I want you to have the best possible week, totally enjoying your life, enjoying yourself, enjoying your growth, enjoying your negative emotions as well as your positive emotions, just allowing them all. Okay, have a good one and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.