I’ve spent many years trying to become more mature by being less reactive, quieter, more stoic. But I feel like in doing so, I’ve keep finding myself in situations where I have to let others treat me badly, which feels awful. 

What do you think?

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First things first, you are absolutely correct that becoming more emotionally mature should not involve you learning how to better tolerate being treated badly. 

I can see how this might happen.  It sounds like you decided that reacting to anything at all is bad.  If you stopped reacting to anything that means you would also have stopped reacting to being mistreated.  So let’s rethink that.

I’m not sure why you decided that being less reactive, quieter and stoic was the goal, but I’m going to guess that it’s an attempt to become more mature.  And it’s incredibly easy to conflate tolerance, stoicism, and seemingly perfect behavior with maturity.  But the goal we choose is incredibly important and sometimes we need to rethink it. 

As most of us do, I tried to learn how to act by watching the people around me.  After all, adults are, by definition, mature, correct?  Well, that is where things went off course, because that unfortunately is not true.  Regardless though, I found myself striving to be more like the adults in my life, and what I ended up learning was a confusing blend of behaviors that I mistakenly labeled as maturity and therefore adopted as my goal.  Perhaps the same is true for you.

I too thought that being mature meant not reacting to anything, not getting overly angry, overly sad, overly joyous, overly anything.  In truth, I could have dropped the word “overly” from that statement.  I thought that the most mature people were the ones that didn’t have (or more accurately, didn’t show) much emotion at all.  I believed the goal was to be perfectly detached and in disciplined control of your emotions at all times.  Any accidental or eruptive display of anything or ever letting your emotions control you was to be completely avoided.  So I set about with the overt goal of never getting rattled, never being offended, maintaining perfect self control.

And oh how I failed!  I failed dramatically and intensely.  In fact, looking back, I now see that my failure stemmed in part from my intense suppression of what are natural emotions. 

When I felt sad, I forced myself to avoid the feeling by instead focusing on others.  And, don’t get me wrong, this is an excellent strategy in some situations.  It works to divert your attention away from wallowing in self-pity and toward doing kind things for other people.  I still stand behind that practice.  However, when your sadness stems from somebody’s mistreatment of you and you try to divert your attention from your sadness to doing nice things for that very person, this creates inner confusion and might inadvertently reinforce that person’s bad behavior. If you attempt to suppress or deny or avoid any and all sadness, you are disrupting your own ability to know what you need.

In addition, refusing to feel natural anger at a boundary being crossed (or attempting to do so), I trained myself to instead focus on having more compassion for people.  This included strangers and the people who had crossed the boundary.  Again, this is an excellent strategy but it must be used with some caution.  If you are feeling angry at somebody, sometimes you do actually just need more compassion for them, but sometimes it’s important to recognize that they don’t have your best interests at heart.  Sometimes your anger is not only justified, but it’s useful.  If you try to suppress any and all anger, you are disrupting your own ability to care for yourself. 

I even became hyper-vigilant to when my natural joy might make somebody else feel bad.  Because I noticed that showing too much happiness or excitement seemed to make others unhappy or uncomfortable, I taught myself to tamp that down as well.  If you try to suppress all joy, you are disrupting your ability to know what you love.

I did succeed in becoming the littlest bit more even-keeled, non-offendable, and robotic.

But the truth is that when my efforts left me in situations where I was being kind to others but they were unkind to me or where I was showing compassion for others who weren’t showing compassion for me, something inside me just couldn’t stay quiet. 

Also because I did feel emotions (we all do), my approaches to deny them or change them almost always backfired.  I would do alright for periods of time until my attempts to convince myself I wasn’t sad, or angry or happy or what-have-you exhausted me.  When I got too exhausted, all of these emotions that I had been avoiding and pushing down would come bursting out in torrents of exaggerated emotions, all the stronger for having been held in for so long. 

Imagine a beach ball being held under the water for a long period of time.  You can hold it down temporarily, but eventually that ball will come bursting out but you won’t have any control over where it pops out or in which direction it flies.

So my emotions would eventually pop out, only they no longer looked like the original emotion.  Rather they had morphed into something else, their exaggerated, “let me out of here” form often looking quite different.  What started as anger or sadness might now have transformed into rage.  What started as joy might have transformed into sadness.  The twisting and transformation of emotions was confusing – both for me and for those around me. 

Argh!  Why couldn’t I master this maturity thing?  It seemed like it should be so simple.

I had to question whether my goal was a good one for me.  Over time, I began to see that my goal of being unrattleable and stoic might have been misguided.  Was it possible that silence and lack of emotions wasn’t really always the healthiest option?  Had the adults in my life been wrong about that? 

I started to recognize how silence had been used by those around me to control, to punish and to avoid reality.  I found myself rethinking everything.  And I found I no longer wanted to be robotic and stoic, so what did I want?

I was left with a gaping hole, no longer believing what I had believed for so long, but not knowing what to believe in going forward. 

This was both a relief and it was frustrating.  I was relieved because I had never been any good at the silence or pushing my emotions down far enough that they would never be able to show themselves.  It seemed I just wasn’t capable of this.  (The truth is that nobody is fully capable of this – there is always a tell when people are doing this type of suppressing.)

It was frustrating, though, because I wanted to become a better person and now I didn’t know what to do. 

In the end, I figured out that my goal had been overly simplistic, that maturity was much more complex than I had always believed it to be. 

As an aside, there are two basic types of maturity – external maturity and internal maturity.  External maturity relates to actions you take in your life.  That type of maturity is characterized by meeting your obligations even when you don’t want to, delaying gratification when necessary, paying bills on time, prioritizing basic life tasks, living within your means, and other basic life skills. 

Internal maturity, though, is characterized by being willing to fully know yourself, being willing to be honest with yourself and others, being able to face your problems directly rather than running from them, being willing to feel your natural emotions and learn from them rather than denying them, being able to accept reality as it is even as you attempt to make changes that you are important to you, and generally refraining from lying on the ground kicking and screaming when you don’t get your way. 

True maturity requires both external and internal maturity.

So in my reconsideration of what my new goal should be, I had to recognize how some of the assumptions I had been making were wrong all along.

I now saw that true maturity doesn’t require you to train yourself to have no emotions.  Instead, it turns out that true maturity actually requires you to be able to be honest with yourself about your emotions, to fully feel what you feel and be able to learn from them.

I now saw that true maturity was never about avoidance or stoicism. Instead, it turns out that true maturity requires you to be willing to turn and face difficult situations and discomfort with honesty and courage. 

I now saw that true maturity was never about being able to endure anything and everything with no complaining.  Instead, it turns out that true maturity requires you to know your needs, your values, your boundaries, and then recognize when your life or situations in your life are out of alignment for you and be able to communicate this with kindness and clarity.

I now saw that true maturity was never about transcending your needs or your self.  Instead, it turns out that true maturity is actually about learning how to get your needs met in a healthy way. 

I’d like to look at a few examples that contrast the immature actions of robotic stoicism with a more mature alternative.

Examples:

1. Claire’s adult daughter, Daisy, became angry with Claire about something she had said, and Daisy told Claire she was being selfish.

Claire can immaturely choose to avoid the discomfort of the situation by withholding emotion:

• Claire shows no emotional reaction when her daughter calls her selfish.  Instead she avoids seeing her for the next several weeks, and continues limiting contact with her daughter over the coming months.  She decides that Daisy thinks she is a terrible person and never seeks further clarity, instead holding a silent grudge. She believes she is being mature because she never yelled at Daisy.

Or Claire could choose a less robotic, but more mature reaction:

• Claire lets herself feel the sting of the comment, possibly even crying or becoming angry.  After noticing how it makes her feel and taking a moment (or a day) to consider if her actions had indeed been selfish, she then asks Daisy why she made the hurtful comment.  Openly listening to her answer, Claire might discover that there has been a misunderstanding that could be clarified or perhaps she will become willing to reconsider whether she was acting selfishly in the moment and choose to apologize.  Either way, she remains open to both her emotions and the relationship with her daughter.

2. Paul’s neighbor, Alex, has been letting his dog poop in Paul’s yard every day for several weeks now.  Alex never offers to clean it up or even acknowledges that it’s happening.

Paul can choose to suppress his natural anger over the situation, but in an immature way:

• Paul refrains from complaining directly to Alex.  Instead, he talks about him with his wife and kids and other neighbors.  The next time Alex knocks on his door, Paul refuses to answer the door, stating to his wife that he will never speak to this neighbor again. Paul believes his reaction is mature because he does not argue with Alex.

Alternatively, Paul could choose a more emotionally aware reaction:

• Paul recognizes his anger at having to pick up Alex’s dog’s poop, and decides to go over and talk with him.  He explains the problem, admits that he’s angry, and asks that they come up with a mutually acceptable solution.  Because he is addressing the problem early on and trusts that they can come to an agreement, he is able to express himself clearly and without raising his voice, yelling or saying mean things.  Although it’s uncomfortable, Paul learns that Alex had no idea this was happening and he agrees to do something to remedy the situation.

3. Rachel’s friend, Sherry, continues to cross boundaries by criticizing how Rachel is raising her kids, spending their time together on the phone with others, and offering unwarranted suggestions for how to decorate Rachel’s house.

Rachel can react passively and in a way she believes is mature.

• Rachel politely agrees with Sherry, choosing not to complain when she repeatedly offers up unsolicited advice or harsh criticisms.  She waits until she is alone or with her husband to vent her frustration, never letting Sherry know how angry she is.

Rachel could do the more difficult, but more mature, thing and address the situation directly.

• The next time Sherry offers a criticism or an unsolicited suggestion or talks on the phone to others when they are spending time together, Rachel can kindly speak up and tell Sherry that she finds it hurtful when she says these types of things. Rachel can attempt to have a conversation about what she is looking for from the friendship.  Based on Sherry’s response, they can decide if pursuing a deeper friendship is going to be something they both want.

These are just a few of a million examples and, not only that, but these are but a few of the unlimited responses that could be classified as mature. 

So back to your question, I hear that you’ve spent many years trying to become less reactive, quieter, more stoic. Sometimes silence does make the most sense, but you need to listen to yourself.  If you know that your silence is allowing others to mistreat you, then I’d encourage you to rethink what it is you’re trying to achieve. Perhaps reconsider your goal.  Stay open to challenging some of the underlying assumptions you’ve been making.  One thing is certain, though: you deserve to be treated well just as others deserve to be treated well.  So when you recognize that trying to achieve your goal is opening you up to be mistreated by others, it’s time to think again.