12 Signs You Are a Psychologically Mature Adult

as we know only too well becoming an adult has very little to do with turning 18 or 22 driving a car or being entitled to drink an adulthood worthy of the name is an internal process which may postate the acquisition of a formal adult identity by many years we might be 92 and still very slowly be leaving adolescence behind if we live to be 450 many of us would still be struggling to acquire the fundamental constituents of a grown-up mind there is one definition of adulthood that it is worth focusing on in particular adulthood as

defined by the discipline of psychotherapy which more than any other is devoted to working out a path from psychological infancy to maturity so here are 12 elements of an adult identity are seen through the lens of psychotherapy one we understand at last some of the ways in which our childhoods have shaped who we are today we're not confused by a question like how did your relationship with your mother influence how you see women or how did your father shape your sense of what a man might be two we give up on the Temptations of believing

that we might be simpler than we are we stop saying that the past doesn't matter that we can change whatever we like about ourselves simply by wanting to do so that will power is everything and more modestly accept that we might need to explore our minds rather more deeply than would be convenient if we're going to be able to bring about the changes we seek three we develop a sober appreciation of how easy it is to lie to ourselves we have a sense of the massive hold of denial on our relationship to reality we appreciate

how easily we make get sad when we're in fact angry anxious when there's a specific thing that concerns us or Stern and proud when we're warding off vulnerability we get a measure of our powerful wish to evade ourselves four we learn to tell others with slightly more accuracy what's really going on inside us we don't expect to be understood without speaking we learn to translate our paranoia and rage into something that someone else will be able to hear we sulk a little less five we understand when we aren't tired the difference between what someone meant

to do to us and what we experienced at their hands we realize that not every hurt we register was powered by a conscious desire to harm us six we forgive ourselves for the strangeness of our minds we learn to almost Delight in how odd we are what peculiar thoughts are constantly flitting through Consciousness the daunting surprises of our fantasies and dreams and the Perpetual ups and downs of mental life we don't condemn this in ourselves or censor it too much in others we take comfort from knowing that there is a strong difference between a thought

and an action seven we allow ourselves to get angry at certain things that might have happened around those who put us on the Earth but we don't stay stuck in a position of Fury we hold in mind an uncomfortable but genuine balance of ideas that our progenitors were not necessarily bad but that some genuinely difficult things might well have happened at their hands eight we accept that sometimes reality may be less awful than we assume it will be because we appreciate how much of our difficult histories may be coloring the lenses through which we look

at the world we accept that catastrophes don't happen as often out there as they do in our minds nine we accept how many of our moods rely on the vagaries of our bodies we get better at monitoring how much we sleep we become passionate about early nights we never try to have any significant conversations with anyone past 9:00 p.m. 10 we learn that we are not compelled to say everything that passes through our minds the moment it does so we might register a wish to blow up a relationship and take up with someone new and

hold the thought inside for now we achieve a little more space between what we feel and what we need to do and say we learn to move slowly 11 we get patient and encouraging towards those who are less advanced than we are we don't hold it against them that they haven't already figured everything out we guess that there might be something more hopeful and tender lurking beneath the bad mood or anger we remember how often people have cut us slack and cut them slack in turn we know and get bored by how easy it is

to condemn 12 we remain aware that any progress we feel we've made is always liable to be temporary we hold our victories lightly a new storm may be along any moment we're extremely grateful for every day that unfolds calmly we lose our taste for excitement we have nothing against the idea of having a delightfully boring rest of our lives