Emotional Adulthood: How It Changes Everything and Why It’s a Must Have for Leaders
🌿 Emotional Maturity: Why It’s Personal
Emotional maturity is one of my favorite topics—both to write about and explore with clients. It’s personal because I grew up with caregivers who didn’t model it. Life felt chaotic, because I navigated it without some of the emotional and relational skills I now know are essential.
Over time, I realized something was missing and began the inner work to cultivate what I hadn’t received. That work has transformed how I navigate life and show up for others—it’s become the heart of my coaching.
💡 Emotional growth isn’t automatic. It’s cultivated through awareness, responsibility, and practice.
When emotional maturity is absent, we may not even realize something is missing. Yet we see it in our relationships and outcomes—what we didn’t get as children shapes our mental models, how we relate, and our sense of who we are.
The good news: we can learn to give ourselves what we didn’t receive. When that happens, we feel steadier, more grounded, freer, and choiceful. We trust ourselves and can stay present even when life is messy.
🌟 What Emotional Adulthood Looks Like
Owning our responses
Regulating our nervous system
Staying present even when life feels messy
Engaging with others from choice rather than reactivity
💪 How It Shows Up Day-to-Day
Taking responsibility for emotions without blame
Pausing before reacting
Honoring boundaries—yours and others’
Staying connected to values under pressure
Choosing curiosity over judgment
Consciously deciding where to invest your time, energy, and care
David Richo, in How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving, describes five essential dimensions of love we all need from caregivers—or to give ourselves in adulthood—to become emotionally mature and thrive: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, allowance.
🏢 Why It’s an Absolute Necessity for Leaders
Leaders who embody emotional maturity bring steadiness, trust, and generative conflict, creating spaces where people can achieve their highest potential.
Leaders who lack it make reactive decisions, create fear-based cultures, and force teams to manage volatility instead of doing meaningful work.
💫 A Lifelong Practice
Emotional adulthood isn’t a finish line—it’s a daily practice and lifelong process. Each recommitment strengthens our capacity to respond from conscious choice instead of reactivity. When we do, we transform not just our experience, but the experience of everyone around us.
✨ Reflection
Where do you feel emotionally mature—and where is there room to grow? (Hint: consider where you repeat conflicts.) What’s one small practice you can try this week—pausing before reacting, honoring a boundary, or regulating your nervous system?
“We are born with inalienable emotional needs for love, safety, acceptance, freedom, attention, validation of our feelings, and physical holding. Healthy identity is based on the fulfillment of these needs.”
-David Richo
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Julie Bauch is a deep transformational coach who supports individuals, leaders, groups, and organizations. Her work draws from neuroscience, wisdom traditions, somatic healing practices, Integral Coaching®, the work of Thomas Hübl, and a deep commitment to inner and outer coherence.
