Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents: How To Heal From Distant, Rejecting, Or Self-Involved Parents Quotes
"This book provides a powerful opportunity for self-help."
"Emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness."
"Knowing about differences in emotional maturity gives you a way of understanding why you can feel so emotionally lonely."
"Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness."
"Understanding their emotional immaturity frees us from emotional loneliness."
"Emotionally immature people assess situations in a subjective way, not objectively."
"Mutual emotional responsiveness is the single most essential ingredient of human relationships."
"You aren’t a bottomless pit of ceaseless demands. You can trust the inner prompts that tell you when something is missing."
"The goal is for you to gain the self-confidence that comes from knowing the truth of your own story."
"Empathy isn’t just a social nicety, like being tactful. It’s a necessity for true emotional intimacy."
"You can’t have a deep relationship without it."
"Good parents are excellent at empathizing and mentalizing; their interest in their child’s mind makes the child feel seen and understood."
"Empathy is a bedrock component of emotional intelligence, which is essential to social and occupational success."
"Instead of learning about themselves and developing a strong, cohesive self in early childhood, emotionally immature people learned that certain feelings were bad and forbidden."
"They unconsciously developed defenses against experiencing many of their deeper feelings."
"Many roles and occupations depend heavily on emotional labor, and if it’s done well, others hardly notice the effort involved."
"Emotionally mature people take on the emotional work in relationships automatically because they live in a state of empathy and self-awareness."
"Instead of having a single, intense, one-dimensional emotional reaction, they can experience several different feelings that reflect the nuances of the situation."
"The ability to feel mixed emotions is a sign of maturity."
"Emotionally immature people are easily overwhelmed by deep emotion, and they display their uneasiness by transmuting it into quick reactivity."
"Instead of feelings things deeply, they react superficially."
"The moments of their lives feel connected, each affecting the others, and all affecting their relationships with other people."
"Self-reflection is the ability to analyze your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors over time."
"They may be capable of strategic thinking in their work or in other pursuits, but when it comes to emotional situations, they go for the immediate advantage."
"Most of the time, you wouldn’t notice anything unhealthy about them. However, their children may have trouble with either initiative or self-control."
"Their excessive self-focus manifests as a conviction that they know what’s 'good' for others."
"Driven parents usually grew up in an emotionally depriving environment."
"They fear that their children will embarrass them by not succeeding, yet they can’t offer their children the unconditional acceptance that would give them a secure foundation from which to go out and achieve."
"An example would be a father who makes his kids practice the piano in front of him so he can point out their mistakes."
"Whether they mean to or not, driven parents make their children feel evaluated constantly."
"Passive parents aren’t angry or pushy like the other three types, but they still have negative effects."
"They enjoy the child’s innocent openness and can get on the child’s level in a delightful way."
"Rejecting parents seem to have a wall around them."
"They don’t want to spend time with their children and seem happiest if others leave them alone to do what they want."
"No child can be good enough to evoke love from a highly self-involved parent."
"Their pain doesn’t stay unseen, as it does with internalizers, though it may be misinterpreted as defiance, opposition, or senseless troublemaking."
"Seeing life as an opportunity to develop themselves, they enjoy becoming more competent."
"Because they’re so attuned to feelings, internalizers are extremely sensitive to the quality of emotional intimacy in their relationships."
"They read people closely, looking for signs that they’ve made a connection."
"Again, the self-sufficiency of internalizing children tends to create the impression that they have no needs."
"Situations that might make another child panic send internalizers into an intensely focused state while they figure out how to take care of things."
"Children who had to become tough and handle things on their own may develop a rejecting attitude toward their own feelings."
"Only an emotionally attentive parent could have made her feel that being herself was enough."
"Internalizers put a lot of emotional work into their family relationships."
"Internalizers are accustomed to supplying most of the empathy and doing more than their fair share in trying to get along, and for a long time they may not notice that they’re getting worn out while the other person isn’t changing at all."
"Many internalizers subconsciously believe that neglecting oneself is a sign of being a good person."
"Your true self has the same needs as a flourishing, healthy child: to grow, be known, and express itself."
"Your true self wants you to have the peace of living in accordance with reality."
"Emotional distress is a signal that it’s getting harder to remain emotionally unconscious."
"People experience a breakdown when the pain of living in role-selves and healing fantasies begins to outweigh any potential benefits."
"Sometimes giving up a healing fantasy of how we will finally win love means we have to face unwanted feelings about people close to us."
"A common fantasy among children of emotionally immature parents is that their parents will have a change of heart and finally love them by showing concern."
"The first step in gaining your emotional freedom is to assess whether either of your parents was emotionally immature."
"Observing allows you to stay in a state of relatedness with your parents or other loved ones without getting caught up in their emotional tactics and expectations about how you should be."
"The ultimate goal in any interaction with a parent or an emotionally immature person is to keep a grip on your own mind and feelings."
"Your parents will be emotionally available to you in inverse proportion to how much you feel the need for them."
"In your interactions, just keep observing the present moment, and then follow the inclinations of your true nature."
"A child’s individuality is seen as a threat to emotionally insecure and immature parents."
"Children may come to see their uniqueness, and even their strengths, as odd and unlovable."
"Internalizing children of emotionally immature parents learn that 'goodness' means being as self-effacing as possible."
"Your goodness as a person isn’t based on how much you give in relationships, and it isn’t selfish to set limits on people who keep on taking."
"True freedom from unhealthy roles and relationships starts within each of us, not in our interactions and confrontations with others."
"Emotionally mature people treat other people as individuals worthy of respect and fairness."
"Real empathy makes consideration of other people second nature."
"Greater awareness brings its own gifts, most of which involve a fuller, deeper connection with the world and oneself."
"You really do get to start over when you open to a new consciousness of who you are and what’s been going on in your life."
"Being a member of a family doesn’t give anybody free rein to treat people like crap."
"It’s such a relief to realize that [giving too much] isn’t true."
"To be aware and present at the birth of your new self as an adult is pretty incredible stuff."
"How many people get to have two lifetimes in one?"