Hitting a wall is not an if, but when.

We all have this experience, typically several times throughout our lives. Suddenly, the ways that we learned to cope with childhood wounds and unmet needs begin begin to fail us in adulthood. Unhealthy coping patterns catch up with us. Our souls often begin summoning us to a deeper, inner change through emotional or physical symptoms like panic, anxiety, depression, anger, a continual sense of low-grade agitation, addictions, or other dysfunctional attempts to numb our pain.

We feel stuck. We want to change, but we don’t know how. It’s here, where God longs to meet us, opening our eyes to see the truth of ourselves, our stories, and who he’s created us to be. In this episode, I offer common signs that you might be hitting the wall, and I also talk about how to begin opening ourselves to God to bring transformation into the deepest parts of ourselves.

Are patterns from your past impacting how you show up to your life and relationships today?

How we learned to cope with childhood wounds and unmet needs often become the dysfunctional patterns that we live out in adulthood. This is one way that the impact of emotionally immature parenting can leak into our adult lives.

Healing starts with noticing and naming these patterns. When we invite God’s spirit into this process, change begins. I talk about 2 ways that we may have reacted to emotionally immature parenting as children (internalizing or externalizing our pain), and how these childhood coping styles might be showing up in our adult lives today. In her research, psychologist Lindsey Gibson found that most children of emotionally immature parents are internalizers. I also highlight 8 common patterns of internalizers in adulthood and offer practical steps for change.

From the time we entered the world, we all began crafting a story that helped us make sense and give meaning to the painful things that happened to us.

As we absorbed explicit and implicit messages from family members, authority figures, and peers about who we were and what the world expected of us, we gradually began forming a narrative that explained our lives to us… a narrative that grooved itself deeply into our hearts. This story helped us, as children, to know what we needed to be and what we needed to do to stay safe in the world.

However, this story becomes a broken story when lived out in adulthood. I talk about why it’s so important to get to know your childhood story, and I also offer some practical steps for exhuming the hurtful events, unchallenged, taken-for-granted beliefs, and unhelpful internalized messages from our childhoods that may still be ruling our lives today.

We all need someone who reads us well and believes in us.

This is the essence of what security feels like in a relationship: knowing that the other person sees you, understands you, and celebrates who you are. But what happens if you didn’t receive this kind of nurturing love as a child?

There is essentially one way to provide this kind nurturing love that we all need to develop and thrive, but there are many ways to frustrate a child’s need for love. I talk about 3 things every child needs from their parents, and I also unpack 4 types of emotionally immature parents by psychologist Lindsey Gibson.

Many of us have a confusing relationship with anger.

Anger is a complex emotion that can create significant internal conflict, fueling both guilt and fear. Similar to anxiety, it’s a powerful force that can do great harm and also has great value. It’s such a physical emotion, and we can feel anger in our bodies with incredibly intensity. In this episode, I talk about 4 ways that that we tend to avoid anger, how we learned these strategies (and why they actually make sense), and practical ways that we can start to befriend and create space for a healthy expression of anger.

I also talk about some common theological misconceptions about anger, and I highlight examples of Jesus expressing anger in the gospels and modeling how to speak on behalf of anger rather than from it.

If emotional immaturity could be summed up in a sentence, it might be this: “it’s not me, it’s you.”

People who are emotionally immature often engage in inappropriate or harmful behavior, and then revert to altering their perceptions of reality to fit what makes sense to them. They lack emotional sensitivity, are self-preoccupied, and often cause others to question reality instead of taking responsibility for their actions. In other words: “It’s your fault for what I did, not mine.”

Personality patterns of emotional immaturity can be devastating to families and relationships. So how does emotional immaturity show up interpersonally? And how do we recognize signs of emotional immaturity? To continue our series on Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, I highlight 15 personality traits associated with emotional immaturity. I also talk about how to know the difference between a pattern of emotional immaturity and a temporary emotional regression.

Emotional loneliness is the kind of loneliness that you can feel even in the presence of others.

It results from a lack of emotional connection, and it can sometimes be even more painful than being physically alone. It’s that feeling of being unseen… a vague and private experience, not easy to recognize or find words for. While just as wounding as a physical injury, emotional loneliness is less obvious because doesn’t show on the outside.

So many of us experience emotional loneliness. But what exactly is it? And where does it come from? To continue our series on “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” I talk about what emotional loneliness is, how emotional loneliness is the result of unmet emotional needs during childhood, and some specific ways that emotionally immature parents can affect their adult children’s lives.

Have you ever longed to be seen and known as the person you truly are? To share anything with someone and know that you’ll be understood, accepted, and validated?

Emotional responsiveness is the single most essential ingredient of human relationships. Our relationships are built and sustained through emotional intimacy, and the feeling that someone is interested in taking time to listen and truly understand our experiences. But what happens if your parents were distant or emotionally unavailable? How did this impact you as a child? And how do these experiences continue to impact you as an adult?

To start off our new series “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” I talk about what emotionally maturity is (before talking about what it isn’t). This episodes highlights 15 characteristics of an emotionally mature person. I also talk about one possible reason why so many parents today are emotionally immature, and why emotional and spiritual maturity cannot be separated.

Although we’re used to thinking of adults as more mature than their children, what if some children come into the world, and within a few years, are more emotionally mature than their parents? 

In this next Faith & Feeling’s podcast series called “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” we’re going to talk about the ways that emotionally immature parents impact their children’s lives. Through these episodes, you’ll discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion that come from having a parent who refuses emotional intimacy. You’ll also gain some insight into possible reasons why your parent’s emotional development stopped early.

My hope is that these episodes will bring clarity and relief as you see that what you’ve been though has caused you to have these feelings. That you’re not the only one. And that it makes sense.

Why does God sometimes feel so far away? The reason for this could be your attachment style.

We all experience moments when God's love and presence are tangible. But we can also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God. Why? In this episode, I talk about how your early childhood experiences and attachment (or emotional bond) that you developed with your primary caregivers can influence your relationship with God. 

Some of us have parents that make imagining a loving Father more difficult, and some of us have parents that make it easier. I describe each of the 4 attachment styles and explore how each style — developed from a pattern that we learned as children to maintain closeness with our primary caregivers — often translates to how we seek to maintain closeness with God. I also talk about 4 kinds of spiritually (secure, anxious, shutdown, and shame-filled) that can result from each of these 4 attachment styles. In other words, how might someone with a secure attachment experience God? How might someone with an anxious attachment experience God?