In this episode:
I discuss maturity as presented in the context of a poem by Diego Perez, aka Yung Pueblo, how it’s different from “adulting,” and when to choose to use one’s word based on possible outcomes.
Resources:
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Writing Classes, and Workshops
Transcript:
Jessica Dueñas (00:01.59)
Hey everyone, on today’s episode, I wanna talk about the topic of maturity. Now, the reason I wanna talk about maturity is because yes, many of you are probably adults, many of you are probably paying your bills, showing up to work, taking care of any living creatures that depend on you. And so in theory, you are taking care of everything. So you’re adulting, but…
you can adult and not be mature, right? You can adult and be struggling wildly with addiction, which is what I was doing for years. I struggled with addiction while showing up for work, while winning awards, while completing all the checklists and completing all the tasks. That did not make me mature. Today, I’m sober almost three years and I still struggle with maturity, which I recently struggled with. And so I wanna go ahead and talk about maturity in the context of this poem.
and I’ll go ahead and I’ll read it to you. So it was written by Diego Perez, also known as Young Pueblo on social media. And his poem goes like this. Maturity is realizing that half of what you want to say does not need to be said. Being able to see the difference between ego reactions and helpful points that can uplift harmony or reaffirm your values makes a real difference. Speak your truth does not mean speak your ego.
I’ll read that again. Maturity is realizing that half of what you want to say does not need to be said. Being able to see the difference between ego reactions and helpful points that can uplift harmony or reaffirm your values makes a real difference. Speak your truth does not mean speak your ego. So I wanted to give an example to highlight this. And I’m recording this on a Saturday.
And usually Fridays are my evenings where I get to spend time with my partner and we get to unwind from the week. Now, yesterday our time together was disrupted because of his work and rightfully so he was upset by what had happened. And he had actually had a really hard week. So he tells me that he needs to decompress. And I’m like, OK. On the inside, however, what I’m doing is I’m suddenly making
Jessica Dueñas (02:21.354)
his issues with work and his stress about me. Suddenly, I am valuing myself based on the fact that he needed to take a break and take care of himself. I’m suddenly questioning my value and my worth in the relationship and it’s like, whoa, I’ve done so much work on myself. What is going on here? I mean, I’ll tell you what’s going on. I was being a human, right? And anyway, so I like literally start almost like.
coaching myself in terms of what can I say to make him come and sit on the damn couch with me and watch TV and have like a cozy night in, right? Like my brain starts rapid firing all the really probably hurtful things that I could have said, all the things that I could have said to make him feel bad about himself for actually prioritizing his mental health and going to decompress.
Right? There was a ton of things that could have been said, but I didn’t say anything. Right? And why not? Because I gave myself the gift of the pause. That is a gift that I have today that I definitely didn’t have when I drank early on. And frankly, on any other occasion, maybe a couple months ago even, I may not have had the gift of that pause. Right? The gift of that
Jessica Dueñas (03:44.086)
What might happen if I said, well, I don’t understand why we can’t just focus on our time together because we get so little time together. Right? The gift of the pause allowed me to see that had I said that, there could have been a variety of outcomes and the most likely outcome would have been an argument because he would have taken it as a personal attack, which honestly, it basically would have been, right?
And so giving myself that pause allowed me to see what the possible outcomes were going to be. And it allowed me to see if I wanted to deal with any of those outcomes, if any of those outcomes were worth me saying what I needed to say. And I determined from assessing the situation by pausing that no, I don’t really want to have an argument. Right? I determined that I didn’t want to have an argument. But the other thing that was really important was
handling the emotions. Because the emotions didn’t just suddenly go away. Just because I knew I didn’t want to have an argument, didn’t mean that suddenly everything evaporated and everything was better and it was sunshine and rainbows. What that meant for me was that then I had to take a moment and coach myself with some self-talk to get through that really uncomfortable moment because I still did feel frustrated. My Friday night plan was not going how I wanted it to go.
And so I had feelings about it, right? And I’m entitled to have all the feelings in the world. I just don’t need to act out on them. So while I was feeling frustrated and disappointed that I didn’t have my special time and to watch some trash TV together, what I reminded myself was, number one, my feelings can’t hurt me, right? Like this discomfort, this urge, this crawling out of my skin, wanting to say something sassy, that urge.
can’t hurt me and so I can just sit through it and it will eventually go away. And that’s what I told myself, right? I told myself my feelings aren’t facts, my feelings are just information and I can act on it or not and I chose not to act on it. As the feelings stayed in my body, what else did I tell myself? I was like, well, it’s late, I can just go to hell asleep, right? Like…
Jessica Dueñas (06:00.77)
He’s over here listening to whatever thing helps him calm down. I can just go to bed and get a good night’s sleep and start my day over tomorrow. And that’s exactly what I did. Right? And so I’m highlighting that to you all because maturity is deciding, you know, like young Pueblo said, you know, deciding if something needs to be said or not needs to be said. And sometimes maybe things do need to be said, right? Like in my case,
that I gave you my example, I chose not to say something. But sometimes you are gonna have to say the thing and that thing may lead to a conflict, right? Maybe in your situation, you may be facing someone, right? Where you have to say something to establish a boundary and setting that boundary may actually hurt that person’s feelings. And so they might have something to say about it, right? At that point, when you’re weighing your outcomes,
Right? When you pause before you speak and you weigh your outcomes, that is a perfect example where that uncomfortable outcome may just be worth it. But you won’t know if you don’t pause to reflect on it. You won’t know if you don’t pause to think about what are the possible outcomes that can happen from any given situation. And so with that, really, I just encourage you that to slow down, right? That’s like step one. Slow down.
What can possibly happen from me making this decision? Is there any possible outcome from me making this decision that I am not ready to handle right now? And if you’re not, let that guide you in terms of what your next steps are.
So I hope you found that helpful. And the other last note that I will mention before I go is just a heads up that next week, starting September 30th, I will be running and hosting the last cohort for 2023 of my Writing to Heal program. We did the free writing workshop today. It was a beautiful experience as it always is. And I invite you, there’s a small group of folks who have signed up. It is going to be a really powerful program to help you with storytelling. So if you are interested, sign up on my site.
Bottomlesstosober.com. Thanks, I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
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