How to Strengthen the Solid Self Through Self-Differentiation Work

Increasing your level of differentiation and strengthening your solid self can shift your entire life for the better. It can help you experience a greater sense of inner peace and resolve. It can attract people to you. It can lead to much more satisfying and fulfilling relationships.

In general, it can nurture a greater overall sense of well-being at the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual levels of your existence.

And every single one of us has the ability to cultivate this quality in ourselves.

But it takes hard work and intentional effort. In reality, it’s an ongoing and lifelong process. But if you‘re willing to put in the work to become a more magnetic and life-giving presence, here are 9 habits to start practicing.

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Live By Your Own Principles, Values, and Standards

Living from your authentic self means living a life that’s your own and not driven by the standards, norms, and expectations of others. To develop true inner confidence and live from your authentic self, you alone must define what’s important to you, what you believe, and how you want to live.

If you the standards and expectations of others didn’t matter to you…

• How would you actually want to live?

• What would you care about?

• How would you spend your time?

• What would you believe in and express?

• How would you present yourself?

• What would you do for a living?

• What would you buy or not buy?

• How would you spend your free time?

• Who would you spend it with?

Grow From Adversity and Welcome Novelty Into Your Life

Overcoming adversity — whether you chose the challenge or life thrust it upon you — is an important part of developing your character. Through the process of navigating new challenges, you nurture skillsets, strengths, and virtues. You develop self-trust, inner resolve, and new levels of awareness.

A few ways to do so…

• Choose to take on new challenges and change intentionally: For example, go on a solo trip to a foreign country, change careers, enroll in an educational program, start a new relationship, start a new business or project, learn a new language or art form.

• Seek out perspectives and ways of living that are different from yours: If you’re left-wing, read about right-wing perspectives. If you’re a Christian, learn about other religions or atheist perspectives. If you’re white American, learn about Black American history and culture.

• Lean fully into challenges and adversity that you’ve chosen: For example, raising children, sustaining a marriage, completing graduate school, developing your vocation, leading a team, growing old, and so on.

• Adapt to unwanted adversity, learn from it, and reinvent yourself: For example, an unexpected illness, a global pandemic lockdown, a job loss, financial struggles, marginalization of some kind, and so on.

Practice Enforcing Boundaries With Yourself and Others

Boundaries are psychological and emotional lines we draw with ourselves and others in service of our well-being. To do so, we have to first understand what our principles are and how we want to live. Then, we do the hard work of enforcing boundaries so that we can live by those principles.

Some boundaries to consider…

• How you will and won’t spend your time and energy.

• Who you will or won’t engage with and when.

• What your thresholds for your well-being and self-preservation are.

• What types of communication and behaviors you will or won’t tolerate.

• What types of interactions you will or won’t engage in.

• What activities and projects you will or won’t participate in.

• Whose emotions you will or won’t take on and when.

• What sacrifices you will or won’t make for your relationships.

• What thoughts and opinions you will or won’t allow to influence you.

• How you will or won’t communicate and behave toward others.

Work Toward Long-Term Commitments With Meaningful Endurance

There’s a special kind of reward we get when we work hard at something we care about and believe in. It’s not about the actual outcome, it’s about who we become in the process of trying to achieve it. We build character along the way: grit, resilience, discipline, honesty, humility, courage, self-control, perseverance, leadership, and — you guessed it — inner confidence.

Examples of commitments you can set…

• A committed partnership.

• A far-fetched career goal.

• Starting your own business.

• Having and raising children.

• Working toward cause or mission.

• Losing weight or improving your health.

• Getting an education or continuing education.

• Learn to speak a new language.

• Learn to play an instrument.

• Learn to dance.

• Learn to play a sport or martial art.

• Invest in long-term therapy or coaching.

• Write a book or create a podcast.

• Conquer a long-standing fear.

Develop an Internal Locus of Control and Take Responsibility for Yourself

Having an internal locus of control means that you believe you have influence over the outcome of your life no matter what happens to you in the external environment. While you cannot control what happens to you, you can control how you respond to it. This liberates us to feel like we truly own our own lives.

Some examples…

• In a relationship that you are dissatisfied with the dynamics, change yourself instead of trying to change the other person.

• When someone says or does something hurtful to you, instead of blaming them and making them responsible for your emotions, manage your own emotions, set boundaries, and even end the relationship if appropriate.

• When an injustice happens to you of some kind, instead of complaining and blaming the system, use the emotions to take meaningful action that makes a difference.

• When a setback or unexpected adversity happens to you, instead of falling victim to it, take it as an opportunity to learn and grow from it.

Spend Time Alone Doing Things You Love and Develop a Relationship With Yourself

Much of inner confidence comes from developing intimacy with yourself, finding solace in yourself, and coming to enjoy your own company. Spending time alone allows you to get to know yourself outside of the influence of others. It allows you to understand who you are as a separate individual.

Some ways to do so…

• Go on a solo trip somewhere that you might be curious to discover.

• Develop a solo contemplative practice like meditation or journaling.

• Go to see a movie, play, concert, or restaurant by yourself.

• Spend time isolated from people and devices just thinking and reflecting on your thoughts, emotions, and memories.

• Spend time in nature or with animals on your own.

• Learn or engage in a creative or artistic pursuit that’s just for you, like playing an instrument, dancing, painting, or writing.

• Trying something totally new without brining anyone you know along for company or comfort.

Measure Yourself By Internal Qualities and Characteristics

In our culture, we tend to measure ourselves by external standards, such as how much money we make, our wins at work, our physical appearance, our status in society. Internal qualities, however, are more enduring harder to be taken away. We also have much more control over the internal than external.

Some examples of this could be…

• Measuring your attractiveness more by your character which improves with age, than by your physical appearance which deteriorates with age.

• Measuring your worth more by your humanity which can never be taken from you, than by your job title and economic status which can be lost in the blink of an eye.

• Measuring your success more by your process which is largely driven by your efforts, than by your results which are influenced by numerous external forces.

Learn to Self-Regulate and Self-Soothe Your Inner Life

Inner confidence requires a high degree of emotional awareness and emotional maturity. By learning to regulate your own emotions moment-to-moment, you become a grounding force for others in your life. You exude an inner balance and harmony that becomes contagious, and people will come to feel more calm in your presence.

This process includes…

• Taking responsibility for regulating your emotions instead of projecting them onto others or expecting others to soothe them for you.

• Being aware of your emotions — especially the respective sensations in your body.

• Attuning and responding well to the emotions of others, while not being influenced by them — especially their stress, anxiety, and fear.

• The ability to calm your body and temper your emotions — especially stress, anxiety, and fear — in interactions with others.

Learn to Self-Validate and Let Go of the Need for External Approval

Do you ever find yourself seeking out the opinions of others to guide your decisions? When you do make your own decisions, do you question yourself when others disapprove of them? When you’re feeling down or insecure, do you seek out attention and validation from others? If so, this habit is about learning to offer yourself your own reassurance, approval, and validation.

How to practice…

• Instead of asking other people what you should think or do, try first tapping into what your own internal guiding system is telling you.

• Instead of looking for others to validate a decision you’ve made, reassure yourself and practice tolerating the disapproval of others.

• Instead of doing the next trendy thing in society or doing things a certain way to get attention and likes from the masses, practice doing things your own way whether you get attention from others for it or not.

• Instead of seeking attention, guidance, approval, or reassurance from other people, begin practice giving those things to yourself.

A Final Note

In essence, people who are truly confident are living life on their own terms and taking responsibility for themselves. They’re confident in who they are not because they were born with special privileges, but because they’ve worked hard to develop their principles, values, and inner character.

Ultimately, they’re mature adults. That maturity makes them show up in life with a different energy than most people. This energy is both palpable and contagious. It’s both mysterious and magnetic. It attracts us as people because we want to soak all of it up — we want the same in ourselves.

But in reality, you have the power to create more inner confidence. You can learn to live more from your authentic self. It’s a demanding lifelong process, but one that will touch and enhance nearly every area of your life.

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Self-Differentiation and Boundaries: A Short Guide for the Journey

Defining and Describing Boundaries

Boundaries are psychological and emotional lines we draw with ourselves and others in service of our well-being. Healthy boundaries make it possible to have relationships free of the inevitable consequences of poor boundaries.

• Poor boundaries can leave us feeling drained. It’s exhausting to do things we don’t want to do just to protect the feelings of others. It’s exhausting to let ourselves constantly get sucked into other people’s drama. It’s exhausting to constantly tend other people’s demands for attention, soothing, and validation.

• Poor boundaries repel others. It’s repelling to others to have to constantly validate and soothe us. It’s repelling to them when we suck them into our drama. It’s repelling to them to when we constantly emotionally react to them when they don’t meet our expectations.

• Boundaries helps us develop healthier relationships with ourselves and with others. They help us set limits with ourselves and others. Healthy boundaries help us optimize our time and energy. They help us take responsibility for our own emotions and to not take responsibility for the emotions of others. They help us create relationships based on authentic adult connection instead of attachments that fulfill dependency needs.

Poor boundaries leave us feeling anxious, drained, and needy of others. Healthy boundaries, on the other hand, help create psychological and emotional health and help us to show up as our best selves in our lives.

The 5-Step Process of Healthy Boundaries

1. Get Clear On Your ‘Why’

Staying tethered to the reasons you are working on boundaries is important because the journey will get hard. Boundaries are simple, but not easy, and you will likely lose your way at times. Remind yourself regularly of the higher purpose of setting boundaries.

Your higher purpose might include:

• Having greater mental health and well-being.

• Protecting yourself from abuse and mistreatment.

• Having more mature and gratifying adult relationships.

• Setting a good example for your children and future generations.

• Allowing others to learn how to take care of themselves and grow.

• Having greater choice in how you spend your own time and energy.

• Continuing your own lifelong process of growth and personal evolution.

• Maintaining your best self in the world for yourself and others.

• The list goes on, so keep adding onto it for yourself based on your values!

2. Define Your Boundaries

Boundaries are unique to each individual person, so only you can define what your boundaries will be. You will need to decide what your personal wants, needs, and limits. When you are defining your boundaries, remember that having them with yourself is just as important as having them with others.

Defining your boundaries might include:

• How you will and won’t spend your time and energy.

• Who you will or won’t engage with and when.

• What your thresholds for your well-being and self-preservation are.

• What types of communication and behaviors you will or won’t tolerate.

• What types of interactions you will or won’t engage in.

• What activities and projects you will or won’t participate in.

• Whose emotions you will or won’t take on and when.

• What sacrifices you will or won’t make for your relationships.

• What thoughts and opinions you will or won’t allow to influence you.

• How you will or won’t communicate and behave toward others.

• The list goes on, so keep adding onto it for yourself based on your needs…

3. Practice Setting Your Boundaries

Once you’ve defined your values, the hardest part comes next: Setting them with yourself and out in the world. Setting our boundaries means having hard conversations with others and holding ourselves accountable to ourselves. Although this part is simple, it’s often not easy.

It sometimes means disappointing those we love. It sometimes means we will have to tolerate our own discomfort. It’s one thing to create something up in our minds. It’s another entirely to do the hard work of putting those things into action.

Taking action on our boundaries requires energy, effort, and intention. It takes being firm. It takes discipline. It takes risk. It takes courage. Do it anyway and use your ‘why’ to keep you grounded in a higher purpose.

4. Practice Reinforcing Your Boundaries

Boundaries — or a lack of them — are ultimately learned behaviors. Like with learning anything new, boundaries take repetition and practice to sink in. Setting boundaries once will likely not be enough. You will probably need to reinforce them with yourself and with others over and over again.

If you’re setting new boundaries in a relationship, you will also likely receive pushback and emotional reactions from others. Relationship systems resist change. They get comfortable with how things are, especially if the current status quo is convenient for them.

When you set a boundary in a relationship, realize you’re ultimately changing the dynamic of the relationship, and the people on the other side of the relationship will have to adjust to your change. Realize that they might not want to change, so be prepared to face this resistance.

Practice remaining calm and grounded in the face of other people’s reactions to your boundaries. It will be uncomfortable in the short-term, but there is a long-term payoff, I promise. It will be important to stay connected to your higher purpose in these times as well.

Boundaries are a skillset. They take deliberate practice to get good at like any other skillset. Forgive yourself when you fail at maintaining your boundaries, learn from it, and continue on. Keep practicing. Keep learning. Keep evolving.

5. Practice Reshaping Your Boundaries

Over time and with practice, you might get pretty good at setting and reinforcing your boundaries. They might even become second nature. The next step will be to begin to develop flexibility in your boundaries while not losing their solidness.

As we grow and strengthen ourselves from within, we might not need such rigid boundaries or we might simply need different ones. We might be able to tolerate more than we used to. We might have greater resilience. Our needs, wants, and limits might shift and change.

As a metaphor: A baby incubates in the safety of its mother’s womb. There are boundaries between the baby and the world as its inner systems evolve and strengthen. At some point, the baby develops enough resilience to face the external world, so the baby leaves the comfort and safety of the womb.

The next boundaries for the baby will be its mother’s arms, its crib, and its stroller. It will eventually outgrow these boundaries, too, and go on to find a new set of them. This process continues until the young adult leaves home and even beyond it.

We are always evolving out of old boundaries. It’s the natural process of growth throughout human life. We should make space for that to be the case.

With practice, boundaries can become an energetic art form. We can learn to open, close, and adjust them fluidly and creatively. As we become a skilled boundaries artist, people might not even notice that we are setting and reinforcing them. They become a natural part of the flux and flow of life.

But, stay patient and deliberate. This comes a little later in the process. Honor where you are and practice steps 1–4 religiously first. Eventually, it will all start to feel more organic. Like learning to play an instrument or speak a new language, start with the foundations first.

A Final Note

The above process is not necessarily linear. At any moment in time, you might be practicing all of the above in different interactions in your life. In one moment, you might be reinforcing an old boundary with your partner, in the next you might be setting a new one at work, and in the very next you may be reshaping one with your child.

Boundaries are a lifelong practice. They require our ongoing and active engagement. We get better at them over time, but they always require our intention and effort, like any art form. As we practice, our life benefits greatly.

Boundaries help create people with a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth. They help create people who are in control of their own emotional and psychological lives. They help create people who magnetize and attract others to them, instead of people who chase others for attention and validation.

Boundaries are intended to help us show up as our best selves in all areas of our lives, so they lead to greater overall well-being in the long run.

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The Family System You Grew Up in Shapes the Self You Bring to Your Adult Relationships

I see this same story reflected over and over in my work with my clients: People struggle in their relationships. They feel confused. They feel overwhelmed. They feel drained. They feel stuck. They don’t understand why things are so hard sometimes. They wish they could get themselves out of certain binds. They feel like they are constantly stepping on each other’s toes in their own relational dance.

The key lies in bringing awareness to the learned patterns that are unconsciously shaping our way of being in relationships. And it starts by looking at the root of where we learned those patterns: our original families.

There are dozens of patterns that shape our relationships. Today we’ll look at four major ones and I’ll address others in future pieces.

Your Level of Self-Differentiation

Each generation of a given family has a certain average level of differentiation and passes that average level onto the next generation. Some of the children will remain at that same level and pass it onto their own children. Some of the children will work on becoming more mature throughout life and pass on higher levels to their own children.

So, your level of differentiation is determined by your original family. You then go out into the world and find a partner that is about the same level of maturity as you. This is largely an unconscious process. It’s often understood as emotional attraction, emotional chemistry, or emotional fit.

The more differentiated you are, the more likely that you will organically attract and fit with a more differentiated person. Your level of maturity includes:

• Your ability to self-observe and self-reflect.

• Your tolerance for stress, ambiguity, and uncertainty.

• Your ability to take responsibility for your own emotions.

• Your ability to regulate your own emotions.

• Your level of emotional reactivity.

• Your resilience to setbacks and challenges.

• Your ability to think, decide, and do for yourself.

• Your ability to define your own values and principles.

• Your ability to live by those values and principles

• Your ability to define, set, and reinforce boundaries.

• Your ability to self-validate instead of seeking approval.

• Your ability to balance individuality and collectivity.

Your Attachment Style

Your attachment style shapes how you manage the balance between separateness and togetherness in a relationship. When there is stress in your relationship or in life, do you tend lean into the relationship and seek more contact, or do you lean out and seek space to recenter yourself?

In a relationship, this will create the distancer-pursuer pattern, where one person pursues connection while the other distances from it. The more one chases the connection, the more the other pulls away. Each person is just seeking what they believe they need in the best way they know how.

This pattern is shaped early in life in our families of origin. If you grew up in a family that lacked boundaries and you felt constantly overwhelmed by the emotions and needs of others, you may have learned to distance yourself in your intimate relationships as a self-preservation mechanism.

If you grew up in a family where you learned to depend on another person to help you soothe your emotions, and were never given the opportunity to learn to self-soothe, you might have learned to seek togetherness in your intimate relationships as your self-preservation mechanism.

We all thrive off of a healthy balance of separateness and togetherness. When we haven’t learned or integrated the ability to create this balance, we lean harder to one side than the other. Oftentimes, we find partners that lean the opposite way from ours. This can create polarization in our relationships that leads to a lot of confusion and hurt.

How You Manage Conflict

Ultimately, this is how you express negative emotions and manage tension in your intimate relationship. The basic premise is this:

We learn to manage our hurt and dissatisfaction in our family of origin. We take on our family’s patterns of managing conflict and tension. Our partner takes on their own family’s patterns. Sometimes our approaches align. Often, they collide.

When you feel angry, hurt, or dissatisfied in your relationship…

• Do you sweep it under the rug instead of talking about it?

• Do you keep it a secret to avoid ruffling feathers?

• Do you confront it in an explosive way?

• Do you give the silent treatment or make passive aggressive remarks?

• Do you exact revenge to show your partner how it feels?

• Do you blame or criticize your partner for what you’re feeling?

• Do you tune out or shut down altogether?

• Do you vulnerably express your emotions and look for empathy?

• Do you express yourself intellectually and look for a practical solution?

• Do you express what you didn’t like or do you express what you wish for?

The list can go on and on here, really, but there are two basic dispositions: leaning into conflict or pulling away from it. From there, there are numerous manifestations of how that plays out.

How You Express Love

To me, this goes beyond the traditional premise in the popular psychology book Love Languages, although that book is useful to understand this basic premise:

We learned to express love, affection, care, and concern in our original family. Our partner learned how to express the same in their original family. In some partnerships, those patterns will align. In many, they won’t.

Some of the ways we may show or express care, affection, and concern:

• Listening to and empathizing with your partner.

• Letting your partner be their own person.

• Complimenting and validating your partner verbally.

• Encouraging your partner to reach their potentials.

• Giving tough love and telling the truth even when it’s hard.

• Paying attention to details and recalling them to your partner.

• Sharing thoughtful gifts, offerings, and mementos.

• Taking responsibility for your own thoughts and emotions.

• Addressing your own patterns and wounds that affect your partner.

• Becoming the best version of yourself for the relationship.

• Honoring and respecting your partner’s boundaries.

• Giving physical affection when your partner requests it.

• Giving your partner your undivided attention and presence.

• Completing tasks for your partner, like cooking dinner or doing the dishes.

• Allowing your partner space and time for themselves.

• Making sacrifices for your partner, where appropriate.

The list can go on here, too. There are so many significant and subtle ways we can show that we are invested in the relationship and in our partner’s well-being.

A Final Note

The patterns we learned from our family of origin don’t need to be a relationship death sentence. The key to success is to cultivate awareness. Awareness requires reflecting on the different patterns you bring to your intimate relationship, as well as the patterns your partner brings to the relationship. Based on those patterns, you two will create a unique relational dance that will play out throughout the course of your relationship together.

With awareness, we can approach our relationships with more patience, compassion, and skill. We can arm our relationships against destructive unconscious forces, and instead work with each other to create more conscious and enriching relationships. We can learn to dance better with our partners, even if that means stumbling a bit along the way.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. — Carl Jung

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My Favorite Books on Self-Differentiation to Help You Evolve

Being human is complicated. Being human in the era we are living in is even more so. I’ve been studying maturity for over a decade now, and I believe it is one of the most important qualities we can cultivate within ourselves to live a good life. In this era, I not only believe it’s important, but I’m also convinced it’s imperative for both the individual and the collective.

Our society is in dire need of more maturity right now.

And, my dear reader, it starts with us. Or, more accurately, it starts with those of us who are willing to look within and do the hard work required to lead ourselves and the other members of our species into a new way of living. We do this by working on ourselves first and then showing up in the world as a model of what we’d like to see.

Doing our inner work has enormous ripple effects. Just as emotional reactivity and foolishness are contagious, so are maturity and goodness. It is up to us to model what we wish to see more of in our relationships, communities, and culture at large. By being in the world differently, and by engaging fully with others in mature ways, we slowly yet surely influence the collective.

When a good portion of adults finally grow up, our society’s psychological and emotional climate will shift for the better.

Furthermore, maturity is a key ingredient to long-term physical, mental, emotional, professional, and social health and well-being. So, I offer you a few books to get you started (or continue) on your journey. Some reads are more academic, others more philosophical, and others more accessible. Take your time. Meditate on it. Contemplate. Take notes and pace yourself because:

Maturation is a lifelong, arduous journey, but it’s worth it, and the integrity and well-being of future generations of our species depend on it.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

Don’t let the title fool you. This book is chock full of accessible wisdom on becoming more mature. Manson discusses a) learning how to take more responsibility for yourself, b) tolerating discomfort and adversity for growth, c) setting and maintaining boundaries in your relationships, d) clearly defining your values, and e) living a principle-based life. These are all things I believe to be essential to maturity and adulthood. Most importantly, he talks about learning how to direct your energies toward the things you decide most matter to you in your life.

The best part is that he does this in an accessible and humorous way, which makes for a fun read on an otherwise heavy topic. This book was a mega-bestseller for good reason. He delivered a message to culture (and the world) that is much needed right now, and shared it in a way that they could all hear it. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you’ll get the message, too.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a f*ck about what’s truly f*ck-worthy.”

2. “Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.”

3. “There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerge. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.”

Bonus Tips:

1. If you’re short on time or want an introduction to his work, he actually has an article on the same premise, which went viral and inspired the book in the first place.

2. He has many other articles that are topical and fun reads as well, like this one on personal values, this one on understanding your emotions, and this one on growing from adversity. Check him out!

Growing Yourself Up by Jenny Brown

Brown does an amazing job of taking a complex theory and making it accessible for the reader and applicable in everyday life. The essence of the theory she draws from suggests we have an instinctual nature as humans that has been in the evolutionary making for millions of years. It takes hard work and intentional effort to override it, but doing so is required for maturation.

Additionally, our level of maturity has been passed down to us from multiple generations before us in our lineage. Because of this, it is through our relationships with our families, partners, and communities that we must do the hard work of growing up. Growing up requires that we define a separate sense of self. It requires that we live based on self-determined values and principles, instead of being swayed by our emotions or pressures from the group to conform.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “Growing maturity, based on seeing the patterns of relationship we’re a part of, promotes more honesty, humility, and improved health for us and for those we care about.”

2. “Each of us is part of a system of relationships that deeply influences each individual’s capacity for emotional resilience. Given that our original family has such a profound sway on the development of our maturity, it follows that going back to these formative relationships is the best laboratory in which to make positive changes.”

3. “Genuine maturity for life starts with learning to observe ourselves in our relationships, and appreciating that problems are not just in the individual but also in the interconnections — the relationship systems — with others.”

Bonus Tips:

1. If you enjoy reading her book, check out her blog where she writes shorter pieces on these topics.

2. For my extra ambitious readers or fellow theory nerds, if you want to dive deeper into the theory, check out the Family Systems Institute where Brown offers more learning resources as well as training opportunities.

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Ah, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the Western master and proliferator of mindfulness studies and practices in America. He is quite the thinker and writer, too. Mindfulness is not about being peaceful and happy all the time, contrary to popular belief. The practice of mindfulness is actually intended to help humans cultivate awareness of their automatic nature.

With mindfulness, we can learn to become more aware, moment-to-moment, of our emotional reactivity, automatic thinking, and conditioned patterns of behavior. By becoming more aware, we can interrupt the automaticity and make more thoughtful choices in our daily lives. This, of course, is maturity 101. This book is rich with both theoretical wisdom and practical applications for the thinker and practitioner.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “Automatic reactions triggered out of unawareness — especially when the circumstances are not life-threatening but we take them that way all the same — can compound and exacerbate stress, making what might have remained basically simple problems into worse ones over time. They can prevent us from seeing clearly, from solving problems creatively, and from expressing our emotions effectively when we need to communicate with other people or even understand what is going on within ourselves.”

2. “A lifetime of unconscious and unexamined habitual reactivity to challenges and perceived threats is likely to increase our risk of eventual breakdown and illness significantly.”

3. “At the heart of this paradigm-breaking perspective lies the conviction that it is essential for a person to engage in a personal, intensive, and systematic training of the mind through the discipline of meditation practice to free himself or herself from the incessant and highly conditioned distortions characteristic of our everyday emotional and thought processes, distortions that, as we have seen, can continually undermine the experiencing of our intrinsic wholeness.”

4. “Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it is the essence of mindfulness practice.”

Bonus Tips:

1. This is a nearly 600-page read, but it is very possible to skip around chapters if that’s your thing. No need to read in order, but be sure not to miss chapters 17–20, which hit at the heart of cultivating maturity.

2. If you’re open to it, take the complementary 8-week cohort course at the Brown Mindfulness Center.

Extraordinary Relationships by Dr. Roberta Gilbert

Dr. Gilbert draws from the same theory that Jenny Brown does in Growing Yourself Up, but this read is a bit more academic — and houses a bit more jargon. This might require the reader to learn some new vocabulary. But, I believe the theory that both of them draw from is the most important theory of our time that no one knows.

It is a grounded, living theory about human relationships and how humans are much more like nature than we are different from it (Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about this, too). In this book, you’ll learn how your maturity level is interconnected with that of the family you were born into. You’ll also learn how understanding where you came from will give you a map for how to work on your maturity going forward.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “A life lived according to the principles of a thought-out inner guidance system has an entirely different quality, course, and outcome than a life lived according to guidance implicitly or explicitly set by the environment. This makes it possible to say no when that becomes appropriate. In other words, the effort toward [maturity] frees people from trying to be what they think others want them to be. At the same time, it allows them to remain in open contact with significant others in the emotional system, whether they hold the same beliefs or not.”

2. “The guiding principles of [mature] individuals make it possible for them to be less concerned about what people think of them, whether or not they are loved, and how they appear to others. As mature adults, they no longer need parents or parental love, so they don’t have to spend their lives seeking nurturing from others. This fact alone relieves relationships of a great deal often put on them.”

3. “People at higher levels of [maturity] are clear on and comfortable with their beliefs, standards, values, and priorities. This is what makes it possible to live a life based on principle rather than on emotions and relationships. At any given time, they have a fairly clear idea of what they believe, the evidence they used, and the logical process they went through to get there.”

Bonus Tips:

1. Start with an overview of the vocabulary and theoretical concepts in the appendices.

2. If you get really into the theory, get her small, 100-page guidebook on it, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory.

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

This is one of those books I would consider a lifelong guide to understanding human nature. One of those books that you read over and over throughout the years, understanding the world and life just a bit more each time. This book has one big, yet basic premise: Humans have an irrational nature that we must learn to accept and master by intentionally cultivating our rational faculties.

It’s safe to say that this book is a philosophical monster and one of those challenging yet mind-blowing reads. Robert Greene is a deep thinker and he packs his books with years of research and preparation. Expect that it will take you an equal amount of years or more to metabolize this masterpiece. In doing so, you will have a greater understanding of your own nature and how to cultivate more maturity throughout life.

Favorite Quotes:

1. “We tend to think of our behavior as largely conscious and willed. To imagine that we are not always in control of what we do is a frightening thought, but in fact it is the reality. We are subject to forces from deep within us that drive our behavior and that operate below the level of our awareness.”

2. “Rationality is the ability to counteract emotional effects, to think instead of reacting. It does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate, but in doing so we realize our greatest potential.”

3. “To this day, we humans remain highly susceptible to the moods and emotions of those around us, compelling all kinds of behavior on our part — unconsciously imitating others, wanting what they have, getting swept up in viral feelings of anger or outrage. We imagine we’re acting out of our own free will, unaware of how deeply our susceptibility to the emotions of others in the group is affecting what we do and how we respond.”

4. “The future of the human race will likely depend on our ability to transcend this tribalism and to see our fate as interconnected with everyone else’s. We are one species, all descendants of the same original humans, all brothers and sisters. Our differences are mostly an illusion. Imagining differences is part of the madness of groups. We must see ourselves as one large reality group and experience a deep sense of belonging to it. To solve the man-made problems threatening us will require cooperation on a much higher level and a practical spirit missing from the tribe.”

Bonus Tips:

1. Check out his talk at Google on the book if you want a substitute or complement to reading the book.

2. Do yourself the favor and marry your study of this book with the study of Bowen’s Natural Systems Theory.

A Final Note

In essence, maturity is a lot about coming to understand and harness our human nature, or the part of us that’s largely automatic and unconscious. At the same time, it’s about cultivating more of the part of us that is different from nature, or the part that’s able to deliberate and make conscious choices that are different from what the automatic programming would have had us do.

It’s about learning to direct our controllable energies so that they don’t run away with us. With this, we can take a step back from our reactivity and have more thoughtful and meaningful interactions with other human beings — no matter how different they are from us and no matter how intense the circumstances in the external environment are.

This starts with doing our individual internal work, for that is all we have control over. By doing our own inner work, we show up differently in the world, and because we are an interconnected species that’s constantly influencing one another:

Changing ourselves changes humanity.

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Self-Differentiation in Relationships: 6 Skills for the Journey

Self-differentiation in intimate relationships is an incredibly important for fulfilling and enduring relationships.

• It can arm our intimate relationship against the inevitable stress and pressure of hard times that often tear most relationships apart.

• It can increase our capacity to be tolerate the discomfort of being vulnerable with our loved one and therefore strengthen our connection to them.

• It can deepen our capacity to feel the full range of our emotions and therefore experience an incredible sense of depth and meaning in our relationships.

And if we can practice being more self-differentiated in our intimate relationships, it can carry over into other relationships in our lives — with friends, at work, even with strangers.

Maturity, like anything else we want to get good at, takes intentional practice. Here are 5 ways to practice relational maturity.

1. Bring awareness to unconscious processes.

Unconscious processes include instincts, emotions, automatic thoughts, and conditioned behaviors. They are always present as we relate to others, and they exert their influence over our behavior in ways that are often invisible to us.

Awareness is simply about observing ourselves, moment-to-moment, and noticing what comes up as we interact with the world. By cultivating awareness of our unconscious processes, we increase the likelihood that we’ll be able to interrupt — or at least slow down — the ones that negatively impact our relationships.

Simple, but not easy.

As you’re interacting with your loved ones: Do you get anxious? Do you snap at them? Do you judge what they’re saying? Do you pull your phone out to avoid connecting? Do you change the subject when it’s not to your liking? Do you start gossiping? Do you look for their approval?

Unconscious processes are more powerful than the individual and they have a ton of historical momentum behind them. It takes work to become aware of them moment-to-moment, and it’s even harder to shift how they play out, but continual practice adds up over time.

2. Speak from your own experience.

This is about taking the ‘I’ position and keeping the focus on the only thing we have any semblance of control over: our own experience.

It’s normal to want to change the other, to try to fix their problems, to give them advice, or to want to tell them about all the things they’re doing wrong. It’s much more effective, however, to turn the mirror on ourselves and focus on what we can fix or change about ourselves.

You can’t control a whole damn family, but you can control you, and any time you can control you, the family is a healthier organism. That is a reason to become a self. The more you can become a self, the more to your advantage, and the family’s. — Dr. Murray Bowen

It’s also common to try to manage our discomfort by redirecting the focus of the conversation to a third person or thing. This is the essence of small talk and gossip — to avoid talking about the “real stuff” going on between you and the other person. People will often sit and talk about the children, other people, work, the weather, celebrities, and pop culture, in order to avoid talking about their true thoughts and feelings with each other.

The practice here is to try our best to refrain from blaming or fixing the other, or from talking about the “third” entity, and keep the focus on sharing from our own inner experience.

3. Regulate and validate yourself.

This is about fostering the ability to calm ourselves as we relate to others, and not expecting them to make us feel better. It’s about taking responsibility for our own emotional experience, and regulating ourselves accordingly, so that we remain calm and thoughtful in our interactions with others as often as possible.

Our close relationships are going to challenge us — that’s a given. The things our loved ones say and do are going to make us uncomfortable. We’re going to get frustrated. We’re going to get angry. We’re going to feel anxious. We’re going to feel misunderstood. We’re going to get defensive.

The practice here is to use what organically comes up in our interactions to get better at regulating ourselves and bringing ourselves back to calm, so that we don’t rely on the other to do that for us.

4. Use conflict for growth.

Leaning into discomfort is about sitting with the hard stuff that comes up for us as we relate to others. When we choose to practice sitting with the hard stuff, we do so because we understand the value of staying in it and growing from it, instead of checking out or giving up.

As you may notice, all of these principles are interconnected. Part of what’s required to sit with the hard stuff is the ability to become aware of what’s coming up for us and soothing ourselves along the way.

The only way to truly grow in our relationships and deepen intimacy is to stay in through the hard stuff. Some parts of our relationships are going to be tough. Some parts are going to make us see things about ourselves and others that we don’t want to see. The only way to grow is to lean into the truth and tolerate the discomfort it causes.

This creates intimacy based on the truth of who you really are and who they really are, moment-to-moment. Not intimacy based on what makes each person feel good or comfortable, but what’s truly coming up for each person, in the moment, no matter how difficult.

The practice here is simply to stay in the discomfort and work through it with your loved one. Don’t run away from the hard work.

5. Stay connected, yet separate.

As human beings, we have a natural desire to both preserve our individuality (or separate sense of self) and to remain deeply connected to those we love.

To maintain a separate sense of self, we must practice healthy boundaries and ensure that others do not cross an emotional threshold within us that will overwhelm us. Boundaries say, “This is where I end and you begin, and I will not allow you to cross this line.” We momentarily choose ourselves over the union.

To feel deeply connected to others, we must practice releasing boundaries and open the channel that allows for an energetic connection between self and other. Openness says, “I allow you into me, I give myself to you, and through that, we become one.” We momentarily lose the separate sense of self in favor of the union.

Two of the most powerful human drives are our urge to control our own lives (autonomy), and our urge for relationship with others (attachment). One of the biggest tasks of adulthood is being able to balance these two urges, and one of the most common problems is having too much of one, and not enough of the other. — Dr. David Schnarch (Rest in Passion)

We are always managing the paradox between these two seemingly opposing forces. We tend to polarize toward one or the other, either by losing ourselves in our connections with others, or by remaining emotionally distant in order to preserve our individuality.

The more we mature, however, the more we are able to manage the paradox and get evermore emotionally close to our loved one, while staying grounded in a solid sense of who we are.

This practice is about learning to fluidly open and close boundaries, moment-to-moment, in order to promote a relationship that honors both separateness and togetherness, without polarizing to one side. Like the breath rhythmically and effortlessly expands and contracts within us, so too do our deepest connections with others.

6. Embrace the Lifelong Process

The practice of cultivating more maturity in and through our relationships is not for the faint-hearted. It’s arduous and laborious, but it is a life-giving practice. You see, this practice creates a positive feedback loop in our relationships.

As we leverage our closest relationships to practice self-differentiation, we feed life back into them. We begin showing up with more and more maturity in the very relationships we’re practicing in.

This deepens and strengthens the connection over time, which has unimaginable gifts for all those who are touched by the relationship.

A Final Note

This article is an homage to the late David Schnarch, who wrote the book Passionate Marriage and forever changed my view on love, passion, and life itself. Halfway through writing this, I learned of his passing. Dr. Schnarch inspired my thinking (and being) in my personal and professional life in inexplicable ways, and I’m forever changed by his work.

In a world obsessed with validating, coddling, and comforting, Dr. Schnarch reminded me of the importance of telling the truth, of individuality and self-ownership, and of growing up and taking responsibility for our role in the success of our relationships.

In a world obsessed with attachment and stability, he reminded me of the importance of passion, eros, alchemy, and the innate drive that exists within all living things to evolve.

Most importantly, he helped me believe in a version of love and relationships that is not about feeling good all the time, but rather about reaching our fullest potentials as humans, about spiritual realization, and about union with the Divine within ourselves, in the other, and in all that is.

May you Rest in Passion, Dr. Schnarch. Thank you, for everything.

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