Introduction

Who’s willing to work at growing up?

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

‘Grow up!’ How many times have you heard this, said it or thought it in times of frustration? Maybe it was said to you, or a brother or sister, by your parents. Perhaps you’ve said it in a moment of annoyance to one of your kids. Have you thought it of your colleagues at work or of your spouse? It may be that one of your siblings still struggles with the same growing-up problems as an adult that they had as teenagers; or you could be frustrated by your adult children’s reluctance to fly the nest.

Perhaps you picked up this book with the idea of giving it to one of these people who ‘really needs to get their act together’. This might come from a real sense of caring for another, but the problem is that this focus on others can leave a whopping blind spot when it comes to our own lapses in maturity. We’re often prone to thinking that if only that other person could grow up a bit we’d be able to get on with being our own mature selves.

While many of us get caught up in finding fault in others when things seem to go off course, there are some who are always finding fault in themselves: ‘I’m the problem in this family’; ‘They wouldn’t be so upset if I was a better daughter/parent/spouse.’ Whether it’s judging another or harshly judging ourselves, this pathway doesn’t bring lasting growth in us. So what’s going to remove these barriers to personal growth? What is the road to adult maturity?

Maturity that grows self, rather than promotes it

The popular answer to this question is to improve yourself by magnifying your good qualities and potential. Have you noticed how approaches to building self-esteem focus on promoting our strengths and avoid looking at the gaps in our maturity? Self-promotion can easily lead to demoting others. If we don’t feel happy, it’s easy to think that others are standing in our way and causing our unhappiness. It’s all too easy to believe that if we can get people to change, or if we could avoid difficult people, perhaps we could then be free to reach our potential.

Many have discovered that this path of inflating the self at the expense of others fails to deliver lasting stability or satisfaction. Each time a new challenge is confronted, the formula of trying to change or blame other people is applied, resulting in a continuous cycle of relationship disappointments. Either we become resentful of others not improving in response to our efforts to help them, or we discard people who disappoint us in the same vein as a pair of shoes that has gone out of style or lost its comfortable fit.

If you’re more prone to blaming yourself, the common self-help formula is to correct the negative