In the next several posts, I would like to talk about emotional maturity and emotional intelligence. How can we better understand our feelings and relate to other people in our lives? My current understanding of this is centered around three core ideas:

1. Feelings exist (but most of them are invisible).
2. Feelings are not facts (but they have information you shouldn’t ignore).
3. Feelings are not actions (so don’t judge, blame, or punish based on feelings, just express them).

I want to be clear that I’m not claiming to be an expert on these subjects, nor am I claiming to be emotionally mature myself. I’m writing about this because it matters to me, and because writing my ideas down seems to help make them clearer.