What to do when you and your partner are on different emotional levels
Not everyone we fall in love with is on the same emotional page. This is how you can re-align and figure out your emotional levels.
by: E.B. Johnson
When it comes to building a life with another person, our emotions play a major role. We connect through our emotions, and we can disconnect through them too. They guide us toward our future together, but left unattended (and unrealized) they can lead us to drift apart. In order to ensure our relationships as safe, secure, and equitable — we have to ensure we’re operating on the same emotional levels…but that’s not always the case.
Are you and your partner struggling to connect on deeper levels? Do you feel like you’re leaving them behind? Or that they’re dwelling in a place that’s frustrating for you? These are all common signs that you’re operating on different emotional levels. Once we’ve accepted this truth, we can get realistic about taking action and re-aligning our sense of value and purpose together. Want your relationship to thrive in love and feeling again? Dig deep. Take action. Find the middle ground.
Emotional awareness matters more than you think.
Building a life with someone else is a challenging task, and one which asks a lot from us mentally and emotionally. In order to do this effectively, though, we have to operate within certain levels of emotional awareness. Emotional awareness (also known as emotional intelligence, or EQ) is our ability to recognize our emotions, control them, and then recognize how they impact us and others.
Generally, our emotional intelligence grows around certain levels. These levels lead us closer and closer to our sense of self, purpose, and fulfillment, but they can differ greatly between ourselves and our partners. Are you struggling to communicate? Confronting endless irritations? Or fighting about fundamental moral questions?
You might be dealing with a serious mismatch in the emotional levels of you and your partner. While an issue that can be solved, it’s a serious issue which can’t be swept under the rug. When we’re operating on different planes of emotional standard, we can become detached and divided from the things which once aligned us. For this reason, we have to take conscious and mindful action if preserving our relationship is the primary aim.
The different levels of emotional awareness.
There are various levels of emotional awareness, and these levels go a long way to inform the type of lives we build with others. As we move through these levels, we get closer to our own truths but also closer to the truths that provide validation through our partnerships. In order to get on the same page, we have to understand these levels of awareness and how we move through them.
Basic socializing
The first level of emotional awareness is that of basic socializing. At this stage, you’re not really in control of yourself or your perceptions. You have, however, developed the basic (and simple) ability to hear what someone is saying to you, in order to actively respond to it in kind. Rather than just hearing something, you connect at least on a surface level because you’re able to talk to one another and open up to a certain extent.
Self-awareness
Once we move beyond that ability to actively listen to what someone is saying, we can start to look inward and become more aware of self. This self-awareness allows us to realize new truths in others. When you are self-aware, you start to identify your emotions (even before they happen) as well as the triggers which bring out the worst in you. Recognize these emotional states, you start to see patterns that impact everything from the way you communicate to the way you interact physically.
Regulating self
The third level of emotional awareness moved beyond simply recognizing our emotions and works to actively regulate and control them. This doesn’t mean we bury things away or put them under the rug. It means that we actively work to undo the belief systems that lead to our responses and reactions. We seek healing and we seek to curb our negative behaviors so that we can gain more positive feedback from the world around us.
Internal motivation
Self-awareness and self-regulation are powerful, but they’re not the complete picture. After seeing your life improve, you should then be moved into a state of internal motivation. The fourth level of emotional awareness, we become moved to make ourselves better, and moved to be kinder and more helpful to those around us. It’s a natural progression and one which has tremendous benefits for our intimate relationships…if we have the courage to take things there.
Active empathy
The highest level of emotional awareness is that of active empathy. At this stage in your intelligence journey, you can actively put all your judgements and pre-conceived notions aside in order to see things from another person’s point-of-view. Your empathy is limitless and your view level-headed. It’s the full-circle moment in which you are able to see your brokenness as well as the brokenness (and hope) of others.
What to do when you’re on different emotional levels.
Are you and your partner existing on different planes of emotional awareness? You can realign yourselves and get back on the same page, but it’s going to take a lot of conscious and mindful work and action. Until you’re honest about where you’re at (and honest with one another) there can be no more moving forward, and only endless resentment and frustration.
1. Be honest about where you are
Figuring out your mindfulness level is a bit of a journey. Before you can allow yourself to advance, or even fully realize the benefits of where you’re at — you have to be honest about how you’re functioning within your relationship. Doing this requires that we take a look around and really figure out who we are and how we’re connecting to the world. Once you’ve cultivated this acceptance, you can start taking action in the name of your happiness.
Spend some time on your own analyzing where you’re at and where your partner is at. Question your relationship and the lives you’re building together. Are you and your partner really operating from the same place emotionally? Are you connecting the way you want to connect? Do you see the world in similar ways?
You have to be honest about where you’re at if you want to make things better. You have to be honest with yourself about yourself. You have to be honest with yourself about your partner. Then, the two of you have to turn and face one another. Being honest only works if the path opens both ways. Seek to move toward one another in reality and pull yourselves out of the toxic delusion that’s leaving you emotionally disconnected.
2. Find common ground in communication
Communication is crucial when it comes to building relationships that make us happy and secure. Through communication, we share our needs with one another and we share our expectations too. This type of “talking it out” is crucial in addressing injuries and aligning our feelings in a way that really matters. Good partners open up to one another, and they use this communication to find common ground.
Sit down and talk to one another when you feel things getting off track. The only way you’re going to work your problems out is by getting through them. That happens when we open up to one another, and start being honest about where we’re at mentally and emotionally.
Express the concerns you have and express and observations you’ve made. Don’t blame your partner for any shortcoming your perceive. Avoid blaming language and focus on what you really know: what you have and what you need. Once you’ve taken up some room saying what you need to say, make conscious room for them to do the same. Don’t talk over them and don’t be defensive. Simply open up to one another.
3. Mindfully seek to meet in the middle
How often do you and your partner work to make mindful compromises with one another? Do you each go out of your way to make room when it means the most? Or do you insist on each having your own way in all things? This type of stubborn insistence comes from a place of low emotional awareness and security. When we’re insecure in who we are and unaware of the bigger picture, it’s easier to live in our own reality and insist that everyone else does too.
Get your partner and take a step outside of the relationship. Look at it from a removed point of being. How could the two of you both better make concessions for one another? Is there a better way for you to move toward one another, rather than away? What in your life could be reasonably sacrificed for your partner’s happiness?
All of this requires that we sit down and prioritize our needs within our partnerships. Some of the things we want or need mean more than others. Figure out where the giving points are in your life and then figure out where your partner’s giving points are too. The next time you’re confronted with a difficult conversation or decision, both of you look toward the middle and compare it against the things you’re willing to compromise.
4. Employ a greater understanding
Understanding is such a powerful tool when it comes to being more mindful and moving toward our partners with love and connection. When we employ understanding, we allow ourselves to reach out in compassion and in empathy. We put ourselves in the shoes of our partners and seek to see where they’re coming from — rather than judge them for their actions.
If you and your partner want to get on the same emotional level, then you need to try to understand one another in all things. To do this, you need compassion and empathy to reach out and put yourself in thoughts and feelings of the other person.
Instead of butting heads over your different places in life, approach one another in understanding and try to put yourselves in a compassionate space. We move between mindfulness and emotional levels when allow ourselves to grow. This happens by being open and committing to seeing things from a different light than we might otherwise have been used to.
5. Actively pursue individual growth
At the end of the day, building better relationships (in any facet) requires that we build better selves from the inside out. We have to be strong, secure, and confident individuals in order to be strong, supportive, and loving partners. If you can’t go out on a limb for yourself, no one else is going to do it either. Instead of looking to your relationship to magically sort itself out, actively pursue individual growth that improves your overall outlook on love and life.
Break out of your partnership space for a little while and focus on building up your own sense of self. Who are you? What are you good at? You need to realize the and full extent of your self-worth in order to be a present and compassionate partner who is capable of supporting the other.
We become capable of deep compassion and understanding when we realize we are strong enough to be loved, or to be hurt. Opening yourselves up isn’t the dangerous part. The dangerous part is hiding who you are. Celebrate the process of blooming and becoming who you were meant to be, in your relationship and outside of it too. Want to match your partner’s emotional awareness? Let that growth in.
Putting it all together…
In order for us to build truly fulfilling relationships, we have to work hard to get on the same emotional level. These levels correspond to the strength and advancement of our emotional awareness. The higher our emotional awareness or intelligence, the easier it is to connect and maintain those connections. When we continue to exist on different emotional planes, though, that’s when the problems come into play.
Be honest about where you both are so that you can create an accurate plan for getting back on track. Getting on the same page emotionally requires that we move toward one another consciously and with intention. Communicate with one another, and through this opening up to find the common ground that allows you to shift together toward a more mindful existence. Always try to meet in the middle and figure out what compromises you can make (safely) without risking your own needs and happiness. Building a life with someone else isn’t always easy. Embrace the ride and seek always to use your empathy and your understanding when working with a partner who differs in emotional outlook from you. Commit to working on yourself and grow together by growing first as individuals.
