Meet Your Needs
Hello there.
No matter how much you may want it to be different,
You have needs.
Every being in existence has needs.
Instead of getting lost
in the argument about whether need is a dirty word,
because it implies lack.
Let's just define what a need is.
A need is something that is required,
in order to live, be successful,
or/and be happy.
You can't unrequire something that required.
And you can't talk yourself into seeing how it's unnecessary.
So you have one option when meeting your needs,
that is to meet them.
I want to repeat this for maximum impact.
When it comes to your needs,
you have one option, that is to meet your needs.
Why is meeting your needs your one option?
Because if you don't meet that need consciously,
it will be subconsciously.
This is in fact what all manipulation is.
Now when we use the word manipulation,
we have a tendency of feeling like that's a dirty word.
Manipulation implies that somebody is bad,
that they're malevolent.
But that's really not what manipulation is about.
Manipulation is about somebody who can't ask for their needs upfront,
and so instead of asking for their needs upfront,
they're getting their needs in roundabout ways.
With manipulation we're trying to influence others
to do what we want them to do, so our needs get met.
For example, a person who needs to feel safe,
but who cannot ask directly to be protected,
may create a situation
where they have to be rescued by someone else,
or they may paint a false picture that they're in danger,
so other people will step up and offer their protection.
or a person who needs help or needs to feel supported,
but who can't ask directly for help or support,
may develop an illness that makes it so people
have to help or support them.
Or a person who needs to feel accepted,
but who can't seek out that directly,
will become a chameleon
to try to influence people to accept him or her.
Every single one of us
uses manipulation.
The question is:
"To what degree are we conscious of that manipulation?"
To help you out,
I'm going to give you some small hints,
about ways that people can potentially manipulate others.
Lying,
dropping hints,
guilting others,
self sacrificing,
being passive aggressive or using emotional punishment,
flattering people insincerely,
being a chameleon,
being seductive,
making false promises,
doing favors,
making yourself out to be the victim,
and making threats, etc..
There's many more, I assure you.
Keep in mind that we all use what we have.
So we will usually manipulate people,
with whoever is working to our advantage.
For example, a spiritual medium may use their abilities,
to divine messages for you from God,
simply to keep you dependent on them
and that's guarantee that you'll never leave them.
Manipulation does not make you a bad person.
But I dare you to look at your life and to see,
the ways that you might be manipulating people.
Ask yourself:
How do I manipulate?
"In what ways do I ensure
that I will get the reaction I want from others,
instead of asking for what I want upfront?"
"In what ways do I think I can meet other people's needs,
just as they can meet mine?"
Manipulation will always feel out of alignment,
with your sense of personal integrity,
Because if you are manipulating,
you are not being upfront with you authenticity.
A good question to ask yourself is:
"What in my life do I do,
that causes me pain,
that I can't stop doing?
And I can't seem to get over?"
For example, somebody might be caused pain
by the fact they are a cutter.
They cut themselves,
it never goes well for them,
and yet they can't stop doing it.
We have to look at what they might be getting out of it.
Potentially, when a person cuts themselves,
all the people around them finally pay attention
with an attitude of concern.
So what we may not understand is that subconsciously,
cutting is our way of manipulating people,
so that we can get our need for their conscious attention.
In other words, cutting might be a way of meeting our need
to be seen and understood.
Also, I want you to think back on your childhood,
and the culture you grew up in,
and I want you to think about: "What needs and wants
were not okay to need and want in my childhood?"
We tend to manipulate the most,
around needs and wants that we feel are not okay
needs and wants to have in the first place.
And once you figure out what those particular needs and wants are,
I'll give you a hint, if you live in today's world,
most of the needs and wants that you think are not ok,
are emotional needs,
I want you to ask yourself relative to everyone of those needs:
"How I'm I getting that need met in my life currently?
This can tip you off, to some ways that you're manipulating.
Stopping ourselves from manipulating is difficult
for one main reason.
To stop manipulating, we have to be willing to be brave enough
to be incredibly vulnerable.
because we have to admit to needs
that we think are not okay to need.
Once we become conscious of our manipulation,
it no longer feels good
to do that manipulative thing that we're doing,
so what you'll notice is that you'll naturally
find ways of replacing your way of meeting that need.
When you catch yourself in the act manipulating,
you can ask yourself:
"What is it that I'm trying to get by doing this?"
And then you can choose to express that need
directly instead,
or meet that need directly, in another way.
Get in touch with what you want and what,
and with what you need.
In increments throughout the day,
it is a good idea to pause,
and ask yourself:
"What do I need right now?"
"Or what do I want right now?"
and let yourself that thing.
If you're truly out of touch
with what you want or need,
go look up on the internet, a list of needs, emotional needs,
a list of the physical needs, a list of mental needs,
you can make your own sheet where you take those lists
and then out of those lists, compile the needs
that you have specifically for you.
Then what you can do, if you fill negatively,
is you can go to the list and you can pick out
whatever you need it is that you need at that specific time.
And you can find ways to meet it,
or have that need be met by other people.
In my intentional community,
what we do is that sometimes,
members of the community will grab these lists
and bring it up to a person,
and we have them choose what need they have off of that particular list.
And then, we are the one that meets that need.
It's a fun connecting activity.
Another good thing to do, is to allow your inner child
to choose what it needs and to meet your inner child needs
throughout the day.
Keeping in mind the inner child,
is much better at selecting its needs off of a list,
than it is about verbalizing them.
With each and every need,
you can brainstorm ways to meet the need yourself,
and also have the need met by others.
Involve other people in this brainstorming task, if you get stuck.
Also, if you are truly clueless about your needs and wants,
take a look at what you know you don't want.
because to the other side of those aversions, are preferences.
You may have heard the concept of the hungry ghost,
it's basically the same concept as greed.
That if you start feeding the need,
the need would just get bigger
and it will never be satiated,
and all you will want, is more and more and more.
I'm gonna tell you today,
that the truth couldn't be any further from that if we tried.
Imagine for once the idea
that if you met a need, the need would be met.
Imagine that if you meet a need,
you might actually feel satiated.
The truth is, greed is not a natural state.
Because starvation is not a natural state.
If one's need were met consistently,
one will not become concerned
with the self centered desire to hoard resources,
hoarding only occurs in the presence of fear and scarcity.
So, not meeting your needs
is a great way to become greedy.
I want you to keep in mind
that no need is too childish.
We love to tell ourselves,
that the desire or the need to be held,
or the desire or need to be comforted,
is a childish need.
And so we should deny it,
because we are not children, we are adults.
This could also not be further from the truth.
Because the reality is,
if we have what we would consider childish needs, in adulthood,
that means, that those needs were not met in childhood.
And if they are not met,
we never actually mature beyond that point.
Also it may be tempting to think that if we start to meet
the needs of the inner child as an adult,
the inner child will never be satiated.
But it will.
And the result of satiating the inner child's need,
is that the inner child grows up.
In other words, if needs were not met for us in our childhoods,
they need to be met now, in order for us to grow up.
And as a side note,
going back to what I said originally,
if we don't meet those childish needs,
we will find a way to get them met.
Just, in roundabout ways,
when our subconscious mind doesn't control.
Now I want to tell you something which might shock you.
The majority of sexual fetishes on this earth,
are in fact, just manifestations
of unfulfilled childhood needs.
I'll tell you a personal story,
when I was a child,
I was not protected.
I found out some years ago, that I felt really unsafe.
Most especially, unsafe when I was sleeping at night.
So what I did, instead of manipulate,
is I asked one of my housemates directly,
to sleep in the same bed as me.
And what I found the next morning
is that I felt a lot more secure,
more capable, and independent.
So I'm going to ask you a question about this scenario,
would it have been better to deny this need
because it was childish?
And would it have made me a better person?
You may think that you are
needless, wantless, or anti-dependent.
You may think you don't need anything from anyone,
but in this world, you're dependent on other people and other things.
You need them and they need you.
This doesn't mean you're powerless to them.
When you're in a space of thinking, you don't need anyone
or anything,
you are too afraid to be vulnerable,
and so you don't ask for what you need.
And so, the subconscious runs the show.
Getting you what you need and all kinds of roundabout,
and highly manipulative ways,
that you may not even recognize.
The reality is, it's very frightening to admit to our needs.
Especially the ones that have to be met through other people.
It's most especially frightening
because the other person could say no.
But let me ask you this question:
If you admitted to the things you actually genuinely need,
wouldn't your life look a little bit different?
Wouldn't the people who could meet those needs
gravitate to you?
While the people who couldn't meet those needs
would gravitate away from you?
Besides guess what?
It makes us happy to meet each others needs.
What if we actually need to need each other?
Interesting concept.
You will find, once you start expressing your needs,
that often, people's needs are met, by meeting our own needs.
For example, one of us might feel happy
when we're meeting someone's needs for comfort, because
meeting their needs for comfort,
may in fact meet our need for a connection.
The flip side of this coin is
that someone else might feel like meeting someone's need for comfort,
is about as pleasurable as getting their teeth pulled,
because meeting their need for comfort may in fact, conflict,
with their need for autonomous achievement.
The moral of the story is,
select people and surround yourself with people
whose needs are met by meeting your needs.
Let the people who have conflicting needs,
gravitate away from you.
That's how the world is supposed to work anyway.
You might just be surprised.
The people in your reality might just be excited to finally
know what you need and finally be able to meet your needs.
And so the question remains for you:
"What needs do I like to meet in other people?"
And for those of you who are wondering,
what do I do if my partner in life or my spouse or my lover,
doesn't want to meet the needs that I have?
Ideally your needs would be met through various people,
not just one.
In fact powerless dependence happens most often,
when one person is is your sole resource
for getting all of your needs met.
But you have to very honest with yourself
about what needs you specifically want to have meet by a partner,
and which ones you are okay with getting through other people.
This is an individual preference,
And if you find that the needs you specifically
want to have met by a partner,
cannot be met through your partner,
let youself another partner.
Honoring that person
by allowing them to say no to meeting your needs,
let's you put them in the proper place in your life.
If you have certain needs
that you need to have come through your spouse
in order to consider them a spouse or a partner,
and they cant meet those needs,
then they would probably be a better friend than spouse.
For example, if one of your needs in a partnership
is emotional availability,
and your partner can't be emotionally available,
you can now choose to take them them out of the role of partners,
and place them in a friendship role in your life.
Or you can choose to try to talk yourself
out of having that need in a partner.
It usually doesn't work.
Or you can choose to stay unfulfilled in the partnership.
But in my opinion it's better not to make each other miserable,
resenting each each other, for things you aren't providing for each other,
for Year upon Year.
To expand upon the idea of needs,
I want you to listen to my video on YouTube titled:
The Zebra And The Watering Hole
I also want you to watch my video on YouTube titled:
Dependence Versus Independence.
There is nothing spiritual about denying yourself
the things you want and need.
Letting yourself have what you want and need
doesn't turn you into a selfish entitled or otherwise bad person.
Letting yourself have what you need is food for the soul.
So my challenge for you this week,
is to look at the ways you are manipulating to get your needs met,
And use that to define
what your needs actually are,
and then be brave enough, to go for those needs directly.
Meet your needs this week.
This will be difficult,
because it will require you to be vulnerable.
But it will also place you squarely in your authenticity.
and it will give you your best shot yet,
at actually being nourished.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com