Why feeling your needs can be scary
The whole issue of need comes from a time when we were so small that we were not able to take care of our own needs. We were just open, relaxed, and feeling existence through mother and father/our caregivers.
Some examples of needs:
Need for love, attention, care, food, appreciation, validation, comfort, physical touch, warmth etc...
The real need though - to give and receive love, puts us in a very helpless position, because we need to receive, we need to open up our heart. But because of adverse experiences in childhood, we have developed strategies to anticipate the hurt, the pain, and thus to avoid feeling “needy” whatsoever.
At some point as a baby, when our needs were not met, it was so painful and unbearable for such young child, that we (unconsciously) decided “Never again will I open up...”
Our greatest protection is not to feel it - we compensate, renounce our needs, complain - do anything not to feel the vulnerability of needing and the pain associated with it, the wound.
Reflect on the below.
How do you deal with your needs as an adult? What strategies do you see yourself use most often?
Do you:
Renounce - “I don’t need anything” - proud deprivation. Underneath, there lies suppressed mountain of needs and desires. When others express their needs, you judge them, but at the same time you envy them.
Overgive - “What do you need?” - taking care of other’s needs in order not to feel your own. Often giving to others what you would like to receive yourself. They express their gratitude and appreciation, and yet you end up resenting others, because you feel they never appreciate you enough… You feel you never receive enough, and in a way that’s true, because it is not gratitude that you actually long to receive…
Complain - “I never get what I need”. Strategy to anticipate disappointment. You don’t trust what others want to give you, and cannot fully receive. You end up not being open for what is actually coming to you from life.
Control - “I control my needs” “I have to take care of myself”. Anticipate your needs before they even appear. Feel discomfort in receiving. You long for closeness, but when others approach actually it feels too threatening. You feel that only when you have control and power, can you just be. But deep inside you never feel fully at ease…
Checking in with yourself can be revealing, confronting, but also healing.
We all use these strategies at some point, maybe one more than the others. It takes courage and practicing awareness to catch ourselves in the avoidance behaviors, and to consciously choose to open up and take a risk to be vulnerable. It is challenging, but definitely possible.
It is as if you would be taking the little one inside you by the hand - the one that was once so scared and lonely - and with compassion and care say to that part of you “Come, let me show you another way. You are safe now, you can trust me. And even if things don’t go as well, I will be here to hold you.”
How do you deal with your needs in your adult life?
Be welcome to share in the comments, and let’s chat if you have questions.
With love,
Jheel
