Three Steps to Getting Your Needs Met by Liisa Halme.
Getting clear about our needs and expressing them directly can change our relationships from crappy to great. Here’s how to go about it!
Surviving vs. thriving
Human beings can survive in very different, adverse conditions by cunningly adapting to our environment. We can survive starved of good nutrition or starved of love. However, in order to thrive rather than just survive, we need more optimal nourishment. Like everything in nature, the better nourished we are the better we thrive, inside and out!
When we were little we were completely dependent on our parents or primary caregivers. This was the time when we learnt, amongst many other things, about having our needs met. If all or most of our early needs for food, shelter, protection, affection etc. were promptly met when growing up, we were more likely to learn that we have the ability to get what we need in life.
Unmet needs
If certain needs were barely met, we are likely to learn that we cannot get what we want and need, and it’s not worth trying.
For young babies that are left to ‘cry it out’, the activation of the freeze response eventually stops their crying. This is an instinctual survival mechanism: it could be potentially dangerous to keep crying and attracting predator attention. When this is repeated regularly the baby is conditioned to assume that no matter how much they cry, nobody will come and/or their needs will not be met — so they give up trying. This is called learned helplessness, and it pre-disposes us to a variety of mental health issues later on in life.
If we had to work super hard to get our needs met, we developed different methods to get what we want and need. Perhaps we learnt that we get Mum’s love and attention by being sick or helpless, or by throwing a tantrum, or bossing her around. Or we may have learnt to get love by becoming the surrogate parent and care-take everyone in our family, including our parents. We can also learn to completely deny and block off some unmet needs as a coping mechanism.
This is how our defences are born.
Getting clear about your needs
Step 1. Identify your needs
If our needs as children were frequently not met and we learnt to shut off the unmet needs altogether in order to get by and to numb out the associated pain, it may take some serious digging to actually identify our needs and get clear about what they are in the first place.
Good indications for unmet needs are repeated situations where you feel less than fulfilled. Are you settling for less, or going for what you want in life? Do you often experience feelings of hopelessness or meaninglessness, even depression?
Do you stay in an unfulfilling relationship, job, and/or situation because you’re afraid it’s the best you can get? Do you think it’s wrong or useless to want for something more or to ask for what you want and need?
A personal example
Both my parents worked long hours from very early on in my life. Even though they were very loving when they were around, I missed out on some parental nurturing and emotional support. In order to cope I learnt to take care of myself from an extremely young age. I always got myself up, dressed, and fed before school, even walked myself to kindergarten at age five. In a lot of ways this served me later in life, but it also held me back. Alone I was a functional adult, but in relationships I felt depleted and alone. I was often the one supporting the other, but since I didn’t trust anyone to be there for me, I never allowed myself to be supported, emotionally or otherwise. This was until I got clear about the needs that I had shut off. Then I began to meet them myself and communicate them to my partner and other important people in my life.
Helpful questions to identify your needs
What are the key things missing in my intimate relationship(s)?
What am I always left wanting more of?
What do I feel like I am missing out on in my relationship, job, and/or life?
Step 2. Meet your own needs
It’s important to remember that now that we are grown-ups, we have the ability to meet our own needs . We are not dependent on others to fill them all, like when we were little. So if we didn’t get enough love and nurturing in our childhood (or enough encouragement, acceptance, protection etc.) it is up to us to start giving them to ourselves first. It helps to be really honest about where we are not giving ourselves what we need, where we are sacrificing or belittling our needs, even making them wrong.
Once you have identified the need, you can ask yourself what having it met would actually look like. Be aware that your logical mind might try to rationalise the need away, so speak directly to your heart, the vulnerable part of you. The answers may surprise you!
Making a plan
If it is protection or safety you need, it could look like standing up for yourself more, or taking better care of your finances. If you need more love and intimacy, it could look like making more time for friends and loved ones in your life, allowing yourself to be vulnerable with people close to you, or doing more things that you love alone; a personal yoga practice or taking time to meditate or be intimate with yourself. If you need nurturing and caring, it could look like making sure you eat well, rest well, and generally improve your level of self-care. Remember that the answers will be individual.
In close relationships we often look for whatever we haven’t learnt to give ourselves. If we always end up feeling like we are not loved for who we are, then chances are we are not loving ourselves as who we are. If we feel unsupported by our partner or friends, the likelihood is there is a part of us that isn’t supporting ourselves, hence we look for it in others. Or if we are overly critical of ourselves, we will also be overly sensitive to criticism from others, and easily interpret other remarks as criticism. Once we learn to meet our own needs and love ourselves as we need to be loved, we stop having to look for it outside of ourselves.
Step 3. Express your needs
Are you sometimes aware that you want or need something, but don’t voice it?
Do you often feel like you don’t have the ‘right’ to ask for your needs to be met?
Do you put the needs of others before your own and end up feeling depleted and eventually resentful?
Do you sometimes not voice your needs because you don’t want to ‘bother’ anyone or don’t expect them to be interested?
Do you think you deserve more and keep waiting for others to notice?
A good rule of thumb in all relationships is that we have the right to ask but no right to demand. Asking includes no obligation, and it actually requires vulnerability. This is why it can be hard, but also incredibly rewarding.
Even the Bible says, “Ask, and it is given”. This specifically indicates that we do need to ask for and voice our needs. When we voice our needs and desires we add energy into them. When we have trouble expressing our needs we are more likely to resort to manipulation.
It may be tempting to assume that ‘if they really loved us they would know what we need or want’. However, since we are all different, we also have different needs (apart from the basic ones we all share). To feel loved, supported, accepted, etc. we need it to be shown in different ways.
When we clearly voice our needs, without expectation, we let others in, allowing them to meet our need. This can be an opportunity for a new level of connection — a beautiful gift both ways!
About the Author
Liisa Halme is an advanced breathwork practitioner, hypnotherapist and registered yoga therapist. She specialises in anxiety- and trauma release, emotional work and strategic psychotherapy. She lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband, two children and elderly dog.
Connect with Liisa on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/LiisaHalmeFreedomTechniques
Web: http://www.FreedomTechniques.com.au | http://www.liisahalme.com
Originally published at https://livingnow.com.au on April 13, 2018.
