I’ve recently been reminded of how important it is to pay attention to what you need emotionally, physically, psychologically, creatively and spiritually. Often we can go through life on autopilot, reacting and adjusting to the environment and relationships around us but never really paying attention to whether or not we’re on the right track and whether or not the plane is running out of fuel.
When you’re constantly reacting to life, you aren’t really paying attention to your own needs and that creates the perfect storm of neglecting our own needs. I used to think that constantly taking care of others and putting their needs first is as honourable trait, that’s what had been role modelled to me. But actually, I recognise now that constantly meeting the needs of those around us and ignoring and or delaying our own, is a really unhealthy and unfulfilling way of going through life. We can manage for a period of time and during this time we find it a ‘pleasure’ to be caring and considerate of the needs of others. But when you find yourself in that pattern for an extended period of time and others are also unaware that your personal needs aren’t being met, then that’s when you are at risk of crashing and burning.
Being aware of your needs is the first step but being able to express them and also cater to them unapologetically is another. We’ve been taught to feel guilty when we put our own needs first, it’s seen as selfish when in actual fact it is a necessary requirement in order to keep your cup full and live a fulfilling life. I personally have learned a lot of constraining beliefs and unhelpful ideas of how to manage my own needs, predominantly because I’ve been brought up in a collective culture whereby the need of the group and collective whole, always outweighs that of the individual. Though it is an unintended consequence of my culture, I’ve learned how to drown out my own needs to the point that I find it difficult to even identify what they are and need to look around me in order to identify what it ‘should’ be as opposed to what it is.
Over the past few years I’ve been making a conscious effort to better understand what my needs are and to find ways to fulfil them either myself or with the help of others. This journey has been really hard and I’m definitely still learning and evolving because I’m still rather inexperienced with it. To this day, I really struggle to identify my needs in the moment where it matters and instead notice it once it has led to some form of unhealthy outcome like stress, depression and or anxiety. My current pattern is that I become aware of what I need after staying silent for long periods of time and then I tend to fall into mental traps about the relationships, environments and or situations I’m in as opposed to recognising that I’ve not really allowed anyone to know what my needs were so that they could have had the opportunity to address them.
I would like to get better at identifying my own needs so that I can communicate them effectively at the right time to those around me, both in a personal and professional context. By doing so a collaborative conversation can take place between what everyone’s needs is so that a well informed outcome can be achieved by all. Whilst what we want can’t always be attainable, what we need is something that we can’t afford to neglect. Our needs have such a complex relationship with each other and by knowing what they are we can find the best way to meet them in any given situation.
Don’t apologies for having needs. Get to know yourself better so that you can identify your needs and articulate them to those around you in a way that would encourage them to do the same. Take care of yourself and give others the opportunity to do the same.
Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 