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Contents
Why This Separate Page?
"Hierarchy" Of "Needs"
Two Main Problems In Getting Your Needs Filled
Using Relationships To Meet Our Needs
Our Actual Needs
Readings
More Related To Needs
Needs In Relationship - Specifying And Filling Them
Meeting The Needs Yourself - That Comes First
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WHY THIS SEPARATE PAGE?
I set up a separate page for needs, as the subject overlaps personal psychology, getting what one wants out of life (life management), and relationships.
THE "HIERARCHY" OF "NEEDS"
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has food and water first, at the bottom, and when that need is met, then shelter and warmth and safety (the latter from being eaten). Then when both of those levels are sufficiently filled, the next need to be filled is "recognition" (love, affection, belongingness). Next after those are filled is esteem needs, to feel self confident. Then one is ready for "self actualization", to live a life of meaning and self expression.
However, if we define "need" clearly enough and determine what is really wanted in the latter three, we would come to a different definition.
TWO MAIN PROBLEMS
The first of the two main problems is that we do not actually know what our needs are, so we don't fill them properly. (Defining "needs" and what they are in general helps.)
The second is that we use ineffective methods to fill them, including trying to have others give us what we need. (We do address below how to have the best chance of having your wants filled in a relationship by identifying them and communicating them to your partner to increase the possibilities - but we often make one of the fundamental mistakes of life, trying to control what is not controllable.)
USING RELATIONSHIPS TO MEET OUR NEEDS
In relationships we attempt to have the other meet our needs. Or at least we attempt to be clear enough about what our "needs" are that the person has a chance of meeting them. or at least the choice (if they aren't known, the person doesn't have the choice, unless his/her intuition and/or mind reading capabilities are high, which I wouldn't depend on!).
So, we've included a whole section, below, on Needs In Relationship - Specifying And Filling Them.
However, you should be aware that there are certain considerations and limitations to having your needs met via relationships - which are not reflected in almost every book on relationships that I've seen (and not specifically discussed in most relationship pieces on this site, as it is assumed one is operating from a lower level of understanding and perception of needs). The problem is that the needs are not properly identified or understood, so we address this in the next few paragraphs.
Another problem, of course, is that the partner may be unable to function at the level to be properly loving and to meet your needs - that is what this site is about also: increasing the awareness and knowledge and capability of your partner and/or family.
OUR ACTUAL NEEDS
Differentiating and making these clear can make an immense difference in one's happiness!
1. At a primitive level, we do need to survive (or there is no game!).
2. And we need overall to feel good about life and ourselves, as that is the key
value life offers us - otherwise, what's the point?
From the above, we can derive the sub-need to feel safe in this world, safe from starvation and deprivation (but we add a bunch of unnecessary criteria to this!).
And we won't feel good without some warmth and some shelter (but far less shelter than we conceptualize that we need).
Part of feeling safe is knowing that we, ourselves, will handle whatever comes upregardless - read Fearlessness.
Because we unrealistically and unknowledgeably believe that we "need" "more" than we actually need, we create a pervasive feeling of a "lack of safety", as we fear losing the extra we have that we ironically don't actually need but make ourselves unhappy with - that's a poor game to play in life. See Losses to learn the unnecessay damage what we create. And it'll pay for you to be clear about how we create suffering and struggle in life.
Once those are handled, we will survive - and then we get to play The Game Of Life, but we need to be clear about what that actually means and is. (Read that section.)
Besides survival needs, one could say we "need" to feel good about life and ourselves and to have good experiences or what would the point of life be? So, while those are technically not needs in the absolute sense of the word, they are necessary in order to make surviving worthwhile.
Everything else we classify as needs is actually a want or a misunderstood way of seeking to fill the actual needs. We need to determine the most effective ways of filling our needs - and that is definitely not the way most people seem to believe - we get caught up in some games that make no sense in terms of the effects they actually produce or the undue effort (where we could accomplish the same thing in another way more easily and at a higher level)
Do other people have to fill our "needs", as if we were children having to be taken care of, or can we move over on the spectrum of neediness and power to where we are vitually self-sufficient? This is the fundamental question most of us fail to ask.
Surely, we no longer need others to like us in order to be able to get food (as the infrastructure is set up so it is all available at the super market!).
Surely, it makes no sense to try to get love from others, and to spend all the efforts to manipulate and control, when we have failed to do all we can to fill our own emotional bank accounts! And the latter is much easier than all the ineffective or less effective games we spend (waste) our lives engaging in.
Yes, we do "long" for others to love us, to be fully accepted and loved unconditionally by the prince or princess, to be secure at a level greater than even in childhood, to "be completed", to find "the one" who we are destined to be with - but we fail to realize that this is programming that is not true! So, we constantly run across problems and show that we are, according to the famous saying "dumber than rats", since rats stop going down a tunnel when there is no longer cheese at the other end. (If that is true, it means we can't even win "the rat race.")
When one realizes one can be totally self-sufficient, filling all of the needs to be happily engage in life, one is free to actually live life at a higher, more fulfilled and much happier level!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ABOUT NEEDS
What are your needs? From another point of view, related to correcting what needs to be put back into workability and what is wanted that one thinks will fill your needs. This is part of the Learning Plans section, as one needs to learn and have a program that helps fill the needs.
MEETING THE NEEDS YOURSELF - THAT COMES FIRST!
and whether you actually need Approval from other people.
highest.
wait for anyone else to do it! It is especially good not to operate in deficit or "in
neediness".
"NEEDS" IN RELATIONSHIP - SPECIFYING AND FILLING THEM
Different people have their "needs" met in different ways.
The key is to find out what love language your partner values the most and then to make the valued deposits, for trying to convince your partner that he/she is loved using the "deposits" that mean nothing is an ineffective way to fill the love tank, and there will be dissatisfaction and a lower quality relationship.
Meeting The "Needs" (Actually The Wants) Via Relationships
clear of illusion and it brings home the need to make a request for a specific
behavior and not spend time with vague concepts that can't be satisfied.
Behaviors - An excellent foundational agreement that will make it very clear as to
what it will take to meet each other's needs so that you'll create a great
relationship.
what really counts so that efforts by one's partner aren't wasted on what means
little.
behaviors would be most welcomed by you.
can let your partner know he/she is appreciated.
Absolutely essential that you are well-versed in this.
The Needs
Love - Interestingly enough, Maslow called this "recognition".
partner to settle, once and for all, the safety issue. Your partner, as any human
being, will tend to go into "reactive" and unhelpful behavior if the partner feels
unsafe. You can do your part by using this form/agreement.
