Hindsight can often be humbling. I’ve looked back many times and can admit that what I thought I was doing at the time seemed like a good idea but from a more mature perspective there were a lot of horrible ideas.
When I look back at my behavior during my time as a young adult I often see that I didn’t know how to communicate, I didn’t know what my needs were, and I didn’t know how to get them met.
These three major deficiencies created lots of bad behavior in my relationships. Some of those people would attempt to use the secret decoder ring to figure out my cryptic, dysfunctional attempts to convey what I was trying to get or do and others had their own cooresponding issues that created a “perfect, horrible fit” that could act as come glue.
We’re all wired in the same ways. We want comfort but we also want to be challenged. We want to feel safe and we want to feel risk. These correlate well with the “six basic needs” model (certainty, uncertainty, connection, significance, growth, contribution) that I talk about often. I associate comfort and safety with connection and certainty. And risk and challenge with uncertainty and growth.
Deep deep down in the belly of our soul we want two things, the things that we’re born wanting and needing. We need to be loved and we need to belong. The loved part I can toss in the bucket of connection but there’s just nothing quite like belonging.
Belonging is what so many of us base our entire lives around but don’t really know it. And if we do know it we struggle to address all that we do to contort ourselves so that we can belong. This is where shame exists. In many ways shame is about not belonging. It’s about the crux of being ourselves and being abandoned or betraying ourselves so we can fit in and be part of the whole. Both of those are fucked. With enough bravery we can be ourselves and find the people (our people) that celebrate us just as we are.
I lived for so long not even knowing what my needs were but I felt the need for something. I’d feel something so I’d get up off the couch and I go look in the refrigerator. I must be hungry. Or I engage a piece of technology and begin to distract myself there. Sex feels good so maybe porn is will be a good distraction. Or… maybe having a few drinks or doing some drugs?!
But the mark is often missed. The need isn’t identified and a healthy, overt way to get it met is missed again and again and again.
The opportunity (these questions are from David Richo):
What am I feeling a need for in this moment?
What am I afraid will happen if I do not fulfill this need?
What is the story I am telling myself about having this need?
How is this need familiar, especially from childhood?
Thanks for your time, have a great day!