As humans and living beings, we have got needs. Physical needs and psychological ones. The physical necessities are food, water, shelter, sexual needs, warmth etc. These are essentials that we look to satisfy from the world around us.
The psychological needs are a bit trickier. These needs are inner requirements and we have to look inside of us for satisfaction.
Some of us are looking to satisfy our inner voids outside. However, this is near impossible to be achieved and regardless of how much we try we will be unsuccessful.
When we were growing up, we were dependent on our carers to satisfy our psychological needs and to teach us how to do it. When our psychological needs have not been satisfied at the time, when they arose, a void is created. This void manifests as different types of behaviour later on in our adolescent and adult life.
The satisfaction of these six primary needs drives our behaviour. The first four needs shape our character and the last two, are spiritual needs. We cannot concentrate on our spiritual needs until we satisfy the first four of them.
The ranking of these needs changes every day and it is not a constant. When one need is satisfied, doesn’t mean that we will not have it anymore.
These are the six needs that we experience throughout our lives. They are:
The Need for Certainty
This is the need, of us knowing, what the outcome will be. We need to know that the result of our decision will be what we expect it to be. The need for certainty means we do not feel safe and feeling safe, in the long run, is imperative for our mental health and more importantly for our survival. When we feel uncertain, in some situations, we feel as if our lives are threatened, and they really might be. However, in our day and age, most of the perceived threats are not actually life-threatening. Yes, we might have to go through some hardship or adjust something but our lives are safe.
When we feel safe we are more creative, outgoing, calm. If we have not had this need satisfied in our childhood, as adults we tend to fear change. The need to feel safe can manifest in a number of ways ranging from fear of the new to extreme behaviours like hoarding, food stocking or even obsessive-compulsive behaviour.
Having constant certainty over time leads us to boredom so we begin to crave. When we feel certain about everything life can lose its flavour and we cannot enjoy it anymore. That is why we begin to crave
Uncertainty/Variety Needs
After feeling safe for a period of time we start to crave some uncertainty or variety. Being safe and predictable becomes really boring and we start looking for some variety. The need for variety can be satisfied in a number of ways, depending on where we want the variety and how far are we willing to go to satisfy it. Experiencing some uncertainty is important to our self-development and self-improvement. Craving uncertainty and variety helps us to step out of our comfort zone and grow our skills, knowledge and personality.
Variety is the spice of life, and we need the excitement to feel alive.
Significance
Who wants to be overlooked all the time? Noone!!! It feels good to be noticed and acknowledged for our efforts or a job well done. When we feel overlooked we tend to build resentment towards the people who, we feel, overlooked us. If we have been deprived of the feeling of being significant, in our childhoods, this can manifest in rebellious behaviour or altering our physical features. All that is done in an attempt to be noticed.
Feeling significant is paramount to our survival. If we feel overlooked, it signals to us that we do not have significance for the other person and we will not be looked after and we might die. Although nowadays this is rarely the case, this fear of death is real and has helped the human race to survive.
Connection/Love
We, humans, live in communities. We do need to feel connected to others, we do need to feel a part of a group. When the need for love is strong, simply means we haven’t experienced true unconditional love recently or maybe at all. We want to feel that we are important to someone. That this person approves us and that we can be authentic with that person. To live in a society, that thinks that it is better to wear masks to keep up with the appearances, this requirement is becoming stronger and stronger. Recent researches show that a lot of people feel lonelier and lonelier because they cannot find these special persons, they can be authentic and vulnerable, around.
Even if we have all sorts of social media, that we are supposed to feel connected to others through, we feel lonelier and lonelier. It seems that we have lost our ability to communicate with others, face-to-face.
Growth
Here we are talking about personal growth. To satisfy the need for personal growth we have to invest in improving our knowledge, and our skill set, and expand our personal belief system through spirituality. Usually, this need arises when we feel stuck and we want to improve our life. Personal growth usually happens through stripping our old belief systems and implementing new ones. The process involves a lot of self-reflection and questioning which of our personal beliefs are beneficial to us and which ones hinder our progress
Contribution
This is the strong need to serve others in different shapes and forms. It can be as simple as helping the neighbour with a task to doing our bit for a safer society. To fulfil this need we do have to feel somewhat selfless. The degree of selflessness, we have, dictates the degree, to which, we are prepared to satisfy this need. There are different ways we can serve others. From looking after our children and seeing them grow into adults that are satisfied with their lives, to giving free advice on different online platforms. Other ways of serving society as a whole can be writing books, creating something beautiful, or even just smiling at a stranger on the street.
We have to understand that we always will need something or someone and that is OK but when it comes to our inner needs we are the ones responsible for satisfying them. Other people can only add to what and how we feel inside, but it is up to us to change it. Some people can aid us but they cannot walk our path.
As adults, we need to reframe our beliefs and actions and take personal responsibility for our lives as it is impossible to hold others responsible for our decisions.
If you think you need help with clarification of your needs and want to find ways to satisfy them, book your session with me
