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What Do You Need?

by Jackie Kosednar

For happiness we need to get creative with nourishment, shelter and others.

We hear many references in our culture about ‘getting our needs met’. And there is much confusion as to what that looks like. We are taught that to be ‘needy’ is a weakness and we interpret this to mean the strong don’t have needs. Yet to be human is to have needs. We are all interdependent.

Many times our lives, relationships, or work worlds are filled with chaos, frustration and disappointment. It becomes evident that we are not getting our needs met. Or our minds interfere — perhaps we feel we don’t deserve to get our needs met. Maybe life or other people are stopping us from getting our needs met. They won’t give us what we need. But if you can’t identify what your needs are, and which needs are not being met, you have no way of knowing how to fix the problem. Thus you will live in a state of frustration or want.

Survival Needs
As human beings we have three basic needs. We need nourishment, shelter and others to survive. But we are here to do more than just survive. We are here for optimum survival, which brings happiness. In the process we accumulate and build. That includes building and accumulating relationships with others, as well as materiality. What we build and accumulate is called ‘our world’. Parts of our world are about tribal and collective community, as well as individual. Needs manifest in all these arenas. Gain and accumulation are natural to human beings. You could say we ‘need’ to do this because life pushes us to.

Human needs perpetuate the optimum survival human beings are here for. Optimum survival perpetuates the ‘love of living’ (building and experiencing) that most call happiness. For happiness we need to get creative with nourishment, shelter and others.

Basic Needs and the Love of Living
Humans have mental, physical and spiritual needs. All three are woven together into basic human needs. What we need is certainty — which is also called safety. But then we also need uncertainty — which may be termed excitement and variety. We need connections of all kinds, and we need to contribute. We need comfort as well as learning and growth. But most important, we need to express our uniqueness in our own unique way. We need to walk the path designed for us by the Life Force, not society or other people. We also need a spiritual life: to believe in something greater than we are, something which gives us ultimate certainty.

When these basic needs are met and in balance, we live in an enjoyment-of-life state called happiness. When our needs are continuously not met, or we don’t allow them to be met, we live unfulfilled, unhappy lives.

Take falling in love as an example. When we fall in love, we have a tendency to love living life — at least during that early period. This is why the romance industry is so large. Just the thought of one’s beloved brings bliss and joy, making the mundane seem magical. The romantic love relationship seems to satisfy all our needs: connection, contribution, excitement, safety, comfort and optimal self-expression. As we learn more about our beloved, we experience growth. In creating our relationship, we mutate, becoming more. If we don’t allow our needs to be met in other ways, we can become obsessive about finding a mate or keeping the one we are attached to.

Life is filled with processes and there are many beginnings, middles and ends. Unfortunately, because of the chaotic nature of life, we can go out of balance during different times in our process (and more so when our needs are not being met). Just when we get all our ducks in a row, life comes along and scatters them. Many times people want to eliminate someone from their lives, but don’t realize how many basic needs that person is satisfying for them. When you know your own needs, you can take responsibility to make sure they are satisfied. When they are not, you can do something to change the situation.

What Nourishes You?
Nourishment, or getting our needs met, can encompass many parts of our lives. We not only need food, we need love and nurturing. We also need the constant giving of the Life Force that beats our hearts and runs our bodies. We need the energy of health to be happy. It is the energy of the couple, the relationship, that nourishes and nurtures the young. Money and material things are also a form of nourishment. Our spiritual lives are nourished through prayer, meditation and spiritual study.

If you explore deeper, you may notice where you need to be nourished, where your problems lie and what is blocking your happiness. Who nourishes you? What nourishes you? Where in your life can’t you be you? Are you open and receptive to the inflow of life, or are you closed off to the flow, not allowing your needs to be met? Check this ‘Needs List’ and see which needs aren’t being satisfied in your life and which ones are being satisfied:

• Certainty — safety
• Uncertainty — excitement and variety
• Connection
• Contribution
• Comfort
• Learning — intellectual stimulation
• Growth — change; to become more, have more
• Self-expression — to express uniqueness and authenticity

With this approach it is easy to see just how happy you are and what you need to focus on to create more happiness.

Thought Interference
Life helps us get our needs met by offering us choices. It is always bringing people and experiences into our lives to meet our needs so we can express our selves freely. The nature of all life is abundance. Life is constantly trying to give to us. Aside from our own unawareness of needs, we can also block our inflow of nourishment in other ways. Since life is constantly giving to us, it can only be our minds that keeps nourishment from us. We have many conflicted beliefs and ways of thinking that keep us from getting our needs met. Pride, mistrust or hurt can block our flow. Low self-esteem or feelings of unworthiness also stop the flow. Mental conditioning is a powerful thing that colors our lives. But, ultimately, we can change that conditioning by first becoming aware of it and then by making a new choice.

Aside from changing your thinking, determine who and what is satisfying your needs and contributing to your life. Be grateful to them. Spend time counting your blessings, which is really celebrating satisfied needs. Soon you will notice that your needs are being satisfied in better and better ways, and so are your desires.