PREVIOUS: Meeting our NEEDS #2

SITE: “Asking to have your needs met”

1. GOALS
2. IMPLEMENTATION

3. PEOPLE
The third component to getting our needs met has to do with who we surround ourselves with.
Everyone on the planet needs a support system to function well, which includes family, friends, teachers… to mates, colleagues & partners, psychological helpers & spiritual leaders. And everyone needs help to implement goals – from time to time – whether the store clerk or house wife, the boss who hires us or the mate we live with……

Yet ACoAs find it shameful, terrifying & enraging to have to ask for help & let anyone get too close. To us, closeness is automatically associated with physical / emotional abuse or outright abandonment. Better to do everything by ourselves, or simply do without.
Even so, we still do need connection, cooperation, information, intimacy, guidance, validation….. so when we try to get Help or Love, we are automatically drawn to unhealed people who are the least likely to provide it, but who can ‘feel right’ at the time, because they’re familiar – like family. We keep going to the desert to quench our thirst!

These relationships are with people who are —
— either too narcissistic to actually care about us, so we spend a lot of our time trying to get their approval, pleasing them, hanging on for fear of losing them……
— or  blatantly needy, so they don’t have much to contribute, & we end up spending a lot of time, money & energy taking care of them, worrying about their feelings, trying to ‘heal’ them….

They are familiar types. We know how to play the game with them, using all our defenses, but never being our True Self. Their lack of emotional/spiritual health guarantees that we continue to not get our needs met, just another way to not S & I – staying loyal to our family’s dysfunction.

REVIEW
We grow up, we have lives, jobs, our own families, friends, interests…. but are not supposed to want anything for ourselves.
So any time we actually try to provide for ourselves, we have to ensure that we fail – to continue obeying the Toxic Family Rules. We can’t afford to know how toxic they are, so we think we’re free of our past. We insist that we’re nothing like ‘them’, it was all a long time ago, it didn’t really effect us all that much anyway……YET the WIC is still totally dependent on the PP, attached & loyal to our early training & trauma.

With this dependence on dysfunctional beliefs & patterns, everything we try is done with one hand tied behind our back & dragging a dead weight on our back. So any time we actually think about pursuing someone or something that can make us genuinely safe, appreciated, happy, respected…. we either put it off endlessly, or we give it a shot, but in a distorted way & with inappropriate people.
And then wonder why we never get anywhere. Most if us blame others God, the world, our spouse & children…. as well as beating ourselves up for not knowing how to do things others seem be to be able to do effortlessly.

REALITY: The only way to change this ugly, self-defeating pattern is to stop obeying the PP in the way we live our lives & treat the WIC, & instead get the help we need to develop compassion for ourselves.

STAGES of GROWTH
DEPENDENCE
Less healthy adults set up relationships with the main objective being to have the other person meet all their needs. This is an attempt to make up for not getting their basic needs from Mother in infancy.
Stage 1 WISDOM is about tradition, belonging, power and survival

INDEPENDENCE
We escape from the heartbreak, failure & guilt of childhood by becoming independent. This is partly about self-sufficiency & autonomy, usually giving us more freedom & success in the short-term, but is a way to avoid admitting the pain of our original Dependence. As we bury those early feelings of anger & fear, we end up damaging current relationships, & rob ourselves of long-term happiness.
Stage 2 WISDOM is about the journey of the self, and the power of personal experience and rational thinking.

This stage includes outgrowing:
• the expectation about how we (to be perfect) and others should do things (get our way) so we can reach our goals
BY letting go of having to be seen a certain way, & by taking responsibility for the outcome of our dreams & plans
• being controlling, which created arguments & power struggles, because of the demands we put on others
BY replacing the need for it – with trust in oneself, in others & in a H.P. of our understanding
• self-focused emotional disconnection, leading to boredom in relationships
BY reconnecting emotionally, mentally & physically to ourselves

INTER-DEPENDENCE
Continuing to mature psychologically, we form a stable inner core we can rely on, no matter what. This allows us to have relationships with other self-caring adults we can learn from, rely on & enjoy in PMES ways. It’s a stage where people work together for the good of the relationship or for the good of others & the world.
We can then:
• take the lead in responding to the emotional needs of the people around us with love and compassion AND avoid self-attacks
• reveal our True Self, full of creativity, confidence & wisdom. We will have faith in a positive future, rather than living in the past
• have a true sense of ‘belonging’ (oneness), linked with everyone / everything else by love, experiencing the calm of Spiritual Dependence  (MORE…..)
Stage 3 WISDOM is about the interconnection of everything and the mysteries of existence.

Inter-dependence makes getting our needs met & reaching our goals more likely, more often & easier – a natural part of living well.  (CHART)

NEXT: Discomfort & Comfort, #1