Redefining my relationship with needs

The evolution of trust

Over the course of this past year, it has been interesting to watch the concept of an unmet need largely disappear from my reality. An unmet need? That is an impossible thing – a total myth – at least, according to my current way of thinking. If I think that I have an unmet need, I am pretty sure there is some misunderstanding and I am not seeing reality correctly.

As my wholehearted trust in the unseen mystery deepens and expands, I see how disappointment is an energy that I no longer have to carry. Three key realizations have supported this evolution of trust; they are centered around making requests, the direction of meeting, and insight into the unmet.

Making requests is natural

There is a growing sense of ease in asking for help or making requests of people in my close circles. I notice myself inhabiting an aura of shameless self-acceptance as I am able to verbalize my needs without hesitation or overthinking. More and more, making and meeting requests are actions unencumbered by thinking or strategy. These movements in relationship to rest of the world start to feel as natural as breathing in and out.

For most of my earlier life, I would hold myself back from openly expressing needs. In the back of my mind, there was always a nagging worry: “What will people think of me if I ask for this? Does it make me look weak or incapable?” Instead, I am thinking to myself, “How this person responds to my request gives me information about them and where they are at” – and that is valuable feedback for me to see if we are on the same page or not.

I no longer see my needs as a burden to others. I can even take this one step further, and see my needs as a blessing. When you look from the other end of the scope, do you notice how we all love being needed? Most of us equate being needed by someone else with being useful or having purpose – it gives meaning to our lives. It is enlivening when we can support each other from genuine generosity, not self-abandoning or over-giving.

Earlier this year, I published a “Declaration of Interdependence” as homage to this realization.

Having needs is natural and human and honest. It is okay for me to have needs. It doesn’t make me a needy person. I am valuable and generative and contributing. Those who can and want to meet my needs will be blessed, not burdened. Whatever I need, also needs me. Needs are what connect us as human beings. There is no giving without receiving. The nature of life is interdependence.

If we look at human existence as a fabric woven from interdependence, then our needs are what connect us, as nodes in the web. If we didn’t need each other, there would be no substance to the threads that hold it all together.