The basic emotional needs
For those of you with an understanding of, or some education in, psychology, you may be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
This five-tiered model, depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid, lays out Abraham Maslow’s theory around what a human being needs to survive. These needs range from physiological needs like food, water and shelter, through to the need to express creativity and fulfil your human potential.
Read more at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760
This short blog focuses on the three core basic emotional needs of a human being.
The basic emotional needs of a human being are love, certainty and significance. These needs can be thought of as buckets.
If our three buckets are full, our needs are well met and we tend to operate from a place of contentment and clarity.
However, if one or more of our buckets is empty or only partially full, we can begin to adapt our behaviours in ways that we think will earn us more love, certainty or significance. These behaviours can range in severity from harmless to manipulative to extremely destructive.
When our need for love is not met, we can feel isolated and lonely.
When our need for certainty is not met, we can feel helpless and insecure.
When our need for significance is not met, we can feel worthless and small.
But on the other side of these feelings of lack and loneliness is the revelation of three important facts:
1) You ARE love.
You are love, covered in conditioning, experiences and stories. When you came into the world, all you wanted to do was love and be loved. Underneath all your layers and labels, you are love. No-one can give it to you or take it from you. Those who love you truly and without conditions are simply activating the inherent love that exists within you. Think about it - if you didn’t have love inside you, how would you recognise it and be moved by it?
Your love doesn’t exist in anyone else. Connecting to another human being through a loving relationship can simply awaken it. And if someone you love leaves your life, they don’t take your love with them. They recognise on some deeper level that there is a darker corner that needs their light and that you are ready for the next level of connection.
2) Life is uncertainty.
The degree to which you can accept this fact and embrace a mindset of trust in infinite possibility is the degree to which you will find peace. No-one knows what tomorrow will bring. What we do know is that to use your past pain to predict your future experience will have you in a constant state of resistance and fear. Embrace uncertainty as an opportunity for your greatest evolution and the universe will arrange itself to support you.
3) By virtue of the fact that you are here, reading this passage, you are significant.
You are a unique lense through which life can be understood. Life does not produce waste. You are an integral part of this world and you do yourself a disservice by playing ignorant to this universal truth.
Every second, billions of bits of information from your environment are received by you and decoded through the unique filters of your mind. This produces a rich map of life, seen and experienced only by you. And there can exist no other version of you with the same gift - a gift that world is patiently waiting for you to share.