Your emotions speak "needs"

Tip #3 Emotions tell you what you need; always look for the need!

This is a BIG one…. 

Emotions are messengers….actually, let’s call them generous friends.

Your emotions tell you exactly what you need, providing the opportunity to meet that need, IF you know what you’re looking at. 

Let me give you an example:

When you experience the emotion of judgment, specifically you perceive that you’re being judged, the emotion (as well as the accompanying feeling) is telling you that your NEED to feel understood, accepted, etc is not being met.

Another example: when you experience anger, your need to feel respected, safe, and seen might not be getting met.

When you feel sad, you might have a need to be held, affirmed, nurtured that requires attention.

These are just examples, of course, that I take from my own experience; yours might be different.

But the point is:

We all have needs; some our universal and some are unique, based on your life experience.

However, there is NO need that is invalid…..every need is worthy of being acknowledged and served…period.

The problem arises when we don’t look for the need, and instead focus on the emotion and the charge it carries. 

Many of us were raised in households that stunted our emotional awareness, which meant we could barely identify what feelings and emotions we were experiencing, much less what needs we had.  

It was even more unlikely that we had  the capacity and support to meet those needs in a healthy way.

As adults from emotionally unconscious families,  we often can’t be sure what we’re feeling, and tend to get wrapped up in the physical sensations of the feelings, and the story we’re telling ourselves about it, completing missing the most important part: asking ourselves “what do I need right now?”

Identifying the need behind the emotion is the 1st part; the 2nd part is releasing any blocks we have to feeling deserving of serving our needs fully.

For now, begin by naming your feelings & emotions as they present (“I’m feeling fear; it’s tight in my chest, my heart is racing and I feel nauseous”) and then, ask yourself “what do you need right now?”

Yes, I said “you”.

Speak to yourself as if you were talking to someone else, preferably as if you were talking to a young child.

Tending to yourself with this level of gentleness, from the consciously chosen vantage point of a loving parent, will make serving your need without restriction or judgment, easier.

Look for the need behind your emotions.

And remember that needs don’t go away; they WILL get met.

But without your conscious engagement, your needs are likely to be met in unhealthy ways that will only cause problems, usually resulting in shame, frustration and self abandonment. 

Your needs are worthy. Every. Single. One.

Love Stephanie