Oh so much heartache, oh so much mental chaos is created for us while trying to negotiate getting our needs met in relationship. Erin when it comes to figuring this out I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, is something I have heard recently and as I type it out for the first time I hear it literally replete with a mental image and I’m kind of feeling disturbed, like who comes up with this material? One day I was walking along feeling so confused that when I saw this hole in the ground I thought to myself could this be…what!?
But yes I get it. You don’t know where to begin. What are you allowed to need, supposed to need in a relationship? Surely you aren’t supposed to be self sufficient to the point of needing nothing from your paramour or what is the freaking point of love at all. But oh the heavenly heavens forbid that you should come across as …NEEDY….ewww gag me with a spoon gross. Doesn’t it sometimes feel like it’s not even about love and more about how well you follow invisible rules and expectations? The self doubt alone can be exhausting.
Let me break it down for you with a cheerful spring garden metaphor. But first, a word from Creation. Bear with me it’s just a thirty second spot.
Spiritually/philosophically Higher Love (like you know the Universe, Holiness, Great Santa in the Sky, the All-ness within, blah blah) is like, Hey all y’all, I already gave you everything. The only reason you think you ‘need’ things at all, is because you got scared and divided into a gazillion different teams and now you can’t see straight and you’re fighting over scraps of nothing *face palm.
But while Big Santa is trying to help us stop fighting long enough to get back on the same team and enjoy the biz of having everything again, we’re busy trying to get up everyday and eat our toast and make some cash and fall in love with as little pain as possible.
The reason for this message is just that when it comes to needs and needing it’s helpful to remember that we’re not supposed to be in lack and let each other down, and that there’s some help going on behind the scenes to remedy this so we can take a breath, feel less pressure to do it perfectly, and stop fighting ourselves along the way.
We’re not inherently needy, or even needful. We’re not destined to feel desperate, or dissatisfied or disappointed. We’re meant to feel expansive, and generous, and generative.
If you know you’re on the road, it’s easier to take a step. And less conflict, less suffering, less pain helps Creation help us.
Now back to our cheery garden metaphors with Erin.
Chapter One. You are a lovely little plant.
Maybe you’re a rose, or a peony. Maybe a leafy green.
You need some things to be a healthy plant.
The things you need to grow and be healthy are your intrapersonal needs.
You need them from yourself. You are the keeper of the you plant.
They include first and foremost:
Nurturing, kindness, patience, attention, validation, encouragement, compassion, forgiveness, love, and self care.
If we don’t get these from ourselves we do not thrive. They are like sunlight.
Sometimes we arrive at adulthood pretty withered, stringy, undernourished and we have to learn to feed ourselves emotionally; how to be our own sunlight.
But the trick of it is, no one else can be our sun.
This doesn’t mean we don’t need our partners to validate us, or be kind to us or pay us attention.
But if we are not giving these things to ourselves no amount from anyone else will ever be enough to sustain us.
Chapter Two. Romantic relationship is like taking our plant and someone else’s plant and making a garden. Yay. Lucky for me it’s a metaphorical one and no one needs to have a green thumb to care for an emotional garden.
A garden is a fuller realization of being a plant although you can make gardens with other kinds of relationships too if romantic love is not your dandelion jam.
Often in our quest for love we get so caught up in problem solving that we forget why we’re doing it in the first place and what is has to offer us.
Most of us get into a relationship to experience some or all of the following:
Sharing: You know when good news happens the first thing we want to do is share the joy with those we care about. Common things we enjoy sharing in relationship include time, thoughts, beliefs, values, experiences, daily routines, successes.
Companionship: Someone to eat toast with! Meaningful time shared can include small exchanges, big dates, working in the same room, accompanying one another on outings, journeys, shared tasks of living.
Emotional support: We all need someone to hold our hand for that scary medical test. We support by building each other up, showing up for one another and providing in ways that are meaningful to both of us.
Support of each individual’s path: We are all on one and it can be so much more fun to share the journey. You can do it. That must be hard. How can I help? Encouragement, acceptance, compassion and caring for our partner’s path toward health and healing (not to be confused with therapizing or policing our partner).
Passion/Intimacy: Chemistry and attraction, physical connection, sexual passion, enthusiasm for life, emotional closeness, emotional sharing. Most of us want to feel some of these. At least on weekends, lol.
Championship of each other’s dreams/desires: We feel happy getting out the pom poms and cheering for one another.
Contribution: Here’s where the love languages come in. We feel generous and expansive when we invest resources into the relationship such as time, effort, money, skills, love. It feels good to give.
Collaboration: It’s like hockey but different. We team together to solve problems, to navigate through life, to share responsibility and resources, to create together whether that’s a family plan or a retirement lifestyle or vision for world peace.
Our interpersonal needs are those things we need from each other.
I don’t need a random stranger to eat toast with me for breakfast, but if I’ve signed up to have a relationship with you, if we’ve entered into an emotional contract of sorts by agreeing to date or shack up or marry, then I will have needs generated by our agreement including but not limited to the occasional slice of toast.
It’s painful to label ourselves NEEDY for needing things from our relationship that we would not need if we were alone. DUH.
You don’t need your partner to listen to you, make time for you, or understand your need for space to have a happy plant. But you may need those things to have a happy garden. It’s okay to need things from your co-gardener. It’s why you signed up.
Chapter Three. Last but not least our relationship itself has needs. Once we have grown a beautiful garden, weeded out the weeds, placed the plants perfectly, blah blah, we need to actually WATER THE GARDEN.
Needs of the relationship include:
Time and attention: DATE NIGHT! A great relationship won’t continue to thrive without dedicated romantic connection. You need to talk to each other as romantic others, not just as parents or roommates.
Protection: Pest control. Be lovingly cautious in decision making to avoid unnecessary strain on the relationship such as life stressors, distance, busy-ness, toxic people.
Nurturing: Patience, caring, gentleness, encouragement, forgiveness, compassion. Yes our garden needs to be talked to with love too.
Celebration: Garden parties are important. Anniversaries, symbolic gestures, commemoration. Honouring rewards your efforts and helps you focus on what you have created together rather than the weedy bits.
Shared vision: We need some goals, dreams, vision for us as couples. What do we aspire to together? What do we want our shared life to look like? What does our mature garden look like? Do we need more peonies, and the answer is always yes.
Healthy, honest and vulnerable communication: Think tools for tending the garden (this means emotionally honest not literally honest aka sharing from emotional truth NOT “hey you look fat in that dress or I am embarrassed of your ugly tie”…).
So quick recap:
We need things from ourselves: We all need to care for our selves and grow a happy inner plant. No one can be our inner sunshine for us. If we try to get this from someone else it never feels like enough and doesn’t work. I learn to give to myself.
We need things from each other: We get into a relationship in order to expand and feel greater fulfillment. Growing a relationship garden gives us so much but it also generates needs. We don’t have to have someone to eat toast with to have a happy plant but we do need a toast buddy to grow a happy garden. We learn to give to each other.
We need things for our garden: Once we have a happy garden we need to water it to keep it thriving. We learn to give to our relationship.
Understanding the origins and nature of needs is the first step to resolving our confusion and shame around needing things in the first place. If we understand the answering of needs as part of a choice we are making to live fully more realized lives (hello cheerful garden) and not the emotional Hunger Games for the weak of heart, it get’s a whole lot easier to see it clearly and serve it well.
Answering need as a choice to prosper, not a correction for a deficit within.
And so to bring it full circle, THAT my Friend is how you till your grass from a hole in the ground.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
In love and posies,
— Erin
P.S. If you have a friend or loved one who is struggling sometimes a few sessions of support can make all the difference. Reach out and we’ll find the solution that is right for them.
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