Better You Deep Dive - Issue 9

In the Better You Deep Dive, we take a closer look at one of the wellness topics we’ve highlighted in our Better You Digest. Discover, ponder, and enjoy!

“The more you say yes to experience, the more openness and presence of that ‘yes’ will be embodied in living cells and shape your entire life experience.” 

– Tara Brach

How much of your happiness depends on other people meeting your needs?

In this week's Deep Dive, I'll share my insights on the seven fundamental needs we all have. Most of us grew up with these needs unmet…

...and this creates patterns of neediness that follow us into adulthood.

The good news is that you don't need to keep leaving fulfilment of your needs up to others, or giving up on them entirely.

There's a third way—a powerful approach where you learn to meet your own needs and become truly self-sufficient.

When you master this skill, you'll transform from being needy to being self-contained, which is not only deeply fulfilling but also incredibly attractive.

Do more than just feel better today… 

…become the person you were always meant to be.

xx

Marisa

P.S. Check out the Deep Dive below, and feel free to enjoy my video on this topic here.

We all have fundamental needs that must be met for us to thrive. When you were a tiny baby, you had four core needs: to be loved, to feel connected, to feel significant, and to feel secure. These needs guaranteed your survival.

As you grew older, around the age of two or three, you developed three additional needs: to be seen and heard, to be celebrated, and to have at least one person who is proud of you. The problem is that, for about 95% of us, these needs weren't fully met in childhood. 

I've been teaching this in my classes for years, and when I ask who had all these needs met, hardly anyone raises their hand. When I ask who didn't have these needs met, almost every hand goes up.

This is why what I’m about to share with you is so important. When you understand this, you will not only feel so much happier, but happiness will become your natural state. You'll live a happy life and be a happy person by nature—and that's a wonderful thing to be.

When our needs aren't met, we typically respond in one of two ways. The first approach is to give up on our needs entirely. 

We say things like, "I've never had love—never. It's a foreign country. I don't even know what it is, and I'm never going to have it." Or "I've never felt significant. I've never been promoted, always had dead-end jobs, and that's just me. I'm one of those people who can't really make it."

I once met a driver taking me to a recording studio who, when asked who he was, replied, "I'm nobody. I'm nothing." He had given up every need to ever be more than that. 

This approach gives up on needs permanently, with an expectation that things will never work out.

The second approach is to give our needs away to others. We think, "I'm going to find a great person who's going to love me, adore me, make me feel safe, connected, significant, and loved." Or "I'll be really good at my job, and my boss will tell me I'm amazing and meet my need to feel connected and significant." Or "I'll have a baby who will love me and give me a new identity."

This approach can work temporarily. Someone says, "I'll do that job. I'll make you feel loved. I'll tell you I love you, show you I love you, celebrate you, and be proud of you." But what happens when that person gets sick, dies, or simply can't meet your needs anymore? You're right back to being needy.

I saw this happen to my mother when her second husband died. She had always given someone else the job of meeting her needs, and he did it very well. But when she became a widow, she didn't have the energy to find another person to meet her needs, and she led a very lonely life. It was terribly sad.

There is another way—a better way. Imagine how your life could change if you could meet these needs yourself. If you could feel significant, connected, safe, and secure. If you could feel celebrated, seen and heard, and praiseworthy.

As a child, it was someone else's job to make you feel safe, loved, connected, and significant. You were a dependent child. But as an independent adult, it is your job—and yours only—to meet these needs. And no one else can do it better.

When you meet your own needs, you become the opposite of needy. You become confident, self-assured, and self-contained. It's very fulfilling, and its very attractive.

Let's start with safety. Being safe doesn't just mean locking your doors, having an alarm, or wearing a seatbelt. It means feeling safe to walk through the world as yourself, sharing both your strengths and your weaknesses.

The basis of all friendship is sharing vulnerabilities. We choose people who share our vulnerabilities. If you don't feel safe to share yours, you'll either give your needs away or give them up.

Safety means knowing you can have an off day, look awful with a terrible cold, make a mistake, have a failure, and people will still love you. It means being able to show your weaknesses as well as your strengths. 

When you can meet your need to feel safe in the world by being yourself, your life will change in the most remarkable way.

What do you need to do to be loved? One thing and only one thing—and it's not surgery! 

The one thing you need to do to be loved is to believe you are worthy of love. That’s it!

Love is not something to be earned, chased, bought, or worked for. Nothing has to be snipped off or injected, and nothing has to be changed. You don't have to lose weight, gain weight, have a makeover, or even have a great salary to find love. You simply have to believe you're worthy of love.

You can't give this need to someone else. When someone says, "I love you because you're so funny or beautiful," they can just as easily say one day, "I don't love you because you're not funny anymore and you've lost your looks." If you give someone the job of making you feel loved, you also give them the ability to take that away anytime.

So do it yourself—DIY. Say to yourself, "I'm worthy of love. I'm deserving of love. I easily give love. I easily accept love." Even if you don't believe it at first, keep repeating it. The mind learns through repetition.

You might feel silly, angry, or tearful when you first try this, but keep doing it until it feels familiar. The mind loves what is familiar and comfortable. Make yourself know that you are worthy of love, deserving of love, and lovable just the way you are.

When you do this, you meet your own need for love. And when you know you're lovable, love will naturally come to you because we're drawn to people who believe they are worthy of love.

Connection is a choice. People often write to me saying, "I'm so lonely. I don't have any friends." I ask them, "What are you doing to have friends?" They seem surprised, as if friends should just appear. But if you want a friend, you need to be one.

When I moved to L.A. and lived on a canal, I'd go for walks and say, "I love your dog" or "Those flowers are gorgeous" or "Your child is so cute." In London, I’d do the same. My husband often asks, "How do you know all these people?" Because I talk to everyone!

Connection is a choice. If you're not choosing connection, you're choosing disconnection. Start by practicing with people who can't reject you—someone walking their dog, someone who looks nice. Compliment them, ask questions, show interest.

Join groups, both online and face-to-face. Go to your local hairdresser, spa, or pub. Join a babysitting circle or dog walking group. Find ways to participate in your community.

The need to be connected is one of the easiest to meet when you make a choice: "I'm going to talk to one person today, smile at one person, say something to one person." Then increase to two, and it gets easier and easier.

Meeting your need for significance is your job. You need to say, "I'm significant. I matter. I have something to offer the world."

The opposite of significance is that awful word: insignificant. 

Many of us were made to feel insignificant: "I was the fifth girl, the sixth boy, the eighth child. I didn't matter. Nobody cared about me. My dad left. I never did well at school. My brother was super smart and I wasn't." There are as many stories like this as their are people to tell them.

But there are many ways to feel significant. Say to yourself, "I may have come from a dysfunctional family,” and that's okay—most of us do. “But the universe created me, put me here on this planet, and gave me skills and gifts." 

Your job is to find those skills and gifts, become even better at them, and use them.

Start saying, "I matter. I'm worthy. I have something to offer the world. I am significant." 

I can't tell you how well this works. I have schools all over the world where children say these four things daily: "I'm significant. I matter. I'm enough. I'm worthy." The results are remarkable. These children do better academically, bullying decreases, and they're happier.

Many of us crave someone saying, "Well done today!" We have a praise muscle, and like all muscles, it will wither away if we don't use it.

Start celebrating yourself. Say, "Today I was amazing. Today I did something so well." Notice what you're good at. 

Every morning and especially every night, acknowledge what you did well: "Today I was really kind. Today I was so patient."

When my daughter came home from school, I would ask, "What did you do today that was great?" Sometimes she'd say, "I lent a boy all my crayons" or "I helped someone." 

Occasionally she'd say, "I didn't do anything," and I'd say, "I know you did," and help her think of something. I was building her praise muscle.

Do this for yourself every day. Ask, "What did I do today that was good, kind, or nice? What did I do that stretched me or made me grow?" 

To meet this need, you must learn to have a voice. If you say, "I can't speak up in meetings" or "I can't share my ideas with my boss" or "I can't ask that person out," remember what your grandmother probably said: "Practice makes perfect."

Practice in front of a mirror. Practice talking to yourself. 

If you normally stand in the corner at parties, practice handing out drinks instead. Do anything to get out of your comfort zone. The mind likes what is familiar, so if not being seen and heard is familiar, you must make it unfamiliar.

Join groups, find YouTube tutorials, do whatever it takes to learn to be seen and heard. You have a voice, and it's good to speak up and speak out.

The belief that nobody wants to listen to you isn't true. The belief that you're anonymous isn't true. What's true is that you have let that happen. 

I had two grandmothers; one was vivacious with many friends, always out and about; the other complained that no one visited her. But she never called to invite them. She waited for people to come to her, which is a mistake. You must go to them.

To have someone who is proud of you, that person may have to be you. Say, "I'm proud of myself." Or ask people, "What do you think of this?" I ask people all the time what they think of my books or my training sessions. 

I'm not saying, "Please tell me I'm okay, please praise me," but I am finding ways to get feedback.

I recently watched a Taylor Swift documentary where she talked about needing so much praise and how it hurt her. She had to take a year off to understand that the most important praise is the praise you give yourself. When she could say, "I'm good, I'm an amazing songwriter and performer," when she could learn to give herself what she needed, everything changed.

I promise you can do this. These things may not be easy, but they're not hard either. They just require a little practice and belief: "I can give myself praise. I can celebrate myself. I can be seen and heard. I'm safe. I'm loved. I'm significant. I am choosing connection everywhere I go."

Practice these seven things. You can start with just one or do all seven. The more you do them, the easier they become, until this isn't just what you do, it's who you are: a self-contained person that people gravitate toward because you're not needy.

We don't like neediness. We find it hard work because it makes us responsible for someone else's happiness. The word "responsibility" means "an ability to respond." When you're not needy, it's freeing, wonderful, and quietly reassuring.

Take a moment now to write down these seven needs and tick off the ones that don't need any work. Then highlight the ones that need the most attention, in order of importance. 

Start here, and watch your life transform.