THE BIG REALISATION
I finally began private psychotherapy three months ago. This was the result of my having exhausted the creativity of the local NHS mental health services, who had sent me for three different types of therapy over the previous two years.
Three sessions ago, I came into the session with four bags. One handbag, one fabric bag bought in Turkey last year, one carrier bag with food in it and a fourth with my laptop. I always carry at least one bag with me, and this time my therapist raised an eyebrow. For the first fifteen minutes of the session, he began to explore the meaning of carrying so many bags around with me.
It embarrassed me to have to explore all of this in minute detail. In all honesty, I had made peace with being the eccentric bag lady a long time ago. And, more importantly, I had had one of the most shocking interactions with my mother in quite a while and needed clarity and a safe space to vent.
Bags? What have bags got to do with real life? Bags carry items, they are self explanatory.
I let him continue with the analysis, until there came a point where the discussion ended. I then mentioned my mother and what had occurred. And we switched tracks and I was able to explore my deep hurt and anger. The session finished shortly after.
I mentioned this to him the following week, about how it didn’t even occur to me to interrupt and change the topic. I had really wanted to talk about what was important to me, yet I felt he had led the session elsewhere. He asked me how it made me feel. I said I just assumed he knew what he was doing and that there was some reason behind it.
My therapist became very flustered. I wouldn’t credit myself with a high sense of empathy these days, but I could see he was taken aback and even a bit remorseful. I know that feeling all too well. I briefly imagined a huge thought bubble above his head with the words, “I’ve screwed up!” written inside it. He then said, “Well, from what you’re saying, your needs weren’t met. You sensed somehow you were deficient, which allowed your needs to not be met.”
Now, me being fortunate enough to have spare time to explore various knowledge and pathways, I have come across the psychological theories about human needs. Abraham Maslow and the hierarchy of needs pyramid is most famous. Sadly, because I have relied a lot more upon my mental faculties and somehow distanced my real life from anything remotely human or social, it never occurs to me to realise I have a right to have my needs met.
This realisation hit me in such a way, it took my breath away. Literally, I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.
In my most recent therapy session, I went prepared to explore this further.
Yet, that is not the case with others. My fellow colleagues, my current or former friends, certain gurus I’ve had contact with, regular people I observe in customer queues, on television or randomly on social media. They know what their needs are, feel very sure about having those needs met and endure they make it happen.
So what happens when you have to re-educate yourself about a theory that was not very well embedded in the first instant?
Exploring this simple idea about various human needs, whether they are met or not and I had the stark realisation that when these needs are not met, they can be the root cause of most of our deep rooted issues.
Here are a few cursory questions I came up with to start us off:
1) What does it mean to have our needs met?
With every event, and most days it seemed we were in a film whereby there was always drama and despair up until I left Pakistan, the underlying assumption was “we are bad, we are cursed, that’s life, give more money to charity and to widows, get rid of all of our cursed jewellery, you don’t deserve a happy life, this is what we’re good for, you don’t understand our life, how can you expect anything other than what we know, everyone has problems...” ad infinitum.
As an example, there was a point in my life when would have to put up with badly stitched clothes because the seamstress was poor and needed to earn money, even though I looked very shabby and could afford better stitching.
I attempted suicide at age 10 when I was studying at primary school in Karachi. I was only stopped by a teacher at the very last moment. Normally, once informed, any concerned parent would ensure I had some psychotherapy or counselling to help me cope with the despair that urged me to want to jump out of a window.
However, the head teacher of the school at the time effectively told my mother that I was young and impulsive, "kids do these things" and that I didn't need counselling. What is interesting to note is, my mother agreed and this was never spoken of again. The event and the circumstances that led to it were ignored and all I felt was embarrassment and shame.
What really stands out with this memory is that there was one extended family member who taught in the same school that I studied. She couldn't ignore it as she was more interested in how my actions would impact her reputation as a teacher in the school. With the best of intentions, I am sure, she made sure she vocalised her disappointment and even her condemnation that I was so melodramatic and attention seeking, that I didn't think of how my actions would affect her and the rest of the family.
"Make sure you don't pull a stunt like this ever again."
In addition, I saw that my needs for a social life between ages 11 - 15 were curtailed because my mother was going through an intensely volatile period in her life due to a second marriage and divorce. Because she was unable to face meeting people, she also wished to "protect" or "hide" me in the house, so I had to decline birthday party invites, tea invites, hang-out invites, even weddings, and stay almost entirely away from all classmates except when at school.
The invitations soon trickled out, I was forgotten and didn't have any friends to go back to after my mother lifted my "social ban" at age 16. By then, I had learned so well the art of not asking or not expecting my social needs to be met, that the roles reversed. My mother would encourage me to go to a school event, or to a friends house and I was the one who felt dull inside and refused.The dysthymia had set in very deeply by then.
My schooling, although of a very excellent standard as I was able to go to private school, again had a lot of lacks and us students had to make do with appalling, cramped classroom conditions without adequate windows, three or four maths teachers in three years and regular strikes that affected our schooling progress.
Also, in my case, I have such empathy with people, that when growing up in a developing country whereby the children and grown men are begging on the streets with various body parts missing and dirty clothing, I perhaps felt an intense guilt for my good fortune. I couldn't (and still can not) accept the drastic inequality prevalent in almost every country, but very visible in a place like Karachi.
I took all this inside me to such a degree that everything beyond that has been coloured with this belief of minimising my needs and not even expecting those minimum needs to be met.
The extent of the impact of these limiting beliefs have been that up until a few months ago, I was entirely impressed by a person who claimed to be a spiritual teacher, awakening us all to the truth of who we were. Yet, under all the hyperbole and "I love yous", she had clearly begun to enjoy the glory of having devoted followers, charging and being paid a lot of money for services (that other healers would have a reasonable charge for) in order to travel business class “because we can”. She also began aggressively marketing spirituality and graceful living as a commodity and had very recently begun to behave rudely to people on-stage in public.
In essence, she had begun creating a cult and my entire system was rejecting it, to the point of falling physically ill and paranoid. Yet, due to my faulty reasoning system, I still held on because I had known her for so long as a friend. And, at the time, I was quite vulnerable and felt I had no other options on the pathway to salvation.
But I can do something now and my hope is that as a result of this blog post, you're inspired to think about how the experience of your life can be improved by taking stock of your needs and whether they are being met.
Seeing if your needs are being met is a simple exercise, in theory at least.
Once you have defined and identified all of your needs as a human being, you then go through the list or diagramme and ask yourself the following:
“Are my health needs being met?"
"Are my monetary needs being met?"
"Are my basic food and water needs being met?"
"Are my self expression needs being met?" and so on.
Your answer will usually be a simple yes or no. If yes, then you go further into details such as
- somewhat
- mostly
- rarely
And if there are areas in which they aren't being met, you note down the missing pieces as to how could they be met.
Continue with this exercise until all the areas of your life have been answered.
It is key at this time to be very kind to yourself during this exercise. I will make the bold claim that because you are living on this chaotic planet, when there are seven billion individuals with their unique agendas, although you may have really done well in ensuring your life works well, there may be one or two areas that you will find that your needs are not being met. This is the gift of being human.
We can go back to the idea of neutrality and of acceptance that we will not have all of our needs met immediately. It may take some changes or some actions steps.
If we had immediate gratification for all of our needs, I doubt our personalities, characters and souls would grow into more and expand into more wisdom and patience. In fact, it is a well known Irish curse when someone says: May you get exactly what you wish!
And so, when answering these questions, go in with the curiosity and indifference a social scientist is expected to go into any research.
You are your test subject. It is a social experiment.
3) ACCEPTANCE OF THAT WHICH IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL
The next thing to accept is that some of these needs cannot be met now. On a very real, literal and physical level, they just cannot be met. Ideally, they will be met as soon as it's possible and the Universe brings you in tune with the results, but as of now they aren't being met. By accepting this, you have the blissful opportunity of going deep into a peaceful acceptance and not come up with decisions such as
a) that you shouldn’t have these needs at all and
b) that somehow you’re being unreasonable for feeling frustrated, dejected, stressed, irritated or upset that they aren’t being met
I'll share a very personal example with you to illustrate what I mean.
One of my core needs as a woman are my sexual and romantic needs. Now for me to admit this, to accept it and to write it publicly with my real name signed underneath is something I find very surprising that I am able to do so as a result of my traditional, conservative Muslim upbringing. For me, it is a risk that I am now willing to take.
However, what has been far more damaging to my psyche than the fear of my mother or aunt reading this post is the fact that I have denied this real acceptance to myself for a long time. I accepted it a while ago when I had fallen in love with someone and had all the urges. The relationship didn't work out, and any subsequent attempts with other men have also not worked out, to the point I have always been rejected or been forbidden to express my needs due to the situation I found myself in, the role of the "other woman" as such.
And then, I used to wonder why I felt unattractive, unlovable and depressed, why I felt irritable at family weddings and couldn’t keep any previous romantic interest out of mind for too long, hanging onto them for such long periods of time that it became insulting to my soul’s innate free nature and annoyed them to the point they had to become pointedly rude in order to get rid of me!
I have signed onto online dating/marriage websites specifically for Muslims, and after six years of doing this off and on and creating a whole lot of drama as well, I’ve decided this is really and truly not the route for me. I have accepted this. I will comment more about my experiences online in a separate article.
I have also accepted that because I am a unique sort of a Muslim woman, the sort who is also a shaman, who believes in star-seeds and alternate realities and in substance over form, and who is not meant to be birthing and raising children, I may have to wait a while until the time is right and I find a compatible person to have my first relationship with.
Yet, physically, and for the healthy balance of my mental health and emotional well-being, I need regular sex, kisses, cuddles and canoodling, just like most adults human beings do.
I will be the first to acknowledge just how grateful I am that I have been safe from forced assault, rape or abuse and that I have also resisted temptation to sleep with a random handsome Turkish/Cypriot/Greek stranger I met on holiday just because he was able to quote Shams Tabrizi and had gleaming eyes and white glinting teeth!
Meeting my sexual needs through casually finding someone off the street (I don't do pubs or clubs) or any of those 21 or 25 year old desi boys looking for casual sex on a dating app will entirely ensure that my soul and emotional needs are not met. Any casual dating would, in fact, jeopardise a lot of my other core needs (and values). I couldn't survive a rushed, loveless liaison such as that.
So, in this case, having gone through all the stages of grief and frustration, my really liberating option is to accept the circumstances just as they currently are.
There are other areas whereby your needs may not be met in the immediate future. This could include your financial security after the EU referendum result, your needs for solitude when living in a busy urban city, or your need for a holiday when the earliest available days to book off from work are three months from now.
In these cases, you train yourself to become innovative with whichever needs you can meet by yourself as best as you can. This might mean a shorter holiday, locally. You then have the option to move onto those aspects of your list whereby the needs are much easier to meet.
The next step is to discover discover how you will meet your needs.
For example, when looking at your need for fun and leisure, you can become very expansive in what you define as fun and see how those fun needs can be met.
For me, it’s fun to go to the park and say hello to the ducks. It’s also fun for me to listen to music, write rants on my blog, read, dance, speak to friends on the phone, drinking a well made cup of earl grey tea, learn about spiritual ideas, attend courses, and even go out for a hot chocolate every once in a while.
Most of these above fun needs are easily met and the how is quite accessible too.
I find that having a simple list of how to meet the needs allows for them to be met regularly, and the list can include more complex things such as a holiday or a retirement plan all sorted out. You will be able to meet those needs too, but they require more planning and serendipity.
Ideally, you would make a separate list on a clean page detailing how you would ideally have all of your needs met.
This one is more of a personal inventory of your life. For the most part, most of your needs are effectively met by yourself. You are the centre and the key to your own happiness.
Even when at times you may feel someone else, such as a parent, romantic partner, employer, client, government body, electricity company, plumber, masseuse, alternate practitioner, social media or other person is fulfilling your need – it is you who is ensuring that you make your needs understood and take the steps to ensure they are met.
Now, look at your lists and see the needs that can be met and ask yourself how many are you able to make happen for yourself.
For the ones that others will have to fill a need, you can ask: are they meeting my needs?
It can be a demanding exercise. It feels as though you strip yourself of a lot of defenses, excuses and justifications. You suddenly really simplify your life. It can’t happen when your emotions are still deeply intertwined with the people or situations in question. People may tell you, and your logical mind may also tell you time and again, however this is when the emotional attachments can confused and complicate matters.
That’s when no logic in the world can extricate you form the attachment you have formed, from the expectations, from the inordinate desires and hopes that somehow things will change.
It feels my entire auric field is adjusting to the new shift: I have needs, and they are all valid. I am able to have these needs met, with divine and human help. I now own the needs. I no longer apologise for needing space to walk on the pavement, nor apologise for my need to move to a different city as soon as I am financially able to.
If I take today as an example, I had a list of needs that needed to be met.
I was half way through my yoga practice when my mobile phone rang. It was my nine year old niece, asking for me to meet her for a coffee as she was bored at her nanny’s house.
I changed my plans to fit her needs in, even though I really didn't want to. So I ended up observing my own habit of putting someone else's needs before mine, and justifying it.
What changed was that I kept asking myself, are my needs being met?
The answer was firstly yes for the first hour, as I was waiting beside the babbling river in the beautifully manicured park for her phone call to let me know when she was being dropped. As the day continued and my wait became two and a half hours, the answer then became a no.
I went back home and spoke to her on the phone, letting her know that we would have to postpone and I was sorry that she was disappointed.
On a final note, I wanted to add that currently I have a belief that we can only realistically turn to God for all our needs to be met. We are the Ones through whom God will help us, because we truly are that powerful as creatures of God (the Universe, All That IS...)
Every person is also a soul and vessel, the agent of God for their own and perhaps some of your needs to be met. I realised that quickly when I tried to heal myself of chest infections and sinus infections this year. You sometimes have to go to someone trained in holistic medicine for guidance. I ended up going to a homeopath after two years of not having much effect and antibiotics not working (which I knew they wouldn't anyway!).
But please, do not make people, experiences or events your Sources. It can be easy, from one perspective, to feel that because they seem to fulfill very deep core needs, that they are the ones with the power to give and withdraw. What will inevitably happen is that, as life goes, they will leave your orbit in some way, and then you may fall into confusion and grief.
I am witnessing many partnerships and marriages stopping after 11 years, even 16 years of partnership and usually with children and pets and mortgages involved. Everything and everyone will leave. Coutnries are literally breaking into fragments, including jolly olde United Kingdom.
Nothing remains forever, even though we wish it were so.
I finally began private psychotherapy three months ago. This was the result of my having exhausted the creativity of the local NHS mental health services, who had sent me for three different types of therapy over the previous two years.
The sessions have only recently started to positively impact
my life and my making actual progress. The first few sessions were more about
my venting about everything that was going on in my life that seemed chaotic
and uncontrollable. In addition, I have a tendency to only have very few
friends at any one time, so I needed the regularity of a weekly meeting with
someone.
Slowly, with the help of reflecting back to me what I say
and putting it in an overview position, I finally feel I have gotten somewhere.
In the last two sessions, my therapist made me realise I was giving control
away to him rather than owning my session and my time for healing. I began
noticing all the thoughts that told me I needed to be the “perfect” client, a
somewhat glamourised version of myself fit for one of those self deprecating,
flippant films film makers make about psychotherapy.
I was playing a role. There was a part of me that had taken
on the role of an intellectual discussing ideas and theories of personality in
the room, that somehow I made myself not even good enough to receive proper
counselling, whereby my true emotional needs (irrespective of how childish or
outrageous) were explored and my deep need to be seen and heard was met fully.
Three sessions ago, I came into the session with four bags. One handbag, one fabric bag bought in Turkey last year, one carrier bag with food in it and a fourth with my laptop. I always carry at least one bag with me, and this time my therapist raised an eyebrow. For the first fifteen minutes of the session, he began to explore the meaning of carrying so many bags around with me.
It embarrassed me to have to explore all of this in minute detail. In all honesty, I had made peace with being the eccentric bag lady a long time ago. And, more importantly, I had had one of the most shocking interactions with my mother in quite a while and needed clarity and a safe space to vent.
Bags? What have bags got to do with real life? Bags carry items, they are self explanatory.
I let him continue with the analysis, until there came a point where the discussion ended. I then mentioned my mother and what had occurred. And we switched tracks and I was able to explore my deep hurt and anger. The session finished shortly after.
I mentioned this to him the following week, about how it didn’t even occur to me to interrupt and change the topic. I had really wanted to talk about what was important to me, yet I felt he had led the session elsewhere. He asked me how it made me feel. I said I just assumed he knew what he was doing and that there was some reason behind it.
My therapist became very flustered. I wouldn’t credit myself with a high sense of empathy these days, but I could see he was taken aback and even a bit remorseful. I know that feeling all too well. I briefly imagined a huge thought bubble above his head with the words, “I’ve screwed up!” written inside it. He then said, “Well, from what you’re saying, your needs weren’t met. You sensed somehow you were deficient, which allowed your needs to not be met.”
Now, me being fortunate enough to have spare time to explore various knowledge and pathways, I have come across the psychological theories about human needs. Abraham Maslow and the hierarchy of needs pyramid is most famous. Sadly, because I have relied a lot more upon my mental faculties and somehow distanced my real life from anything remotely human or social, it never occurs to me to realise I have a right to have my needs met.
This realisation hit me in such a way, it took my breath away. Literally, I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.
In my most recent therapy session, I went prepared to explore this further.
He reiterated himself, “You didn’t have your needs met. I am
sure you were able to cope afterwards by talking to a friend and by writing in
your journal – yet the fact remains your needs weren’t met in the actual
session.”
And then I confessed: “Yes, I have become so used to my
needs not being met when I had begged and fought for them that I now just
assume that’s all I deserve, in a very fatalistic sort of way. In all honesty,
it hasn’t even occurred to me THAT my needs are valid or that they ought to be
met. I still haven’t taken actions to ask people or organisations for the
support I need. I’m expecting a rejection every time.”
Yet, that is not the case with others. My fellow colleagues, my current or former friends, certain gurus I’ve had contact with, regular people I observe in customer queues, on television or randomly on social media. They know what their needs are, feel very sure about having those needs met and endure they make it happen.
So what happens when you have to re-educate yourself about a theory that was not very well embedded in the first instant?
Exploring this simple idea about various human needs, whether they are met or not and I had the stark realisation that when these needs are not met, they can be the root cause of most of our deep rooted issues.
Here are a few cursory questions I came up with to start us off:
1) What does it mean to have our needs met?
2) What are the different arenas of need?
3) What can we do to take care of ourselves (just as a
lioness would her cubs) to ensure that we’ve done everything possible as a
person to take care of our own needs?
This last question is, of course, after taking into account that the world is not set up in a way to ensure any one person has all their needs met. We will be regularly disappointed and even screwed over a few times. Yet, the idea is that we need to cultivate a base-line acknowledgement that we all have various needs that ideally can be met.
This last question is, of course, after taking into account that the world is not set up in a way to ensure any one person has all their needs met. We will be regularly disappointed and even screwed over a few times. Yet, the idea is that we need to cultivate a base-line acknowledgement that we all have various needs that ideally can be met.
We all are sentient beings having real needs.
1) WHAT ARE YOUR NEEDS?
The first step is to put down in clear large writing all of
your needs as a human and spiritual being.
I made a mind map of all my needs, so I could have a
holistic view (and it was meeting my needs for creativity and order).
The categories are many:
physical, sexual, health, mental, exercise,
learning, monetary, career, volunteering,
friendship, romance, travel, living space,
nature, leisure, social networking, inner peace,
fun, family, environment, communication,
real intelligent and healing conversations,
support, spiritual, healing, interests,
creativity, me-time, writing and publishing,
recognition, kindness and friendliness,
respect, graceful living, safety, anonymity,
lots of physical space, authentic self expression,
silliness, solitude
learning, monetary, career, volunteering,
friendship, romance, travel, living space,
nature, leisure, social networking, inner peace,
fun, family, environment, communication,
real intelligent and healing conversations,
support, spiritual, healing, interests,
creativity, me-time, writing and publishing,
recognition, kindness and friendliness,
respect, graceful living, safety, anonymity,
lots of physical space, authentic self expression,
silliness, solitude
As you can imagine, this is hardly an exhaustive list. Your list will also have similar and also more detailed needs.
Putting all of your needs in graphic form really hits home and makes it easier to see the connections. You really acknowledge how many needs you have and how many you know aren't being met.
I then asked myself what had happened for me to make a few crippling decisions that are currently running the way my life is being played out. How could I not realise what my needs were and even when I was acutely aware of what my needs were, why did I somehow feel that I didn’t deserve to have them met?
I then asked myself what had happened for me to make a few crippling decisions that are currently running the way my life is being played out. How could I not realise what my needs were and even when I was acutely aware of what my needs were, why did I somehow feel that I didn’t deserve to have them met?
The reasons for my way of thinking have been primarily due
to the way I have been brought up and the beliefs I made about myself and life
as a result of my experiences. I feel a lot of my needs as a child were neglected, either out of choice or due to emotional upheaval in the family due to deaths and mishaps.
My family have a unique take on life, not shared by most people I know from the same faith and culture. It is a fatalistic point of view, seeded in their traditional views about Islamic religion, the Quran and the associated legal laws created.
In addition to this, because they haven’t yet figured out the divine laws of manifestation, intention and grace (amongst the others), they seem to continually deal with drama in their daily lives. Things breaking down, traders behaving rudely with them and, most recently, my mother got mugged outside the house and the monies allocated for the charity school she runs were taken along with her own money.
My family have a unique take on life, not shared by most people I know from the same faith and culture. It is a fatalistic point of view, seeded in their traditional views about Islamic religion, the Quran and the associated legal laws created.
In addition to this, because they haven’t yet figured out the divine laws of manifestation, intention and grace (amongst the others), they seem to continually deal with drama in their daily lives. Things breaking down, traders behaving rudely with them and, most recently, my mother got mugged outside the house and the monies allocated for the charity school she runs were taken along with her own money.
With every event, and most days it seemed we were in a film whereby there was always drama and despair up until I left Pakistan, the underlying assumption was “we are bad, we are cursed, that’s life, give more money to charity and to widows, get rid of all of our cursed jewellery, you don’t deserve a happy life, this is what we’re good for, you don’t understand our life, how can you expect anything other than what we know, everyone has problems...” ad infinitum.
As an example, there was a point in my life when would have to put up with badly stitched clothes because the seamstress was poor and needed to earn money, even though I looked very shabby and could afford better stitching.
I attempted suicide at age 10 when I was studying at primary school in Karachi. I was only stopped by a teacher at the very last moment. Normally, once informed, any concerned parent would ensure I had some psychotherapy or counselling to help me cope with the despair that urged me to want to jump out of a window.
However, the head teacher of the school at the time effectively told my mother that I was young and impulsive, "kids do these things" and that I didn't need counselling. What is interesting to note is, my mother agreed and this was never spoken of again. The event and the circumstances that led to it were ignored and all I felt was embarrassment and shame.
What really stands out with this memory is that there was one extended family member who taught in the same school that I studied. She couldn't ignore it as she was more interested in how my actions would impact her reputation as a teacher in the school. With the best of intentions, I am sure, she made sure she vocalised her disappointment and even her condemnation that I was so melodramatic and attention seeking, that I didn't think of how my actions would affect her and the rest of the family.
"Make sure you don't pull a stunt like this ever again."
In addition, I saw that my needs for a social life between ages 11 - 15 were curtailed because my mother was going through an intensely volatile period in her life due to a second marriage and divorce. Because she was unable to face meeting people, she also wished to "protect" or "hide" me in the house, so I had to decline birthday party invites, tea invites, hang-out invites, even weddings, and stay almost entirely away from all classmates except when at school.
The invitations soon trickled out, I was forgotten and didn't have any friends to go back to after my mother lifted my "social ban" at age 16. By then, I had learned so well the art of not asking or not expecting my social needs to be met, that the roles reversed. My mother would encourage me to go to a school event, or to a friends house and I was the one who felt dull inside and refused.The dysthymia had set in very deeply by then.
My schooling, although of a very excellent standard as I was able to go to private school, again had a lot of lacks and us students had to make do with appalling, cramped classroom conditions without adequate windows, three or four maths teachers in three years and regular strikes that affected our schooling progress.
Also, in my case, I have such empathy with people, that when growing up in a developing country whereby the children and grown men are begging on the streets with various body parts missing and dirty clothing, I perhaps felt an intense guilt for my good fortune. I couldn't (and still can not) accept the drastic inequality prevalent in almost every country, but very visible in a place like Karachi.
I took all this inside me to such a degree that everything beyond that has been coloured with this belief of minimising my needs and not even expecting those minimum needs to be met.
The extent of the impact of these limiting beliefs have been that up until a few months ago, I was entirely impressed by a person who claimed to be a spiritual teacher, awakening us all to the truth of who we were. Yet, under all the hyperbole and "I love yous", she had clearly begun to enjoy the glory of having devoted followers, charging and being paid a lot of money for services (that other healers would have a reasonable charge for) in order to travel business class “because we can”. She also began aggressively marketing spirituality and graceful living as a commodity and had very recently begun to behave rudely to people on-stage in public.
In essence, she had begun creating a cult and my entire system was rejecting it, to the point of falling physically ill and paranoid. Yet, due to my faulty reasoning system, I still held on because I had known her for so long as a friend. And, at the time, I was quite vulnerable and felt I had no other options on the pathway to salvation.
There were many signs that this was not the right environment for me
to flourish, yet I continued and I trusted that, again, she knew something I
didn’t and that if I was feeling uncomfortable, physically ill and drained, it was more my deficiency and lack of spiritual
insight than it was her modus operandi.
It had to take the accounts of eleven other individuals about this person for me to finally realise that I was excusing behaviour that would never be tolerated had it been someone I didn't love so much.
I feel I had to experience this great betrayal of trust to slowly come to the point of understanding my needs.
Yet, this again, was highlighted to me in the last week.
It had to take the accounts of eleven other individuals about this person for me to finally realise that I was excusing behaviour that would never be tolerated had it been someone I didn't love so much.
I feel I had to experience this great betrayal of trust to slowly come to the point of understanding my needs.
Yet, this again, was highlighted to me in the last week.
And so, after my counsellor's guidance as to what one of my major blind spots has been, I have taken a decision to truly take . As much as I would like, I
don’t get my six years back, the last thirty-two years back whereby I allowed people to walk over me, or to speak to me in a tone that I felt was disrespectful, and to make me feel that somehow not getting my needs met was a good thing.
I just can’t. I can’t delete the pain. I can't undo the mistakes, the fear and the hesitation.
I just can’t. I can’t delete the pain. I can't undo the mistakes, the fear and the hesitation.
But I can do something now and my hope is that as a result of this blog post, you're inspired to think about how the experience of your life can be improved by taking stock of your needs and whether they are being met.
2) HAVING YOUR NEEDS MET
Seeing if your needs are being met is a simple exercise, in theory at least.
Once you have defined and identified all of your needs as a human being, you then go through the list or diagramme and ask yourself the following:
“Are my health needs being met?"
"Are my monetary needs being met?"
"Are my basic food and water needs being met?"
"Are my self expression needs being met?" and so on.
Your answer will usually be a simple yes or no. If yes, then you go further into details such as
- somewhat
- mostly
- rarely
And if there are areas in which they aren't being met, you note down the missing pieces as to how could they be met.
Continue with this exercise until all the areas of your life have been answered.
It is key at this time to be very kind to yourself during this exercise. I will make the bold claim that because you are living on this chaotic planet, when there are seven billion individuals with their unique agendas, although you may have really done well in ensuring your life works well, there may be one or two areas that you will find that your needs are not being met. This is the gift of being human.
We can go back to the idea of neutrality and of acceptance that we will not have all of our needs met immediately. It may take some changes or some actions steps.
If we had immediate gratification for all of our needs, I doubt our personalities, characters and souls would grow into more and expand into more wisdom and patience. In fact, it is a well known Irish curse when someone says: May you get exactly what you wish!
And so, when answering these questions, go in with the curiosity and indifference a social scientist is expected to go into any research.
You are your test subject. It is a social experiment.
3) ACCEPTANCE OF THAT WHICH IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL
The next thing to accept is that some of these needs cannot be met now. On a very real, literal and physical level, they just cannot be met. Ideally, they will be met as soon as it's possible and the Universe brings you in tune with the results, but as of now they aren't being met. By accepting this, you have the blissful opportunity of going deep into a peaceful acceptance and not come up with decisions such as
a) that you shouldn’t have these needs at all and
b) that somehow you’re being unreasonable for feeling frustrated, dejected, stressed, irritated or upset that they aren’t being met
I'll share a very personal example with you to illustrate what I mean.
One of my core needs as a woman are my sexual and romantic needs. Now for me to admit this, to accept it and to write it publicly with my real name signed underneath is something I find very surprising that I am able to do so as a result of my traditional, conservative Muslim upbringing. For me, it is a risk that I am now willing to take.
However, what has been far more damaging to my psyche than the fear of my mother or aunt reading this post is the fact that I have denied this real acceptance to myself for a long time. I accepted it a while ago when I had fallen in love with someone and had all the urges. The relationship didn't work out, and any subsequent attempts with other men have also not worked out, to the point I have always been rejected or been forbidden to express my needs due to the situation I found myself in, the role of the "other woman" as such.
And then, I used to wonder why I felt unattractive, unlovable and depressed, why I felt irritable at family weddings and couldn’t keep any previous romantic interest out of mind for too long, hanging onto them for such long periods of time that it became insulting to my soul’s innate free nature and annoyed them to the point they had to become pointedly rude in order to get rid of me!
I have signed onto online dating/marriage websites specifically for Muslims, and after six years of doing this off and on and creating a whole lot of drama as well, I’ve decided this is really and truly not the route for me. I have accepted this. I will comment more about my experiences online in a separate article.
I have also accepted that because I am a unique sort of a Muslim woman, the sort who is also a shaman, who believes in star-seeds and alternate realities and in substance over form, and who is not meant to be birthing and raising children, I may have to wait a while until the time is right and I find a compatible person to have my first relationship with.
Yet, physically, and for the healthy balance of my mental health and emotional well-being, I need regular sex, kisses, cuddles and canoodling, just like most adults human beings do.
I will be the first to acknowledge just how grateful I am that I have been safe from forced assault, rape or abuse and that I have also resisted temptation to sleep with a random handsome Turkish/Cypriot/Greek stranger I met on holiday just because he was able to quote Shams Tabrizi and had gleaming eyes and white glinting teeth!
Meeting my sexual needs through casually finding someone off the street (I don't do pubs or clubs) or any of those 21 or 25 year old desi boys looking for casual sex on a dating app will entirely ensure that my soul and emotional needs are not met. Any casual dating would, in fact, jeopardise a lot of my other core needs (and values). I couldn't survive a rushed, loveless liaison such as that.
So, in this case, having gone through all the stages of grief and frustration, my really liberating option is to accept the circumstances just as they currently are.
There are other areas whereby your needs may not be met in the immediate future. This could include your financial security after the EU referendum result, your needs for solitude when living in a busy urban city, or your need for a holiday when the earliest available days to book off from work are three months from now.
In these cases, you train yourself to become innovative with whichever needs you can meet by yourself as best as you can. This might mean a shorter holiday, locally. You then have the option to move onto those aspects of your list whereby the needs are much easier to meet.
4) HOW TO MEET YOUR NEEDS
The next step is to discover discover how you will meet your needs.
For example, when looking at your need for fun and leisure, you can become very expansive in what you define as fun and see how those fun needs can be met.
For me, it’s fun to go to the park and say hello to the ducks. It’s also fun for me to listen to music, write rants on my blog, read, dance, speak to friends on the phone, drinking a well made cup of earl grey tea, learn about spiritual ideas, attend courses, and even go out for a hot chocolate every once in a while.
Most of these above fun needs are easily met and the how is quite accessible too.
I find that having a simple list of how to meet the needs allows for them to be met regularly, and the list can include more complex things such as a holiday or a retirement plan all sorted out. You will be able to meet those needs too, but they require more planning and serendipity.
Ideally, you would make a separate list on a clean page detailing how you would ideally have all of your needs met.
5) WHO GETS TO MEET YOUR NEEDS?
This one is more of a personal inventory of your life. For the most part, most of your needs are effectively met by yourself. You are the centre and the key to your own happiness.
Even when at times you may feel someone else, such as a parent, romantic partner, employer, client, government body, electricity company, plumber, masseuse, alternate practitioner, social media or other person is fulfilling your need – it is you who is ensuring that you make your needs understood and take the steps to ensure they are met.
Now, look at your lists and see the needs that can be met and ask yourself how many are you able to make happen for yourself.
For the ones that others will have to fill a need, you can ask: are they meeting my needs?
In certain areas, there will be a yes, such as in the case of your doctor, for example. If the answer is a no, you may consider taking steps to either ensure the doctor or GP surgery is made aware how to meet your needs, or you might have to change your GP practice to see if the new place can meet your needs.
In my personal experiment, when I asked about people who were my friends perhaps a year ago, six
months ago, three months ago and even a month ago, and asked: are they
fulfilling my needs for friendship? – most of the time, the answer from my heart was a blunt “No”.
I then did all of those souls justice and asked the
opposite: am I meeting their needs? The answer was again a very, very blunt “No!”.
I asked the question with respect to ex friends, certain cousins and other relatives, people I had been in love with - including someone I have been unable to let go of for six long arduous years. “Am I filling any needs of theirs by communicating with them, attempting reconciliation and remaining in touch?”
Again, the answer from my heart was a No.
Again, the answer from my heart was a No.
It can be a demanding exercise. It feels as though you strip yourself of a lot of defenses, excuses and justifications. You suddenly really simplify your life. It can’t happen when your emotions are still deeply intertwined with the people or situations in question. People may tell you, and your logical mind may also tell you time and again, however this is when the emotional attachments can confused and complicate matters.
That’s when no logic in the world can extricate you form the attachment you have formed, from the expectations, from the inordinate desires and hopes that somehow things will change.
If my needs aren’t being met, and neither are theirs, the relationship has entered a
new phase and I can retrieve my energy and essence from them, send back their energy and soul fragments and let them go
with love, praying that their needs are met by other people who are the
perfect complement to them.
As you will begin to notice, even when it comes to the
relationship needs, which are mostly reliant on another human or animal, you
are always the centre-piece – you are always the one ensuring your needs are
being met as much as possible.
6) FLEXIBILITY
Since the unfolding of this deep exploration into my needs, I feel very liberated.
My life is pretty much the same, and I am aware of a lot of issues that may not be able to be resolved just by this exercise, but this shift in my perspective is guiding me to make changes that
are making me feel more validated in my own life.
I am also becoming less apologetic, as in literally deleting text messages and email sentences which begin with "I’m sorry..." I walk confidently upon the street, and don't somehow fade into the background like I used to.
I am also becoming less apologetic, as in literally deleting text messages and email sentences which begin with "I’m sorry..." I walk confidently upon the street, and don't somehow fade into the background like I used to.
It feels my entire auric field is adjusting to the new shift: I have needs, and they are all valid. I am able to have these needs met, with divine and human help. I now own the needs. I no longer apologise for needing space to walk on the pavement, nor apologise for my need to move to a different city as soon as I am financially able to.
If I take today as an example, I had a list of needs that needed to be met.
Relaxation and exercise needs: yoga
Cleanliness needs: house cleaning and ironing
Income and money needs: paid job (look for one decent job to
apply to)
Mental health needs: meditation, Emotional Freedom
Technique, homeopathy remedies, prayer, walk in the park, cut out all news and
social media today, avoid reading non essential emails
Fun needs: walk in the park, listening to music
Creativity and recognition needs: finish my blog post on
“needs”
Nutritional needs: good home cooked food
I was half way through my yoga practice when my mobile phone rang. It was my nine year old niece, asking for me to meet her for a coffee as she was bored at her nanny’s house.
I changed my plans to fit her needs in, even though I really didn't want to. So I ended up observing my own habit of putting someone else's needs before mine, and justifying it.
In the end, it didn’t work out. She needed me to travel to
her nanny’s house to pick her up since her uncle was unable to drop her and her
mother also was delayed. As much as I wanted to become even more flexible and
drop all my needs to meet hers, I firmly reminded myself that my own need was
to come home as soon as possible to find a job to apply to.
What changed was that I kept asking myself, are my needs being met?
The answer was firstly yes for the first hour, as I was waiting beside the babbling river in the beautifully manicured park for her phone call to let me know when she was being dropped. As the day continued and my wait became two and a half hours, the answer then became a no.
I went back home and spoke to her on the phone, letting her know that we would have to postpone and I was sorry that she was disappointed.
So, instead of beating myself up, I met more of my needs as
I came home to make up for the loss of a few hours.
And we let it go....
like a wisp of ancient air that was held in the chest for beyond the accepted
times of attachment.
I believe when an opportunity is meant for you, and you’ve
cleared the undeserving beliefs that stop you from experiencing them, they all
come smoothly just like bees to a lilac bush.
***
We as human beings must allow for a great amount of
flexibility inside our brains and energy fields in order to understand that
whilst all our needs may not be met, most will be met and we can go around meeting them with enthusiasm, humility and hope.
For those of us beginning this new exciting way of being, we
may witness ourselves fall back into fulfilling another’s needs when our own
haven’t been met. In certain circles, these patterns are called martyrdom and
victimhood patterns.
We also may find we are unable to fulfill another person’s needs, or
somehow violate their need for privacy, to be heard, to be needed, to be served, to have
emails or texts responded to appropriately, understanding, compassion, to have
silence or to be entirely separated from your presence.
We must hold space in our loving hearts for that as well. Their lesson is to accept that you are still learning to be a free, liberated soul and that some of THEIR needs won’t always be met, yet they have the power to ensure they are moreso met by acknowledging what their needs are, and then taking action accordingly.
We must hold space in our loving hearts for that as well. Their lesson is to accept that you are still learning to be a free, liberated soul and that some of THEIR needs won’t always be met, yet they have the power to ensure they are moreso met by acknowledging what their needs are, and then taking action accordingly.
As the spiritual teachings state, being aware of who you are
and what you do, as well as why you do what you do is very helpful. You can
stand as a witness of the behaviours and set an intention to change them in a way
that serves you and others. After that, the psychological and spiritual work
has a more focus and a higher likelihood of bringing about what you truly desire.
INSANE SIMPLICITY
INSANE SIMPLICITY
By accepting and being aware of the insanely simple idea of
having your needs met, you set in motion a greater global movement than you
would be able to imagine at first. How is this so?
You have. firstly, embraced the audacity of wanting your needs being met, and being very determined in allowing that to happen through the Universe and through your powerful intention. That conviction emanates from your field and, as you allow all your needs to be met in a divine way, others who may also be new to this radical change in perception, may begin to appreciate the simplicity and the core essence of that way of being.
It is your way of BEING that shifts the rest of us, not your way of SAYING or INSTRUCTING. I have always been inspired and admired people who oozed confidence, success, kindness, vitality, integrity and humility rather than being lectured by a well-meaning person about how my life sucks and how I must do x, y and z in order to get what I want. usually, the people who have time to instruct or to point out how great their lives are, or how your life could be improved, have some more inner work to do to understand BEINGNESS that will happen when they are ready for it.
WHERE IS THE DIVINE IN ALL OF THIS?
You have. firstly, embraced the audacity of wanting your needs being met, and being very determined in allowing that to happen through the Universe and through your powerful intention. That conviction emanates from your field and, as you allow all your needs to be met in a divine way, others who may also be new to this radical change in perception, may begin to appreciate the simplicity and the core essence of that way of being.
It is your way of BEING that shifts the rest of us, not your way of SAYING or INSTRUCTING. I have always been inspired and admired people who oozed confidence, success, kindness, vitality, integrity and humility rather than being lectured by a well-meaning person about how my life sucks and how I must do x, y and z in order to get what I want. usually, the people who have time to instruct or to point out how great their lives are, or how your life could be improved, have some more inner work to do to understand BEINGNESS that will happen when they are ready for it.
WHERE IS THE DIVINE IN ALL OF THIS?
On a final note, I wanted to add that currently I have a belief that we can only realistically turn to God for all our needs to be met. We are the Ones through whom God will help us, because we truly are that powerful as creatures of God (the Universe, All That IS...)
Every person is also a soul and vessel, the agent of God for their own and perhaps some of your needs to be met. I realised that quickly when I tried to heal myself of chest infections and sinus infections this year. You sometimes have to go to someone trained in holistic medicine for guidance. I ended up going to a homeopath after two years of not having much effect and antibiotics not working (which I knew they wouldn't anyway!).
But please, do not make people, experiences or events your Sources. It can be easy, from one perspective, to feel that because they seem to fulfill very deep core needs, that they are the ones with the power to give and withdraw. What will inevitably happen is that, as life goes, they will leave your orbit in some way, and then you may fall into confusion and grief.
I am witnessing many partnerships and marriages stopping after 11 years, even 16 years of partnership and usually with children and pets and mortgages involved. Everything and everyone will leave. Coutnries are literally breaking into fragments, including jolly olde United Kingdom.
Nothing remains forever, even though we wish it were so.
They will, as per the law of nature, be replaced by others at some point, but remember
that your needs are always deserving of being met. The fact they haven’t been
met in the past has no bearing on your deserving and inherent worth.
If you have had a similar journey as me and are just realising that you have a right to have needs and have them being met, then it is just that you were not AWARE of just how worthy you are to have the same needs as others; to have them fulfilled with the same exuberance that others who have known since childhood that this is what works and have made sure this was done ever since.
If you have had a similar journey as me and are just realising that you have a right to have needs and have them being met, then it is just that you were not AWARE of just how worthy you are to have the same needs as others; to have them fulfilled with the same exuberance that others who have known since childhood that this is what works and have made sure this was done ever since.
In my own life experience, I have made many mistakes. I have repeated mistakes five or six times, just to make sure. And I would therefore suggest that you become very discerning when you choose the people you receive support from, insist on transparency and integrity, as well as kindness and compassion. There are ways to ensure that
there is a two-way flow of energy flowing.
It is also quite common that people serve your needs for a day, a week or few, and then no longer do.
I am becoming more aware of expiration dates, without meaning to sound too rational about things! So I have found taking things on a day to day basis, waking up with a blank slate can be very useful for the emotional body.
It is also quite common that people serve your needs for a day, a week or few, and then no longer do.
I am becoming more aware of expiration dates, without meaning to sound too rational about things! So I have found taking things on a day to day basis, waking up with a blank slate can be very useful for the emotional body.
If this post has opened up a new way of being for you, or
you wish to connect and add to even deeper exploration, please do comment below!
I am really open to learning more about this revolutionary (for me, at least) way of being.
- Sukaina Juma
10/07/2016
10/07/2016
