Personal Relationships
Lesson 6: Understanding needs
1. People Who Don't Need People
Exercise One
2. The Hierarchy of Needs, Revised
3. Physical Needs
4. Movement and Play
5. Sex
6. Nurturing
7. Social Needs
Exercise Two
8. Need and Desire
9. Growth
10. Transcendence
11. Values
1. People Who Don't Need People
We all know the benefits of having people in our lives who love, support, encourage, uplift, or give us needed perspective. It can be very hard to live on your own. In our society, we seem to fall into relationships, or fall into or out of love, as if by chance. Few people are aware of what shapes their relationship choices, the patterns of behavior which determine their satisfaction or not, or the criteria by which they choose people in their lives (consciously or unconsciously).
Exercise One: Complete the following sentences.
My father gave me a view of myself as ...
My mother gave me a view of myself as ...
One way I learned to be with people, from my father, was
...
One way I learned to be with people, from my mother, was
...
If I was more independent, ...
If I was my own authentic self, ...
Sometimes we choose partners in life for rather superficial reasons, similar tastes, culture, interests, romance — and are not prepared to deal with the deeper issues that often arise. Certainly, we are never taught about this in all our "education." Ideal relationships are virtually nonexistent, yet how many of us imagine we have found them, daily, throughout our society — in every marriage. We "see" in people what we imagine they are like, what we expect them to be, or what we hope we can make them. Or we imagine we see ourselves in them. Or we just accept each other as we are, and neither one has any impetus to learn, to grow, to change.
Seldom do we see people as they are, because we seldom look deeply into our own selves, to learn who we are, first. Because our own issues eventually come up in relationships, many people in our society "solve" this problem by getting divorced, finding someone else who sees them more as they wish to be seen, and then ... doing it over and over, each time problems come up. No matter how common this pattern is in our society, it is not really the solution to the underlying problem. The solution is not to find someone who can see no wrong in you, so you never need to learn, grow, or change.
There is a reason why the divorce rate is around 57%, today. One generation's illusions about life, its lack of true discernment, and its lack of wisdom, is handed down from one generation to the next. Chief among these illusions is the value of emotional neediness, which is believed to be some sort of blessing. It is not. Being "needy" or feeling a lack inside yourself is the means by which you are set up to attract or fall for something wrong — someone who caters to your illusions. You have a lack and they have an illusory fix for that unfilled part of you. But, that just doesn't work very well. One day you wake up, and the illusion is just gone; and the pain, disappointment, and suffering you feel seem a lot more real. Or, as they say, "the honeymoon is over."
Emotional neediness — whether a feeling of great lack or dependence — is not right, good, or true, no matter how common or mutual it may be. And it is certainly not a sound basis for a progressive relationship. Yet that is what society cultivates, so that you will endeavor to "fit in" and be accepted. Children today are largely being failed by their parents, who were probably failed by their parents, and on and on. Few of us are fortunate enough to have been raised with love, nurturing, acceptance, wisdom, and goodness — and without anger, guilt, expectations, programming, ignorance, or bad examples. Most often we are molded and modeled after those who raise us. In our society, we have to pass various tests to get a driver's license, but just about anyone can become a parent.
Parents tend to hand down their own emotional neediness, programming, role playing, biases, and conditioning to their children. It is incredibly egocentric and irresponsible to imagine that all you have to do is raise a child to be just like you, and they will be just fine. That is living in denial. It is a refusal to see your own problems or limitations for what they are, combined with a willingness to mandate them in your child's life. Sometimes parents just do the best they can, with the sincere hope that their children will truly be better for having known and been loved by them. However, much of the time, parents feel it is their role in life to "spoil" their children; shape and control their lives; squash their independent thinking; govern their "good" behavior; program them to think and act as they do; make them emotionally weak or needy; or set them up to fail or be unhappy in their own relationships. This happens every day, in every society, in every nation, around the world. Just go to a mall and watch the mother and daughter teams seeking their mutual fix for their mutual shopping addiction — and their inner emptiness. They have certainly not found the true solution to their problems.
Society lives in denial, which means the denial of all that is wrong with it. It prefers you to be unaware of what is bad, wrong, exploitative, or evil. In other words, it sets you up to have problems, like everyone else. It sets the traps, sends you blindly into them, and then extracts as much suffering as possible from you. Does this sound like any relationship or marriage you may have ever found yourself in? It is called a "toxic relationship," and it is quite common, today.
People who do not "need" people are the luckiest people of them all. Understand, the greater your neediness, the more you have been internally weakened and then outwardly programmed by your society. Emotional neediness is a recipe for disaster in relationships, because the other person cannot give you what you cannot find in your own self. No one can.
Emotional neediness is not a true need. Neither is the perpetuation of our programming, social conditioning, or unawareness.
2. The Hierarchy of Needs, Revised
A hierarchy of needs common to all human beings was proposed by Maslow, and generally accepted by psychologists everywhere. What many people do not know is that Maslow revised his hierarchy of needs — the oft quoted list is not complete; the most important part is generally left out.
The needs which Maslow recognized ranged from physical survival, to safety and security, social acceptance, and self-actualization. Some people claim that we can only seek to satisfy the latter needs when we have satisfied the more fundamental ones, such as physical nourishment and security. But, Maslow said our lives are basically driven by the highest needs, first. The need for actualizing our self — realizing who we truly are and what we are here for — is that higher need which shapes our thoughts and goals and purposes throughout life.
Still, that set of needs, which constitutes the popularly quoted hierarchy, is incomplete. Maslow realized this, later, and added a few more needs. The need for growth was placed near the top of the chart, below self-actualization. And, more significantly, Maslow put another one at the top of the list: transcendence, the need to go beyond ourselves and to help others to actualize themselves.
This realization of our higher needs, which entirely redrew Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is seldom included when his work is cited. But it sheds light on what our lives are really about. We are not here to entirely self-satisfy ourselves. We are here to grow, to realize who we are on a deeper level, and to share that with others so that they may come to grow and realize who they are as well, on a deeper level. Only on that deeper level are our true needs satisfied.
And, in accordance with Maslow's recognition that the highest needs are far more encompassing to our existence than the more fundamental physical ones, the need to transcend our physical existence would create the best context for our lives. In other words, spiritual needs are far more important than physical ones.
We would go a step beyond Maslow. His hierarchy of needs tends to be almost a definition of "humanistic," and does not directly acknowledge spirit. That is fine for a psychologist, but we will not limit ourselves to that definition. We would add at the top of the list: the need to know, honor, and connect with what we would call "God." And, we would not place this need or its object far from us. This highest need is with us all the time, as is what we seek. The place of Spirit must be central in our existence, in our choices, in our purposes, relationships, and self-actualization. Spirit is not something foreign to humanity, but at its core.
So, what does this have to do with relationships? Your relationships — with your self and with others — present you with an opportunity to recognize and meet your needs. Some people are content to satisfy the most basic needs: physical needs, food, sex, housing, safety and security. Society tells us those are the most important needs, along with the next need in the hierarchy: acceptance by society, approval by others.
What society does not do, generally, is to tell you to go beyond your physical and social needs. Society does not tell you to transcend or go beyond your socialization, to grow, to realize who you are as an individual, to actualize or realize who you truly are — and live it. Society is content for you to stop at the point where you are accepted by society, and not grow.
We say: socialization is just the starting point, the given that we are all working with. That is where you may start, but it isn't where you should end. The greatest needs, the highest needs we have as human beings, are for growth, realization, and transcendence — including spiritually.
This is your responsibility to your own self, to pursue those things, and to others — to bring those higher qualities into relationship with others, and to help them in their own process of growth, realization, and transcendence.
If you ever wonder why your relationships do not take you higher, or why you get bored, or why you seem to be stuck on the same level, now you know why. And you know why you have a need to reach for something more, something higher, in you and in others. That is what relationships are really all about.
3. Physical Needs
It is good to understand the nature of your needs, how they originate, and how they may be satisfied. This is especially the case for physical needs.
The most obvious physical needs are those for food, nourishment, security, and safety.
What may not be obvious is that the extent to which those needs were met in your infancy can determine the way in which you pursue those needs throughout your life. For example, consider what it means to a newborn baby to have these needs met or not: the need for nourishment, security, and safety. All of these occur at the mother's breast, in holding and suckling.
Not only does a sense of bonding occur — and need to occur — soon after birth, but a baby needs to be held to the mother's breast to experience the satisfaction of these needs, without reservation or displacement from the mother.
A newborn's nervous system and mind and senses only begin to activate properly when the baby is held close to the mother, suckles at her breast, feels her heartbeat, and learns to recognize her face — and interprets all of this as security and the satisfaction of its physical, emotional, and other needs.
Let's go back a bit before this, and consider the manner of birth as well. For an assortment of reasons, the natural process of delivery has become painful or traumatic for mother and baby, in modern times. Many women choose an artificial cesarean delivery, in which the baby is removed via an incision in the abdomen, rather than delivered through the birth canal.
This also has a great impact on the baby, which does not experience the contraction and natural release from the womb, in the proper time and manner. Absent this process of movement through the birth canal, "birth" does not prepare a child for physicality — being in and moving naturally in a body. Again, the activation of nervous system in coordination with the rest of the body depends upon the extent to which this basic birth need is met.
So, what does all of this have to do with who we are today, and what are needs are — especially in relation to others?
Well, if your most basic needs were not met at birth, you may be trying to satisfy those same needs in your relationships, without knowing that you are merely trying to complete a pattern of growth and behavior that should have happened a long time ago, but may not have. The most obvious example in our modern society, in which breastfeeding went out of fashion, is that men deprived of breast feeding as a baby may have an obsession with breasts their whole lives. Just look at the countless "men's" magazines for sale in all the book shops, supermarkets, and so on. This inordinate fascination is not "natural" — it comes from a place of lack, not a place of wholeness and completeness and love, within us. And so, men try to satisfy this "need" for the rest of their lives, never quite recognizing what they are doing or why. It is a big business.
There are other patterns of behavior we see that also come from a place of lack, a deficiency in our initial sensory or nervous system activation. We can pursue satisfying those "needs" by trying to have others meet our needs, while we still need to complete those within ourselves — they are they same needs we had as newborns, for sensory stimulation and movement and being close to the heart of another person.
Most of us went through a hospital "birth" process followed by separation from our mothers — the standard procedure being that all newborns are taken away from their mothers and put in a common room in little bassinets. Most of us did not have our needs entirely met right from the start, and continue to seek to meet those needs, today. We will continue to refer to the origins of our needs, to help understand the dynamics of relationships — and what we are all looking for, what we feel we need.
4. Movement and Play
Life is movement; freedom of movement is "play." Play is a truer form of movement, done less for some specific purpose or meaning than to simply express who we are, within us — and to feel that. Play is moving beyond our habituation to life, our old patterns of movement and ways of being; it is being free, spontaneous, in the moment. Movement and play are not just isolated events in our lives, or things that we schedule or engage in for a reason; they are the most basic flow of our life energy, our creativity, or self-expression. All of this highlights our need to move.
We learn to move from birth. Birth is largely the initiation of movement in the physical body, and not only a model for how we enter the world, but a set pattern of movement that we carry with us our entire lives. Patterns of movement begin at birth, as do the forces which unduly limit us or shape how we move through the world.
All our lives we seek ways to move through our experience, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If we are not moving, learning, growing, integrating, or transcending, we are not really living. In some ways, the way we move through the world is directly related to the way we move in and with our bodies, how conscious we are of our movement, and how free we are to move.
Most people have difficulty with their body. The patterns of integrated movement, coordination, and ease that should be activated at and shortly after birth — and through early childhood — are seldom allowed to form. This is a function of our modern society. Birthing is unnatural. Then we are placed in an isolated container in the hospital, where our movement is restricted, and we lack human touch, sensory stimulation, connection, nurturing.
As toddlers we are placed in other kinds of child containers, in an attempt to confine us or keep us from doing something as simple as crawling on the floor — or to get us to prematurely "walk" on wheels. But, something important is lost in this process. We lose our true sense of movement. And the patterns of movement that need to be activated and set in our nervous systems and musculature and cells, remain incomplete or are not properly formed. As a result, we carry all kinds of restricted movement in our bodies and our behavior, and, some would say, in our thinking and feeling as well, throughout or lives.
What does this have to do with our relationships with others or our selves?
Our patterns of movement become ingrained, habitual, and unquestioned. We become less aware of how we move — or what restricts our movement. So many of the "needs" that we think we have, or feel we have, are not true needs. They are the blocks and tensions and resistances that keep our energy from flowing or keep us from moving. We attend to those needs, and ask others to attend to them, in order to remain in the pattern of behavior we are comfortable with — no matter how uncomfortable it might actually be. We become stiff and unyielding in body and attitude; we become unconscious in desire and movement to satisfy desire. Our life becomes habitual, and the more habitual it is, the less conscious we become. This greatly limits our growth, our ability to express who we truly are, our creative flow, our movement on all levels: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
All of this we bring into relationship with others. We have learned a way of being, and a way of moving or acting from there. Most often it is not a true way of being — we act from a place other than our true self, our center, our inner being. We act as who we are not, and others learn to relate to us as who we are not. And, this expectation we create in others — to see us as something we are not, to cater to our ego or emotion or erroneous needs — keeps us from satisfying our real needs, our deeper needs.
The great need is to be who we truly are, and to live from there. We need to find and experience a place within our selves where we can stand and move and be in relation to others. And we need to be genuine in our movement and authentic in our selves. That is, ultimately, all we have to offer to others. Personal growth and transcendence is a process of moving freely — out of who we once might have thought we were, into who we truly are. That is something we need to do not only for our own sake, but in support of others being who they truly are and having what they really need, as well.
5. Sex
At the risk of stating the obvious, sexual activity is basically about movement and play, and the need to be in an intimate, loving, trusting relationship with someone. These are needs we had as infants. The extent to which we felt accepted, nurtured, safe, free, and able to move and play — way back then — affect how we go about satisfying those same needs, today. As adults, sex is usually a means of satisfying desires, not real needs.
Clearly, all sexual activity is not entirely based on the need of the species to reproduce. Most of the time it is for the purpose of seeking pleasure, intimacy, and a deeper sense of acceptance by another person. Sometimes it is about seeking a sense of physical release, or an attempt to fill a lack within us. An act of physical release is not the basis of growth — especially the growth of consciousness or self-realization.
The first thing to know about sex is that it is not a real physical need. You need food, nourishment, water, air, and physical safety. You do not need sex. It just feels that way. The intensity with which you may feel a need for sex relates to how much you feel you are lacking within you, how programmed you are by your society, how activated your hormones are, how little or how much sense of self you have, or how much you wish to share love. Most often, no matter what we may tell ourselves, or our partners, sex is not really just about "love." It is not so much a wanting to give as it is a desperation to get, to get something from someone that will make us feel "more." In other words, sexual activity often comes from a place of lack within us — and it is this lack which needs to be resolved, rather than "filled" with sex. Sex is, clearly, only a temporary "fix" for a need which cannot be satisfied, though we might try to do so over and over, throughout our lives. Perhaps you can see that that need is not merely physical.
Sexual activity does satisfy physical cravings, or release pressures and stresses. It does satisfy the urge to engage in an act of reproduction, if that is what is desired. But more than this, it involves the more subtle levels of our experience, beyond the physical — that is, the emotional, psychological, and, perhaps, spiritual levels.
Like the hierarchy of needs which Maslow defines, sexual activity has its own hierarchy of needs. Many people are content to satisfy their physical "needs." Others continue up the scale and seek to satisfy their emotional needs, their need for social acceptance, their need for growth, the need to know more fully who they are on a deeper level, the need to transcend themselves, or, perhaps, a deeper spiritual longing.
Some people experience becoming "more" from sex, while others may experience a feeling of becoming "less." It is of value to understand what this is about. Most often what people feel more of in sex is their ego-emotional nature, their personality, their externally-derived sense of self. In fact, some people measure their performance in sex by how elevated their ego or emotions become. Others measure their satisfaction by the degree of pleasure they derive. Still others have a sense of how connected they are to who they are on a deeper level. And, they are not satisfied with physical release, pleasure, emotion, or ego — they want a deeper connection than that.
This brings us to the more spiritual aspect of sexual activity. In sex, you generally get what you are looking for. If all you want is physical pleasure or an ego boost, that's what you'll focus on and get, or not. If what you want is something deeper, then you need to focus on — or be cognizant of — a deeper level of your experience. You become more aware of or realize who you really are, on a deeper level. Here's a clue: you are not your body, you are not your emotions, you are not your ego. You are the inner being, the silent witness to all that you experience. Move closer to that.
Spiritual sex is not about moving your body to reach a goal, but rather about this heightened state of awareness, realization, and connection. The physical act becomes far less significant than the deeper experience of inner connection. You open up to who you are, more and more, going more deeply within. This is, perhaps, the truest need which sexual activity may satisfy — the realization of who you are, what you have to give within you, the flow of love and joy, creative expression, movement, and play, all together.
For some people, sex is not about sex. It is about other forms of physical stimulation, seduction, power, fantasy, or desire which is not satisfied simply by having sex. For others, sex is not about sex either: it is about a greater spiritual connection, transcending the physical or one's own needs or desires — it is not at all about fantasies but about a greater reality and connectedness.
The idea here is to learn to be and accept who you are on a deeper level, and to do the same in relation to your partner. Neither is there to use each other to satisfy needs, but rather to grow, together, individually. There can be no selfishness in this process, or "taking," but only giving, and ultimately transcending self to completely support another in their process of knowing themselves, too.
6. Nurturing
From birth, our true self is nurtured or not. If not, then something else is formed in us, and nurtured. It is a place of lack, a place that is not used to getting the deeper nourishment, and which is trained to go looking for nurturing in all the wrong places.
The messages — and direct behavior — we get from others, from the earliest age, tell us how or if our needs are going to be satisfied. When the most basic needs of physical nourishment, nurturing, physical contact, loving touch, and joyfulness are denied us, we may not go looking for those things but mistakenly go looking for what "nurtured" the wrong in us. In other words, we look for what sustains the lack in us, the non-self, or the wrong in us.
For example, if we did not feel comfort and joy and security at our mother's breast, we may decide that we have to make those things happen for us in concrete terms, perhaps materialistically or hedonistically. That doesn't truly satisfy us, but it compensates for what we didn't have — or still don't have, within us. We aren't trying to say that everything in our lives is a result of what happened when we were babies, but merely pointing out the origin of so many limiting patterns of behavior and relating in our lives, today. There is a cause, always.
If we were denied pleasure, or shamed for experiencing pleasure, then we carry that with us during our lives, and may have a hard time allowing ourselves to experience that. We take what we experienced in the past and make it our expectation or sense of what we deserve, or what is right, good, or true for us. This can create a lot of distortions about who we really are, what we really deserve, and what we should have in relation to others.
What do you think would be the effect of "Ferberizing" on a generation of American children, who were intentionally ignored by their parents when they experienced terror at night and were left to scream on their own (on Dr. Ferber's advice)? What would a child learn about the nature of care, love, and nurturing available to them? What would they feel deserving of, later in life? Unfortunately, they might not feel deserving of true nurturing as much as they might have the expectation that they cannot get what matters to them on the deepest levels, or they cannot even have their most basic needs met. This had the effect of closing a generation of children to the possibility of recognizing or seeking or experiencing true love, compassion, spirituality, or transcendence — the intent to help others to have what they truly need. It is simply inconceivable to those who have been denied the experience; they live from there, and are not even aware of it.
The denial of the most basic needs on Maslow's list conditions a person to feeling it is quite acceptable to deny others — or see others denied — the most basic human needs and rights. After all, if we didn't get it, who says that others should have it? Consequently, we have a disaffected generation, one which does not care about the rights of others, which sees nothing wrong with the abuse of women exemplified in pornography, which accepts the most gross violence as acceptable entertainment, and which has no idea who they truly are or how to share that with others.
There is a reason why sexual relations have become separate from love. They are engaged in as acts of physical release which have nothing at all to do with the expression of real love. And those who feel so pressured, invalidated, or marginalized by the society in which they were raised see no association between physical pleasure, nurturing, and love. Their relationships reflect this.
7. Social Needs
There is an inherent opposition between socialization — how society decides who and how we should be — and individuation, who we find ourselves to be. This distinction has grown a lot, especially in modern times. The increasing pace of life, with technology driving the direction in which our entire society is moving, causes many people to lose touch with who they are.
Still, there is value in being a part of society. And, as Maslow recognized, we need this, even if only a little or occasionally. We are each a part of humanity, and who we are and what we do makes a difference. Society would prefer that we don't make too much of a difference, or upset the status quo, but it does allow change. It is up to us to choose how we wish to be, and find a way to express that. We are not here to merely fit in and be a product of our society.
What does this have to do with our relationships with others?
We can choose to meet and interact with people for the purpose of growing, being more than we were, and transcending our self-interest. Or we can meet others for the purpose of remaining who we think we are, as a way of rejecting change and growth, and remaining selfish or egotistical. We can choose relationships that satisfy our needs on any level, so it is important to choose the level on which we wish to interact, consciously. Having many superficial relationships does not make up for the lack of one deeper relationship.
If everyone remained entirely individualistic, and was entirely self-centered, the social interaction and exchange of energy, ideas, and creativity would evaporate. Something more comes out of being with others, when it is done in the right way — not compromising your self, who you are, what you really think, what you feel, and what really matters to you.
So, social interaction and relationships in general are not a matter of compromising your self, ever. You don't trade off values, pieces of your conscience or self-worth, or denigrate your own thinking and feeling. Instead, seek ways — and relationships — that validate who you are, who you know and want your self to be, on a deeper level.
You may find that other people recognize what is good within you, the more true you are to your self. And they may even say things to acknowledge that in you. What you are getting is not so much their approval or acceptance — as if you have performed well enough for them — but rather a simple acknowledgment of what they see in you, which you value and validate in your self.
In other words, it is of value to have someone acknowledge you — or love you — not to replace your own inner validation, but to simply confirm it. The problem we get into is when we do not bother to seek internal validation for who we are, but instead seek others to approve of us and accept us. That erroneous behavior does not satisfy our true need, and as a result we find that we cannot get enough of such approval. It does not fix the lack we feel. And, it causes us to adapt our behavior so as to meet the approval of others. This is a compromise we do not need to make.
As Maslow indicated, socialization is not the end point of human growth or needs. Unfortunately, society dictates that it be that way. Realize that you can and must grow beyond your socialization and enculturation. You have to find who you are, and actualize that — make it real in your experience, as best you can. That is what you have to share with others and society in general, whether it meets with anyone's approval or not. You need to be you.
Exercise Two: Take a moment to think of what you need in your life, and what you believe you need from others. Be aware of the thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness. If you wish, you can make a list of all of your needs. Begin to discern in your mind the difference between want and need, and desire and need. See if you can separate your desires and wants from your true inner self, and see if you can locate the few essential needs you have, which are as yet unfulfilled. See what needs can be fulfilled within you, rather than by other people. Finally, see what needs can only be fulfilled in relation to others.
The basic principle for relating with others is: what do you have to give? How can you be true to who you are, and simply share that with others? If you want to know how best to interact with others — whether it is one person, your society, or your world — the criteria is the same in every case, in every instance: be who you are, know who you are on a deeper level of being, and do not compromise your self or what is right, good, or true to you. Learn to separate reality from illusion, substance from shadow, what truly matters from what does not. And be willing to learn and grow.
8. Need and Desire
As we noted before, if you wish to change the world, and everything and everyone in it, to suit you, to meet your expectations or demands, to satisfy your desires, you are missing the point entirely. Relationships are an opportunity to step out of that egotistical, selfish, immature, unsatisfying place, and come more into a place of authentic self, giving kindness, maturity, and self-satisfaction.
It would be nice if everything and everyone we were attracted to actually nurtured us. We could eat all the ice cream we like, drink all the beer we want, play all the video games we want, and satisfy every impulse, urge, compulsion, drive, desire, want, or "need." And be happy. But, would we be really be happy?
You may come to realize, either through understanding or experience, that you cannot fulfill yourself by satisfying desires. Desires are not real needs.
Unfortunately, our society, the media, marketing, and the consumer mentality, all tell us that we should satisfy our desires. Not only that, but they tell us that who we are is determined by the desires we seek to satisfy. We are the products we buy. And if you can be sure of one thing, it is that in America if you have a desire there is someone somewhere selling the means to satisfy that desire, usually over and over. That is the nature of business, because desires cannot be satisfied — not just once. They keep coming up over and over, seemingly without end. And each time a desire comes up, you interpret it as a need, and do whatever you do to satisfy it. This is the basis of our consumer society, in which endless desires (which have little or no basis in need or reality or ultimate fulfillment) are pursued — bought and sold — ad infinitum, and never seen for the illusions that they are.
The media show endless images of bouncing boobs to pacify the population, especially males, who are hypnotized and become infantile at the sight of female breasts. Trying to satisfy desires instead of needs is one of the biggest illusions or lies that we live, in relation to ourselves and others. Desires are illusory; needs are much more "real." Desires only hold the illusion of fulfilling us. They never do.
Let's return to what we experienced early in life, and the extent to which our real needs were or were not met. If needs for real nourishment, contact, touch, sensory stimulation, and nurturing were not met, we might be pursuing all kinds of false or illusory ways of satisfying those needs, now. Think of all the choices and actions in our society which demonstrate "can't get enough" behavior — or addictiveness. The excesses of junk food and the epidemic of obesity; the endless audio-visual stimulation in the media, ever more grossly or violently stimulating us; the alcohol and drugs which provide absolutely no nourishment or nurturing, but which we depend upon so much; the casual sex; the means for getting lost in fantasies, video games, sporting events, and so on. Our lives are filled with all of the things that cannot ever satisfy our true needs, on a deeper level. We spend our lives pursuing illusions.
What does this have to do with relationships?
We spend our lives pursuing illusions, illusions of what we need, illusory desires, fantasies, and ways of relating that cater to a place of lack in us — ego and emotion and selfishness — rather than being true to who we are, or to others, what we really need, or what others truly need.
Lives built upon desires — even when they are mutual, or negotiated, or accepted, or approved of, or bought or sold — are fundamentally empty. And it doesn't matter how big a house you have, how many name brands you purchase, what labels you wear, how great the appearance of your partner may be, whether you've seen the latest movie, or how much money, sex, or power you have. None of those will ever satisfy you. You will only want more. That is the nature of desire, and why you need to learn to discern the difference between what you truly need — on a deeper level — and what you are merely programmed by your society and prior life experience to desire.
If your relationships are about satisfying desires, no matter how "good" you might be at that, there is little possibility that they will ever meet your real needs. This is why people go from one relationship to another, looking for something other than what meets their needs, eventually becoming aware that once they are not deluding themselves into believing their needs are being met, there is nothing to the relationship. And so it ends.
There is a better way of being in relationship with others, and your self.
9. Growth
What we really mean by "growth" is: movement towards something greater. It is not so much that we grow, in ourselves, or in relation to others; but, rather, we move towards a greater sense of wholeness, integration, validation, appreciation, and acceptance of something more.
This movement is central to life, and relationships.
Sometimes we speak of growing as a kind of unfolding of who we are, on a deeper level. But, it is not so much that we are growing in some way, as it is that we are more aware, more conscious, of who we are, our possibilities — a truer way of Being.
Growth is not about externals, what we have or are or know outside ourselves. What grows outside of us, or inside of us as a reaction to what is outside of us, tends to be a product of the outer world. It is the domain of ego, emotion, selfishness, ambition, and pridefulness. All of that "grows" from the earliest age, in accordance with how the world treats us, how it trains us, how it conditions our expectations, beliefs, and desires. That is not the true growth we need.
Growth is a real need.
We cannot do what we did yesterday, forever. We cannot be who we were — or thought we were — yesterday, forever. There is more to us than that. And relationships are an opportunity for us to look within ourselves, more so than at the other person, to see how we could be more, better, more whole. We become more conscious of the choices we make when we make them in relation to another person; we get their feedback, whether it is spoken or made overt, or not.
We interpret how we are doing, in our world, in our relationships, by how much more good opens to us, within us. When we choose love, honesty, peace, and joy — in ourselves, in relation to another person, or the world-at-large — we grow in our experience of those qualities. Those inner qualities come from choosing them, and acknowledging them within us. They do not come from outside of us. They are not taken in from the outer world to make us more whole within us. That is only an illusion and an erroneous way of trying to meet our needs.
We "grow" from inside ourselves, in the direction of what is more right, good, and true for us. That is the only direction in which we can grow. Anything else is not real "growth." So, we cannot "grow" to be like someone else, if it compromises who we truly are. We cannot "grow" to love someone who is not loving to us, imagining that our love will fill them and meet their needs, and make them love us. That simply does not work; yet people spend their whole lives trying to do just that.
If you want to know if there is sufficient growth in your relationships, in your life, consider what is different today than yesterday or last year. What are you doing differently? What have you learned? How have you grown in your appreciation of what truly matters to you? How are you exemplifying that in your choices, here, now, today, in the moment? Have you taken the imaginings and dreams of your mind and heart and seen how to make them real? Have you been of assistance to anyone else in the realization or manifestation of their dreams?
Who does your life serve — your self, only, or others? We do not mean financially, physically, or even emotionally, intellectually, or in a worldly sense. We mean: how does your life honor the deeper self, the true self in others, and your self?
Have you chosen a way of Being, which brings you closer to your inner being, all the good in you, and in others? And are you moving towards this more and more, each day, each moment, here, now? If not, why not? If so, how can you be more true to who you are, and who others are as well? In what way does your life make a difference?
10. Transcendence
What anyone needs from you is for you to be your self, who you truly are. They don't need you to act, to pretend, to play a role, to cater to ego, to play out their fantasies. They need you to be real, and to simply be who you are.
This is so unlike the message that you get from all the media. The media are endlessly selling you on the idea that you need to be something other than who you are; you need their fashions, their style, their slang, their objects of desire, their sexual interpretation of everything, their materialistic cravings, their hungers and desires and expectations. All of that may be what society is selling you, but you need not buy it.
And, you need not sell it to anyone else, in the marketplace of life.
You need to transcend the relentless pressures to be what society wants you to be (which most often means being in debt, having things you don't really need, and not having what you do need). That is how you simply be you. Then, and only then, do you have an authentic self to offer to share with others.
If you have this basic agreement with your self, to be who you are and to move towards who you are on a deeper level, then you can relate to others in the right way. The goal of such relationships would be to simply share who you are and to support others in experiencing and appreciating who they are, more fully, more deeply, as well.
Notice that this is entirely different from the social programming you may have received. You have probably been programmed and enculturated to try to get what you want from others, to be in relationships so that you can be appreciated more — not to transcend your own self-centeredness, seeking only how to better appreciate others.
We are, almost all of us, in relationships for ourselves, not for the other person.
Maslow stated our highest need as human beings as the need to be there for others.
Most of us are so caught up in survival needs, and fears about survival bred by our society and the directions in which it is heading, that we do not look towards our higher needs. We are, in most cases, not even aware that they exist. We are not conscious of the greater part of who we truly are, what we have to offer, and how we can be more whole and alive and free.
Living beyond ourselves is very freeing. It takes us out of the fixation we might otherwise have on our selves, our desires, our "needs," our little or larger addictions, or attempts to get what we think we need. There is a right way to do this: it is not a matter of conforming to the world, or being what everyone else expects us to be. That is not being true to who we are — which is our more fundamental need. Again, do not compromise your self or try to be what others want, in order to try to satisfy their "needs." No one really needs you to be anything other than who you truly are. You don't have to perform for anyone, or try to be approved of by anyone or everyone.
Transcending your self and your social role ultimately means being yourself with complete integrity, so that you are simply being you, here, now, always. It is a simple thing, not too complex. What is complex and difficult is trying to be what everyone else wants or expects you to be. You don't need to do that. And, we really mean: you do not need to do that. It is not a true need, not for you or for anyone else.
11. Values
Regardless of what anyone may tell you about what is important in life, you are the one who chooses what matters to you. Whether you agree or disagree with the things others may choose or believe or value, whether or not you have a sense of your own real needs, your behavior is what has value to you — who you are or, more often, who you think you are.
You tell yourself who and what matters, and then pursue that.
If you don't know what your true needs are, or do not know who you truly are, the choices you make go towards satisfying a relatively false image of yourself. You may place excessive value on fitting in, getting approval, being accepted, or, perhaps, rebelling. There is some reward for you, some "value" in the choices you make. Whether something really is important or valuable to you, or you just tell yourself is so, you still act as if it is.
What you value in yourself, in the choices you make, you probably value in others as well. People who get the same "rewards" for their behavior, who are similar to you in some way, reinforce your system of reward. They — consciously or not, verbally or not — tell you that your choices and behavior are right.
But, the process of valuing things and people in our lives is most often governed by our prior conditioning and programming, and cultural values. You generally can not see how your values are determined by your society. It has been said that cannibals elect cannibal chiefs. In our society, people in denial elect leaders who are in denial, who are far removed from what is essentially right, good, and true. Yet, when we are within our society — and a product of it — we lose the basis for making clear assessments as to what is really valuable, right, good, or true.
A good basis for understanding what matters, what is of value, and what you really need, is the hierarchy of needs. At least that gives you an idea as to what you actually need, as opposed to what you might be programmed to want, desire, or glorify. You would be surprised at how little we really need, outside ourselves. The rest is all social conditioning and enculturation. And, most often, it takes the place of our thinking for ourselves, or following our own conscience.
As it is taught in education, values clarification tends to not only explore the differences in our personal experience and choices, but nowadays tends to suggest lifestyle choices or behavior that is not really true to who we are. Children are taught that morality is situational; and there are no "judgments" about anyone or anyone's choices or behavior. This creates a climate in which anyone's opinions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings are not only accepted but implicitly approved of. No one is ever told they have done anything wrong, or that there is anything bad, or that there may be a right Way of being.
Education either teaches us to conform or that anything goes. Neither is correct. There is a middle ground, a center, which is seldom taught. It is about transcending our social values and our own egos. It is about finding our own true center.
None of us is here to be conformed to the values of our society, which are often corrupt, immoral, materialistic, false, and generally unquestioned. But, we are not here to do anything we want to, either; all behavior is not equally right, good, or true for us. We have to learn to discern what really is right for us, good for us, and true for us. And we do not do that by removing ourselves from our conscience, inner knowing, or center.
The only place to act from, which is true to who we are, is our center, our quiet inner being. Not what authorities, peers, teachers, preachers, family, friends, culture, or tradition says we can do or should be. That is how to be in right relationship to your self and others.
Unless you do that — find and act from your own center — you will not truly value anything outside you, or see its true value in relation to you. You are not here to settle, to compromise yourself, to sell out, to meet the lowered expectations of others or your society. You are here to rise far above all of that, to value the highest, to know your self as so much more. You owe it to yourself, to seek the highest first, not last.
If you do not value, or cannot find value in, the highest needs of a human being — for growth, self-realization, actualization, and transcendence — then you are, perhaps, valuing the wrong things in your life. You are making less valuable things more valuable in your mind; those are your illusions as to what is most of value. And illusions are not needs; they have very little if any value at all.