Who Really is in Control?

What would happen if you were able to get all of your needs met in a constructive and consistent manner? What would happen if you could focus on what is truly important to you rather than on what you “think” is important?

We all have needs. Some are universal (like food, water, air, shelter, love) and some are unique to each individual. Some of the unique needs you have are obvious to you, while other needs are so obscure that they are literally unconscious. Unique needs include experiences like: control, attention, approval, recognition, admiration, autonomy, intensity, and superiority, quiet and respite. The need in and of itself is neither positive or negative, it just is.

Although you have two types of needs, your ego cannot distinguish the difference between them. To your ego, the need for recognition, for example, is just as important as the need for air and it will do everything in its power to get it fulfilled (be it consciously identified or not).

Your unique needs were acquired from the needs that were unfulfilled during the formative years of your life and as a result, they are literally like having holes inside of you that have to be filled. Because they are so important to your ego, you may have been putting a vast amount of your time and energy, even though you don’t realize it, into getting these needs met.

Your ego does not care how you get your needs fulfilled. As a result, you may be getting them met in ways that are good for you, ways that are not good for you, or a combination of both.

For example, a person with a need for attention may get it met constructively by being an entertainer who is consistently in the limelight, or destructively by getting drunk and making a scene. Both scenarios bring attention to the person.

Exercise:

Think of three obvious unique needs that you have. List at least two or three ways that you have attempted to meet them both constructively and destructively in the past.