Identifying Our Needs
In his book, Nonviolent Communication, Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg wrote, “we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught how to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little kids and good parents. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.”
Indeed, our modern society, exploitative, “hustle” business culture as well as relationships, circumstances and environments that aren’t honoring of individual’s needs, desires, and values can cause us to repress our emotions, put our needs secondary, and to disconnect from ourselves and each other. We become dissociated, mechanistic robots on autopilot, feeling numb, stuck and hopeless because we don’t know what we need/want/value and especially don’t know how to get it. We don’t know this because we’ve never been taught how to find out.
I believe depression is not a pathology but rather is a result of a person internalizing the belief that their needs, desires and values aren’t important by being in environments, relationships, and circumstances that don’t properly honor and respect them.
To break out of this vicious cycle, I’ve put together a list of tools and exercises that can help us connect with ourselves and each other’s needs, desires and values more deeply, be better able to communicate them, and to be more conscious about creating a more fulfilling life for ourselves by choosing relationships, circumstances and environments that better meet our needs.
Interoception and central nervous system support
Interoception is a sense like sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch that is the sense of the inner workings of the body. Examples of using Interoception:
Sensing when you are hungry or thirsty
Sensing when you have to go to the bathroom
Sensing when you feel sick or I’ll
Sensing the temperature of your body and how to regulate your temperature
Sensing, identifying and regulating your emotions
Sensing and identifying how others are feeling
Sensing and identifying your likes, dislikes, preferences, attractions, curiosities & passions
For a sense like sight, the eye is gathering the information and sending the visual information through the optic nerve to the brain where it is interpreted. With the sense of Interoception, the inner workings of the body like the organs gather information and send it through the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the body, to the brain where the inner body information is interpreted.
If we have never worked on honing our sense of interoception, or have been through experiences that have caused us to numb ourselves from our sense of interoception, we are likely out of touch with our needs and emotions, as well as disconnected from each other.
To strengthen our sense of interoception so we can better feel, understand, identify and regulate our needs and emotions as well as the needs and emotions of others, it’s important to reduce stress in different ways. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is damaging to the nervous system and can prevent us from communicating with our bodies effectively.
For relaxation as well as to strengthen our sense of interoception, we can use breathwork, yoga, mindfulness, exercise and nutrition. Here are some actionable examples:
5-7-5 breath (breathing in for 5 counts, out for 7, repeat)
Meditation (watching thoughts pass like clouds below a blue sky, anchoring back to our awareness and observation point)
Body scan (moving our awareness from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet paying attention to how each part of the body feels)
Hands on the heart and gut (listening in to your emotions)
Yoga (matching your breathing and awareness to your stretching & movements)
Awareness integration practices (wide, peripheral gaze, hands on the heart & gut, listening to the sensations of the body all at once)
Journaling/Reflection
Once you’ve strengthened your ability to sense how you feel inside and are better able to understand what you prefer, need, and feel in the moment, now you can use that state of awareness to reflect back on your experiences and identify why those experiences were either positive or negative, figuring out which needs, desires, and values were being met or unmet.
Take some time to think about, talk to someone about, or journal about the following questions:
“What was one of the worst experiences of your life? What needs, desires, and/or values weren’t being fulfilled or honored?”
“What was one of the best experiences of your life? What needs, desires, and/or values were being fulfilled and honored?”
Fill out a chart that looks like this, listing the needs, desires and values you can identify:
“Are you currently meeting your needs, desires and values? Which ones are needing more respect and fulfillment?”
“Are you currently fulfilling some needs/desires/values in ways that are in conflict with your other needs/desires/values?”
“What are some alternative ways that you could meet your needs/desires/values that are in alignment and honoring of your other needs/desires/values?”
If you would like to dig further into finding regenerative ways to meet your needs, desires and values, visit my article on Adopting Regenerative Systems
Our needs, desires and values will change over time, and so will our answers to these questions. However, these practices and living in these questions will help us to design, create and lead more fulfilling lives.
